Geez, I hate those words!
They are my nemeses, the curse of my writing existence, the Phoenix that carries me down in flames. For the longest time, I just didn’t get it. No matter how hard I tried, I could not see or tell the difference between showing and telling. It’s taken years to be able to notice the difference. I still get irritated when I hear those words. There is a commercial for Netflix where this woman tells a character “Show, don’t tell” and I just want to slap her silly.
Showing and not telling seems almost like a contradiction in a story. After all, you as an author are telling a story, right? Wrong! You are showing a story. As weird as it sounds, your job is to show a story, as much as possible. Now as hard as it may be to get your mind around this concept, well, at least it was for me, a story is a lot more interesting if it is shown through words than told through words.
The best way I can demonstrate that is by an example.
Mary went into the house and told Jane that there was something going on at the office and it creeped her out, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Jane at first, didn’t believe her, but after a bit of convincing, had to admit there may be something to what Mary was saying. They decided they should go back down there and check it out together.
What you have is a bit of narrative where the author is telling the reader about something that transpired. While there is nothing outright wrong with that, besides being a bit passive, there is a big problem that many authors cannot see right off. The entire paragraph is a bit tell. This is where I used to get into trouble all the time. I couldn’t see it for what it was. I was describing something that happened, but what I couldn’t see was that I was being lazy and not turning it into something more active. That is what you, as an author need to watch out for.
That paragraph needs to be shown. How do we do that? Instead of telling the reader what happened, turn it into dialogue and action. Make it happen in real time instead of something that happened in the past.
“I’ll drive.” Mary jiggled her keys.
Notice the difference? It is much longer, but it went from a boring and mundane paragraph telling about something to a dynamic scene that showed something.
Now for the tricky part. There is nothing wrong with telling in a story. However, there is a time and place for it. Telling should be kept to a minimum. When it is possible to show it, show it instead. You’ll have a much better story that way.
Phew — I thought I was the only one who felt violent at the mention of those words.
For all that the literary world hates cliches, they sure do like to throw a lot of them around as advice. And the kicker is — as your blog piece rightly says — those obnoxious go-to phrases can actually make for some decently sound principles, when properly applied.
Welcome to my web site and thanks for the comment! Yes, I get very frustrated with showing and not telling. I’m getting better at telling the difference, but still struggle with it.
As always, I enjoyed your post and your examples were right on the mark. HOWEVER, writers should ALSO be cautioned that having two charaters share a long exchange of dialog where they merely discuss some past action is another form of TELLING. I’d much rather see and experience the action first-hand rather than listen to characters talk about it. WRITERS: Don’t fear narrative and exposition.
You are right. If the conversation goes on too long, it becomes just another form of telling instead of showing. Too much of a “good” thing??? There has to be a balance of narrative and exposition and dialogue or none of it will work well. Good call.