Show vs Tell...

Go out and buy (or borrow from the library) a bunch of books in whatever genre you're writing and read them.

Read a lot. Especially read books that were successful (bestsellers or critically acclaimed).

And then, when you're looking at your own work, start looking for the simple examples of telling. He felt angry. Telling, of course. Showing would be something like: His hands curled into fists at his sides, and a muscle tightened in his jaw. That's showing.

Showing what the character feels. Showing personality through actions rather than simply telling the reader something like: She was a vain woman. You can show that characteristic without ever naming it. Such as: She glanced in every mirror as she passed, pleased by how smart and stylish she looked. As always, of course.

If you can weed-out the more obvious and unnecessary examples of telling, you'll eventually be able to judge where it's necessary -- and it sometimes is -- to tell rather than show.

I've never found a good book that teaches it, but what I've found works is to look at what you've written and see if you can act it out. If you can, it's usually shown. If not, it's usually told.

For example, you can act out: "You're a jerk," she yelled, slamming the door. You can say the words and slam the door.

But you can't act out: "You're a jerk," she said angrily.

"Angrily" has no actual component for you to act out. You can do things that show angrily though, like slamming a door.

Danthia said:

I've never found a good book that teaches it, but what I've found works is to look at what you've written and see if you can act it out. If you can, it's usually shown. If not, it's usually told.

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This is an awesome idea!!!!!! I am gonna try this with a book that I have almost finished editing and still think it might be tellign in somespots rather than showing.

Anne Marie

JanNo - Goal Winner 2009 - A life More Ordinary

Danthia said:

look at what you've written and see if you can act it out. If you can, it's usually shown. If not, it's usually told.

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Acting things out, including spoken dialogue, is a great way to sharpen a lot of narration. I do it especially when I have scenes with people moving around, in no small part to determine if the movements I'm describing are in fact plausible; you might be surprised how often they turn out not to be.

And, if you do this in a public place, it's a good way to get people to leave you alone.

caw

Read.

Especially read movie scripts. If you can get your hands on some -- there are free scripts out there. Screenplays are mostly all show and no tell. No, you don't read script for prose, but at least you'll get an idea of what show is.

When reading fiction, pick books from authors who are great showers: Crichton or Grisham, for example.

As for writing... you can try to learn from books, but I think the best thing to do is practice. I've posted some ideas... and one such idea is to take a scene from a movie, and then describe the scene with nothing but show -- no telling. No saying, "he's really sad when he hears the puppy died..." But focus on what "facts" you/readers/audience can actually observe: facial expression, body language, dialogue, actions, etc.

Do it a few times and I guarantee you will get a hang of it soon.

citymouse said:

Th current fashion is to show rather than tell, however, there are authors who defy this trend. David Baldacci comes to mind. I just finished his novel, Last Man Standing. In the first chapter counted no less than 25 continuous pages of narrative. I believe there were about two lines of dialogue but these were swamped by exposition.

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Without going into the example of Baldacci (whom I haven't read), it seems necessary to point out that the mere fact of "25 continuous pages of narrative" doesn't mean it was all "telling" and not "showing". "Exposition" does not equate to "telling".

caw

There are some suggestions here that might help.

Failing that, I can recommend Stein on Writing by Sol Stein.

Here are two essays on the topic that you might find interesting:

Janice Hardy on Show Don't Tell: link

My essay compiled from writer interviews about their experience with Show Don't Tell: link

Never use an emotion word. angry sad happy elated etc. if you use it, you're telling. some telling is okay, you cant show *everything* but if you avoid the emotion words you're a long way toward showing.

nevada said:

Never use an emotion word. angry sad happy elated etc. if you use it, you're telling. some telling is okay, you cant show *everything* but if you avoid the emotion words you're a long way toward showing.

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True. And if you restrict the amount of time you spend relating characters' thoughts, and concentrating on what they actually do, that can help a lot, too.

caw

To me, though, "show vs. tell" goes beyond just turning angry into a set of actions and body languages, etc. The idea goes further... It's a mindset, in that you shouldn't be obvious and just explain everything on the surface -- that's the essence of "telling." Instead, lead the readers to discover and understand on their own -- that's the essence of show.

A good tour guide "shows" the tourists a good time -- they really experience the place, the culture, the people, etc. A bad tour guide just dumps you there and tells you information you could find on the brochure and guide books. Would you rather be told about how cold the river in the Alps is, or would you rather dip your toes into the water and experience it?

Experience is the key word.

I recently bought The First Five Pages, which explains lots of issues with clear examples.

try acting it out...excellent idea!! i also try to use more dialogue if i can and have my characters show it...(also works pretty good)

Use your skills of observation. How do you read people in real life? How do you know if someone is angry, happy, sad, crazy? You interpret their words, their body language, their actions, their facial expressions. How do you know when it's cold outside? You see people with red noses dressed in warm clothing. They are clapping their hands together and bouncing in place to stay warm. They are shivering. Their breath steams the air when they talk. The wind is whipping the bare branches of the trees. Maybe there is snow on the ground. All of these clues paint a picture that show the reader "it is cold" rather than just telling them.

Let the reader experience the world through all their senses. How does something look, smell, feel, sound, taste? What does your intuition tell you? For instance, if someone eats something that tastes bad, how can you know that? They may grimace, they may spit the food back out, they may shudder, you may detect an off smell to the food, you may hear them gag. Describing these things shows the reader the food tastes bad rather than simply telling them so.

I once did an exercise for fun when I lived in a town where I had to go through toll booths on a daily basis. Each day I would study the cars ahead of me and try to guess what the person driving it was like based on the clues i had: the arm that extended out the window (feminine, masculine, adorned with jewelry, fat, thin, etc.) the kind of car they drove (old, new, minivan, sports car, pickup truck), the way they tossed or laid their money in the bin (did they throw it or toss it or lay it in, did they come to a full stop of coast through?), the way they took off after paying (did they slowly merge into the traffic, or gun it and try to take the lead?) Did their car rattle as it idled and expel nasty smelling fumes, or run clean and quiet? Using these clues I would determine the personality of the driver and develop a mental picture of what they looked like and the type of life they led. Describing what I saw in words would be a way of showing rather than telling.

Beth

Never tell emotions. Show them. Never say, "Jim was sad." Show that he's sad. If you do that correctly, you'll never have to use the word sad once.

The best advice I can give (besides read a lot) is when you find yourself telling, ask yourself how you know what you know.

"Jim was sad," to steal from ccv707's post above. Well, okay. How do you know he was sad? Is he frowning? Is his mouth downturned? Is he crying? Show us all of those instead.

"Mary was happy." How do we know that? Is she smiling, laughing, dancing? Show us her actions.

When you're with a friend and you pick up on their emotions, you don't know for sure what they're feeling inside but you can make a good guess based on their body language. So show us that, instead of telling and making a judgement call.

There are a lot of good poker books out that are all about reading people and body language. I don't remember any titles off the top of my head, but there are some helpful nuggets in them.