Is this an extension of showing vs. telling?

If a character tells...?

Project nachonaco said:

There is a scene where a character is describing a nice gesture done to her....

Would I be better off SHOWING that scene instead of having her TELL it?

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You could have her tell it and then have a crate of writing class throw her out of the book.

It depends. Is the nice gesture important enough to show? Does she spend more than a couple lines telling it? If it's a pivotal scene that changes the character or shows us something important about her, I'd show it.

I agree with LeeFlower. I think it depends on just how crucial the scene is. There's nothing wrong with having characters relate events, and in first person novels even major flashback events are usually "told," but if the scene is a pivotal one, it would probably be best to "show" it.

If she's telling the story of the gesture, her story has to show and not tell, albiet in summary form: He did X. I responded Y. Where Y demonstrates emotional response.

It seems to me that you have three choices:
1) Have her briefly tell what happened.
2) Have her narrate what happened, in detail.
3) Do it as a flashback.

As the other posters have said, which you choose depends on how important the incident was to the character.

If you choose option 1) (have her briefly describe) the advantages are that it's quick and easy, the information gets related with the minimum of fuss (and having a character 'tell' has more impact than having the author 'tell', although both are less powerful than 'showing'). The disadvantage is that there will probably be no emotional impact to it all.

Option 2 is a difficult one to handle, as in real conversation people never usually go into that level of detail, i.e. we never really speak in a prose-like way. So it might be difficult to get it to sound natural. The advantage would be that the incident would be related in real time (i.e. no flashback), and the more detail you gave, the more emotional impact you could give it.

The third option is the flashback. The disadvantage of this, as with all flashbacks, is that it halts the story in its tracks and is somewhat jarring for the reader. But once you were there (in that past time) the incident could be related with all the detail and emotional impact you wanted.

As with every decision in writing, there are advantages and disadvantages to each choice, and your job as the writer is to decide between them - what you specifically want, and what price you're willing to pay.

As already said, it depends on how pivotal the incident was.

good luck with it.

Tell vs show can be a misleading dicotomy

Tracy said:

It seems to me that you have three choices:
1) Have her briefly tell what happened.
2) Have her narrate what happened, in detail.
3) Do it as a flashback.

As the other posters have said, which you choose depends on how important the incident was to the character.

If you choose option 1) (have her briefly describe) the advantages are that it's quick and easy, the information gets related with the minimum of fuss (and having a character 'tell' has more impact than having the author 'tell', although both are less powerful than 'showing'). The disadvantage is that there will probably be no emotional impact to it all.

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I think show vs tell actually breaks down when a character's telling something shows how they interpret an event.

For example, if you show the event and then have say five characters give different versions, a lot more will be going on than a simple opposition between the wonders of showing and the badness of telling.

What's more important in your story--the emotional impact this event has on your character, or the event itself? That's how I'd decide whether to show the event, or show the reaction. Different for every story.