Telling

Perhaps putting something in Share Your Work forum will help us see what you mean so we can be helpful.

There are places for using tell and places to show. What Trish said. Post something in SYW and then link to it here.

Without seeing your work it's hard to say for sure, but traditionally, "telling" often comes across as flat and a little boring. It can make the prose feel distant, like the reader is standing off to the side watching the action instead of being there experiencing the action. I find told prose less engaging than shown prose, and it’s one of the most common reasons I put a book down.

Often it's just a matter of POV. If your POV is *you* (even if unintentionally) you can slip into describing what you as the author know, not what your MC knows, and explain it in a less-than-character building fashion. For example, a woman running for her life probably won’t notice what color the drapes in the hall are. But if she’s thinking about using those drapes to crash through a window…then you’re on the right track to showing and not telling. You still get the details in, but they help build tension and excitement instead of stopping the action to explain things.

Some telling is sometimes necessary, and it can be the most effective means of getting info across. The trick is to tell in the voice of your POV so it feels more like their opinion or judgment about something.

Stew21 said:

Perhaps putting something in Share Your Work forum will help us see what you mean so we can be helpful.

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Theo, I'd echo this. I find it a bit hard to grasp what you're saying. Especially your implication that "telling" is the opposite of "describing". I wonder if you've misinterpreted something that someone has said about your work.

Normally "telling" is spoken of in the context of showing v telling.

Crudely speaking, if I said "Feeling scared, she locked the door." I'm telling. If I said, "She locked the door and sank to her knees trembling." (aweful example, but) I'm showing.

In both cases I'm describing something, but in "showing" I'm allowing the reader to interpret the character's experience by way of their actions and reactions rather than by direct explanation.

Danthia said:

The trick is to tell in the voice of your POV so it feels more like their opinion or judgment about something

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And that's a really excellent point, said so consisely. In telling, the writer tends to be imposing their interpretation, opinions and judgements, rather than letting the reader form those things for themselves through what they are reading.

"Telling", in the bad sense, is the author telling the reader what to feel, rather than allowing the reader to engage in the narrative and derive emotion from the actions of the characters.

caw

Most good books are a alternation of telling passages (exposition/narrative) and showing passages (dramatization).

Both of them need to be done in a way that keeps the reader absorbed. Writing good exposition--telling that will keep the reader charmed--is harder than showing, because showing has an inherent core of drama.

When you do both at once in a noticeable, redundant way, the Turkey City Lexicon calls it "countersinking."

"I hope you die, you lousy jerk!" she yelled. She was really mad.

Countersinking is frequently unintentionally hilarious.

"Telling" isn't a sin, but if it feels like telling to the reader you may have a problem. (Over on my blog, on the First Anuual Exposition Exposition, I posted some classic examples of great telling. Someone commented that the passages were vivid and detailed enough that they didn't really consider them "telling." Well, they are. They just happen to be good, and therefore they feel like good writing.)

I would recommend DavidI link. It has helped me a lot understand telling.
Though I still get confused.