On Writing Advice

Welp. I can deliver a passage I think is a really potent bit of writing but which also -- imo -- could be called "telling".


I'd better first explain how I define "telling" verus "showing". To me, "telling" is when you inform your audience of facts; their imagination does not need to engage for them to understand what you meant. This is generally boring because people read fiction in order to get their imagination roaring and "telling" just doesn't do that.

"Showing" is when you do force the reader's imagination to engage in order to understand you. Either you make them picture images (or give them other sensory impressions) or you make them infer what's going on from clues.

This passage definitely is informing the reader of facts; it's not an evocative description of a scene and it doesn't ask you to make any inferences. It's just a narrator telling you things.

However, it does ask you to understand metaphors and similes, and to make connections between concepts that aren't usually connected, plus it's entirely possible you did visualize a few things while reading that passage. So to my mind, the inventive language fires up the same parts of your brain as an evocative piece of writing would, and thus -- even though this is "telling" -- it's still really grippy, entertaining writing.

Ari Meermans said:

Did that not force you to envision some poor fat lady's thighs?).

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No, it didn't. I never envision things when I'm reading. And if you were to force me at gun point, I daresay you'd eventually shoot me out of impatience. I can't do what I can't. I have aphantasia.

Now I'm an extreme case, admittedly, but readers don't process a text the same way. Some visualise one set of things but not another. Some envision a whole world with very few words, and others go along with the writer sticking to envioning the details on the page. One person's ping of pleasure (more detail! better visuals!) is another person's ping of annoyance (what? yet another re-orientation?). Since I don't build a picture at all, too much detail tends to lose me because I have trouble integrating a humongous list of details. Basically, among the people who take "show, don't tell" to mean "make me visualise things", the advise can mean two opposite things: "more detail" and "less detail".

Intuitively, I'm with jjdbenedictis here: the passage is telling. It may be vivid telling (full of images), but it's still telling. The vividness of the similes is rather irrelevant here, because the text isn't about, say, thighs. At alls. Thighs don't figure in the scene. You don't see what's going on, because nothing's going at all. It's all just exposition. It's the very definition of telling from start to finish.

So what's happening here? Do we disagree about anything? Probably. Do we disagree about the text? Probably not. We just attach different meanings to "show, don't tell". You seem to take it to mean "engage me visually, don't just present fact in a straightforward manner". I take (or once took, to be exact) it to mean "show X, don't tell X": this paragraph mostly tells me how much power the car has. "Show, don't tell," here would mean: have the car do something that demonstrates the power. Not firing a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Physics makes that impossible, no matter the power. It's just a visualisation of a non-showable state: the potential energy of a battery.

Did you notice my bracket comment: "(or once took, to be exact)"? I no longer think "show, don't tell," means that. I think "show, don't tell" is so vague that anyone is free to endow it with any meaning that makes sense to them. In practise, you'd have to be sure that others understand the phrase the same way that you do, and after more than a decade spent on writing boards I don't think you can rely on that, and I think this thread so far demonstrates that. This works to an extent in academia, because you always quote someone who quotes someone else, and so divergent definitions can co-exist, because experts will know what you mean just by who you quote. It doesn't really work on message board, where using the same definition of "show, don't tell" is a matter of luck.

Basically, if I'd beta a text of yours and tell you to "show" not "tell", you could legitimately come away confused, and we could track down the confusion to "show, don't tell." Then? We can talk about the text using different words, or we can decide to use one definition or another (though that introduces "home advantage" either to you or me). Another possibility is that we can have at each other like a pair of enraged Humpty Dumpties, and that's when "show, don't tell" has finally become detrimental to communication about a specific text. Sadly, that's often what happens (and I've been guilty of that in the past, too).

So instead of "show, don't tell," say things like "you're describing so many details, you're starting to lose me," or "your words are so abstract, I get no clear image in my head." A beta reader once told me to be careful about description. I have very little of it, and I tend to use it only when it becomes relevant. The reader had a problem with that: by the time I first described a certain trait of the character, the reader already had supplied that particular trait himself, and he now had to re-orientate himself. That was a very helpful comment for me, because I never supply details if you're they're not stated (that's not quite true, but let's pretend for simplification's sake), and I would never have that particualr problem. So I now have something to pay attention to: either describe people early, or don't describe them at all. It's not really a rule, but it's something to pay attention to while revising. No catchphrase in the imperative has ever been that helpful.

Ari Meermans said:

While it's fine to think in terms that make the most sense to you, I think it's rather unhelpful to redefine industry terminology for other writers.

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If "show, don't tell" is the terminology in question, I don't think there's a consensus to redefine, honestly. It's a concept that many people understand a little differently than others.

Okay, Ari, I'll play. This is the opening of a Pat Barker novel, Border Crossings. The excerpt is a bit long, but there's not a wasted word in it.

"They were walking along the river path, away from the city, and as far as they knew they were alone.

They’d woken that morning to a curious stillness. Clouds sagged over the river, and there was mist like a sweat over the mud flats. The river had shrunk to its central channel, and seagulls skimmed low over the water. The colour was bleached out of houses and gardens and the clothes of the few passers-by.

They’d spent the morning indoors, picking away at their intractable problems, but then, just before lunch, Lauren had announced that she had to get out. They might have done better to drive to the coast, but instead they donned raincoats and boots and set off to walk along the river path.

They lived on the edge of what had once been a thriving area of docks, quays, and warehouses, now derelict and awaiting demolishment. Squatters had moved into some of the buildings. Others had suffered accidental or convenient fires, and were surrounded by barbed-wire fences, with pictures of Alsatians and notices saying DANGER. KEEP OUT.

Tom kept his eyes down, hearing Lauren’s voice go on and on, as soft and insistent as the tides that, slapping against stone and rotting wood, worked bits of Newcastle loose….Bits of blue plastic, half-bricks, a seagull’s torn-off wing. Tom’s gaze was restricted to a few feet of pocked and pitted ground into which his feet intruded rhythmically. All other boundaries were gone. Though he did not raise his head to search for them, he was aware of their absence: the bridge, the opposite bank, the warehouses with the peeled and blistered names of those who had once owned them. All gone."

I love this opening for many reasons. First, the brilliant first line that tells readers that the couple thought they were alone, implying (correctly) that they were wrong. That creates an ominious feeling from the start.

Second, the setting is so well-described and vivid that you cannot doubt the reality of the place; this in turn means that the characters and their problems are equally real.

Third--the omniscient POV is established in the very first line. The narrator knows something the characters don't.

Fourth--the theme of the book is reflected in its title: Border Crossings. The story is about a young and violent psychiatric patient who's just about to intrude on this scene. This person has a real problem recognizing personal boundaries, which become more and more blurred as the story progresses. The obliteration of boundaries described in the opening sets up that theme.

This opening's not flashy. It's just perfect, IMO.

I have a book or two in mind, but will have to post a passage later when not at work and have access to them - and I promise I will. In the meantime, though, to add to the variety of viewpoints on what show vs. tell "means", the explanation that makes the most intuitive sense to me is one I saw recently on Twitter (lost the source, unfortunately) - "Tell=summarize, show=dramatize."

Ari Meermans said:

• Come back here and post a passage. Tell us how that passage made you feel, how it helped you to see the action and the world of the book, and how it helped you to know the character. Use the most descriptive language you can bring to bear to show how that novel affected you.

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It's interesting to me that, so far, the passages are literary-feeling. I'm talking about the qualities that, for me, feel "literary." The strong use of metaphor and a certain style I can never name. So I thought I'd bring in one that's more genre-feeling, just for a slightly different angle.

This is from Outlander, Claire's first real sight of Jamie.

I gasped, as did several of the men. The shoulder had been wounded; there was a deep ragged furrow across the top, and blood was running freely down the young man's breast. But more shocking was the shoulder joint itself. A dreadful hump rose on that side, and the arm hung at an impossible angle.

There is a lot of what people would call telling here, but the word choice offers, for me, a vivid picture of the scene. I would call that showing; others would argue it's still telling. But for a genre story, I feel like there is greater latitude in the show/tell mix. (OTOH, if I were betaing this, I'd probably strike "the shoulder had been wounded" and let the wound speak for itself.) Unlike Dawnstorm, I'm an extremely visual reader, and this description has always stuck with me.

If I analyze it, it's probably because Gabaldon seems to have chosen to use the famiiliar rather than have the reader work a bit harder by imagining through metaphor. Rather than make me think about what's being alluded to, it's more of a jab to the nose. "Here is a dreadful hump, there is a deep ragged furrow."

Now, I'm prone to using metaphor, even in my smut, so I'm not at all saying one is better than the other. It's just a tactic here, I think, to tell, and then show in plain language. Whatever it is, it worked for me. Through all the Outlander books I read, this is the most vivid picture of Jamie that stays in my head.

Ari, read it! It's the first book of hers I ever read, and it inspired me to go back and read everything she's ever written.

Thanks for this thread.

Dawnstorm said:

Intuitively, I'm with jjdbenedictis here: the passage is telling. It may be vivid telling (full of images), but it's still telling. The vividness of the similes is rather irrelevant here, because the text isn't about, say, thighs. At alls. Thighs don't figure in the scene. You don't see what's going on, because nothing's going at all. It's all just exposition. It's the very definition of telling from start to finish.

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Part of the problem with "Show don't tell" is that it's been lifted completely from its original context, a letter from Anton Checkov to his brother. It's not an instruction to avoid assertions, rather, it's an injunction to use rhetorical techniques like simile and metaphor and to let the reader draw conclusions about the story and the characters from them.

So in the Stephenson quotation, you've got lots of rich metaphors and description, but the point of the passage is not to describe the car.

That passage is really about the character, the Deliverator. It's about the fact that he is powerful, that he is effective, and that he is to be treated with caution if not fear.

So while it's "telling" us about the car, it's "showing" us the Deliverator.

ElaineA said:

I gasped, as did several of the men. The shoulder had been wounded; there was a deep ragged furrow across the top, and blood was running freely down the young man's breast. But more shocking was the shoulder joint itself. A dreadful hump rose on that side, and the arm hung at an impossible angle.

There is a lot of what people would call telling here, but the word choice offers, for me, a vivid picture of the scene. I would call that showing; others would argue it's still telling.

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Others would be wrong. This is all show, no tell. Description falls into the former category, and description is what this paragraph consists of.

By contrast, here's a "telling" version of the incident, basically a summary. I'm just fudging the details, of course:

I was shocked when Jamie entered. He'd been shot, and the bullet had carved a deep furrow through his flesh before shattering his shoulder joint. His arm was broken as well.

Good choice of scene--it is vivid.

AW Admin said:

So while it's "telling" us about the car, it's "showing" us the Deliverator.

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That's pretty convincing, actually.

What about this? The first three paragraphs of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them,—that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

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One of the things that I find fascinating about this passage is that it was met with opprobrium and outrage on publication.

I disagree not only with the OP's understanding of "show" vs "tell" but also with the idea that "A novel is all about perception. It’s about how your character perceives their world and what is going on around them in that world. Everything your character thinks, feels, sees, tastes, and hears must be conveyed. And that’s how you immerse your readers in your novel."

I think the important thing I've learned as a writer is what to leave out of stories. And if I tried to include everything my character thinks, feels, sees, etc., I'd be at 80K words before my character was out of the first scene.

Instead, I think I need to include the relevant and important things the character senses. The things that will contribute, in the mind of the reader, to the effect I'm trying to create.

That's where the advice to balance show and tell comes from, I think. If we "show" absolutely everything, according to the definition the OP seems to be advancing, we'd get nowhere. We should "show" what's important to the effect we're trying to create, and "tell" the mundane little bits that are necessary to make a story happen.

If we pull down our favourite novels and select the most evocative passages we'll probably come up with a lot of showing, yes. Showing is a powerful tool to access emotions. But if we look at the same novels in their entirety I think we'll find examples of telling, because telling is what lets us get from showing to showing in a coherent manner.

And if anyone has a passage from a novel that literally presents everything a character thinks, feels, sees, tastes, and hears, even for a very limited length of time, I'd love to see it.

Captcha said:

And if anyone has a passage from a novel that literally presents everything a character thinks, feels, sees, tastes, and hears, even for a very limited length of time, I'd love to see it.

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I wish i had one, but here's something... Irving Wallace's The Seven Minutes, published in 1969, that purports to relate everything that goes through a woman's mind during seven minutes of sex.


(Spoiler, it's really a thought piece, an extended consideration of the effects of pornography and censorship... it was the 60s after all.)

Ari Meermans said:

If the way I phrase things is a problem, whether because it's too literal or for whatever reason, I do apologize. It's a failure in communication.

As I said, it's fine to disagree with me. Good heavens! I'm not pretending to have all the answers. Roundtable is a step up from Basic Writing Questions and it's a place for exploration and that's the reason this thread exists. Why the exercise exists. To find our wings and soar. So, go back to post #2, where I expanded the exercise to include passages that represent telling. Bring one for discussion. Otherwise, Captcha, you're doing the very thing you accuse me of—presenting unsupported opinion. Bring a passage, let's explore.

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I don't think I accused you of anything, but... okay. In terms of a passage of telling?

From Pride and Prejudice, obviously...

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develope. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was the get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

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I would say that Austen goes on to show all of these characteristics in more detail later, but this summary? Tell. And I'd say it's quite effective.

As I said, though, individual passages chosen because they've evoked something in a reader are likely to be show. I'm not sure how I'd go about finding the tell passages that I expect fell between the show passages without going out and buying all the books anyone has cited here and reading them, which is more of a commitment than I'm willing to make... maybe the original posters could look for tell passages in those books?


ETA: Although if your original definition of "show" was too literal or was hyperbolic or whatever, I guess I'm not too sure just how you ARE defining the term. Other authors have got it wrong, but... what is it that you're saying is right, exactly?