But what about telling what your showing? I've read a lot of good screenplays and they all seem to have a fair amount of telling... Like saying someone's jealousy and anger mix or something or other. I would just like knowing were the line is drawn between showing and telling.
Show don't tell?
- Thread starter Sharp teeth
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Could you give a specific example? I know that would help me understand better.
In general, I would say that a combination of dialogue interaction and physical actions should make your point, as opposed to a direct statement (whether in an action line or in a character's lecture). There can be exceptions, but not too often.
As to scripts you've read, again, without specifics, I couldn't say if it was an exception or bad writing or something different than what you think.
Plus, I might not know myself.
But I think a specific example would be useful.
Saulisa
In general, I would say that a combination of dialogue interaction and physical actions should make your point, as opposed to a direct statement (whether in an action line or in a character's lecture). There can be exceptions, but not too often.
As to scripts you've read, again, without specifics, I couldn't say if it was an exception or bad writing or something different than what you think.
Plus, I might not know myself.
But I think a specific example would be useful.
Saulisa
Two separate but related issues: 1) What do you need to have the film audience see and hear, in order to become fully engaged in the story? 2) What do you need to communicate to the director, actors, producers, and crew, so that they can fully understand the story you're trying to tell?
The line is what separates 1 & 2. You decide for yourself where you draw it.
In the end, it's only the sequence of images and sounds that will engage the audience. This doesn't mean that you can't tell audience things via voice over. It just means that the really important events in your story should play out in front of the audience. If not the immediate events, then their aftermath, their emotional consequences.
On the other hand, it benefits no one for you to withhold key information from the director, the actors, and the other creative people who will be building your story - sound, camera, costumes, hair, makeup, fx, art direction. You want to make your intentions as clear as possible. Once they know your intentions, they can either go with them, or go against them, but they want to know.
So you can comment, talk about atmosphere, the way a scene feels to you, make jokes in action lines, clear up misconceptions. Eg, "Though she doesn't have a stitch of clothing on, she doesn't feel the least bit naked. And no one in the scene treats her likes she's naked. "
The secret? You have to know what you're doing. Not too much, not too little. Use it when you need it, and don't when you don't.
How do you get to the point where you know what you're doing? Practice. Watch, read, and write movies. Study acting. See plays. Make films of your own.
Show vs. Tell does not just mean get something across through action rather than through dialogue. You can "show" through dialogue.
Agreed.
I should have linked to Mamet's advice in my earlier post.
http://movieline.com/2010/03/23/david-mamets-memo-to-the-writers-of-the-unit/
The great acting teacher, Uta Hagen, also has some clarifying advice, which applies to writers almost as well as it applies to actors:
http://dramalabs.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/five-hagen-exercises.pdf
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Dr. Conflict
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My understanding of "show don't tell" is that it means you can't rely on writing out internal thoughts and impressions the way it's done in a novel or related type of fiction. You can only use what can be seen (and heard).
So in a screenplay, you can't write something like:
John knows Bill is lying. He's been down this road before.
That works in a novel, but with a screenplay, everything is presented visually (audio-visually). So to get the same thing across in a screenplay it would have to be something like:
John gives Bill a cynical sideways look.
So in a screenplay, you can't write something like:
John knows Bill is lying. He's been down this road before.
That works in a novel, but with a screenplay, everything is presented visually (audio-visually). So to get the same thing across in a screenplay it would have to be something like:
John gives Bill a cynical sideways look.
A great many people are confused about this maxim, about what is meant by showing vs. telling.
So just to make the point clearly, it doesn't have anything to do with conveying story information visually as opposed to by way of dialogue.
A scene that consists exclusively of dialogue can be "showing" or "telling." Likewise, a scene that consists solely of visuals can be "showing" or "telling."
When we talk about showing or telling, we are talking *you* the storyteller using a scene or a character or a sequence, to *show* something to an audience as opposed to the unpleasant habit that some people have, of reaching down into the world of their story, hijacking either the voice of a character or the action of a scene, in order to "tell" the audience something.
You do this by forcing a character to say something or to do something that they wouldn't, in the normal course of events, say or do, because you want them to convey something that you, yourself, are interested in saying, or feel that, for some story reason, needs to get said.
Things like, "Gee Dad, polluting the earth's air and water sure is Bad." "Yes, son, we've all got to work really hard to preserve the Earth's natural resources for future generations."
That wouldn't be real people saying these things to one another, certainly not a father and son who are already, one would imagine, acquainted with their mutual views on this subject.
No. This would be you, telling an audience how you feel about these things.
Likewise having someone say things like, "As you know, professor, pure oxygen is highly explosive." "Yes, I know. We're going to have handle it very carefully."
Yes, they do both know. So, of course, there'd be no reason for them to talk about it. It isn't them talking. It's you -- using them to "tell" the audience something that you don't think they would otherwise know.
Why are you doing this? Because you couldn't come up with some way to *show* the audience that oxygen is dangerous, even though their might be any number of ways to do it, just as their might be any number of ways to *show* how the father and son feel about the matters of pollution and conservation without their having to have a completely artificial conversation.
And what's important to understand is that the "showing" in either case, might also be a conversation, but a conversation that the people in question might reasonably be expected to have -- it's just one that, while being a perfectly natural and believable conversation between the characters at the same time, almost *tangentially* manages to convey the necessary thematic or expository information.
That is the difference between you, the writer, "telling" and "showing."
NMS
Nmstevens, I'm afraid you are just as confused as many others. The examples you gave are more about info dumping and dialogue without subtext, not showing vs. telling.
"Show, don't tell" isn't all that complicated to understand. It simply means you shouldn't tell us something when you can show us instead.
Ex: A guy comes home looking bummed out. A conversation ensues. His roommate asks him how his audition went. The guy says it was horrible. He didn't make the band. He was so nervous that he forgot the lyrics and chords. "I came off like an idiot."
That's telling. Showing would be to write the audition scene where we see the guy messing up. Then he comes home, his roommate asks him how the audition went, and the guy simply says, "I came off like an idiot," and goes to his room.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to write a scene for every little thing, but that's what "show, don't tell" means.
You're confused. "Show don't Tell" is applicable to novel writing (or other forms of prose fiction), not screenwriting.
The rules of screenwriting are relatively simple: don't describe in the action lines (or slug lines) that we can't possibly know visually.
For example:
LISA (20s, attractive) comes through the door.
Okay, we can see that. But what newbie screenwriter's tend to do is:
LISA, 20s, attractive, a cancer-survivor, environmental activist, whose been unhappily married to Max for nearly a decade, comes through the door.
That's a sort of "telling" but it's not a case of fiction's show don't tell.
In dialogue, newbie screenwriters also tend to overuse flashbacks for exposition and write on-the-nose-dialogue of the "As you know, Bob" variety.
That's where they fail in what the prose writer's call "info-dumping".
NMS, who is a top pro in the world of screenwriting, is correct in all he says, but this argument is really not relevant to screenwriting.
What you are suggesting makes nonsense of any number of great films that rely on dialogue to communicate virtually all of its story and character information and does so excellently.
These are not mere "filmed stage plays." They are movies in their own right. They are not doing anything wrong. They would not be improved by any attempt to substitute visual miming or physical actions for characters communicating their intentions through speech.
The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Twelve Angry Men, All The President's Men.
These movies don't require a "do-over" because they violate the "tell-don't show" rule.
Because they don't, despite the fact that almost nothing happens in any them other than people talking to one another.
That's because their talk is "action." Their talk is "showing."
All of these rules that people toss around on this site and in screenwriting books and elsewhere are all about how to write a good screenplay -- but all a screenplay is, if it's anything, is a description of what might someday be a good movie.
So it just doesn't make sense to advance a supposed rule that's meant to be applied to screenplays, notwithstanding the fact that screenplays that ignore them seem to result in not merely good but outstanding motion pictures.
It's not a mistake or a fluke that dialogue-reliant movies can and do succeed all the time, both commercially and artistically. They're not doing something they shouldn't.
It isn't simply that I disagree with you about the meaning of "Show, don't tell," though I obviously do.
I disagree with the fundamental premise that you seem to believe this phrase embodies, which is the old song that I've heard people sing in defense of this particular interpretation of it --
"Oh, it's a 'visual' medium -- so we should always look for ways to convey this or that idea visually. That's always the best way."
This has never been an exclusively visual medium, not even when movies were silent. There were always accompanied by musical cues. And since 1929, movies have pretty much universally been a combination of visuals and sounds.
To grab onto the idea that it's predominantly one or the other or that one simply rides the coattails of the other just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't matter one bit whether a story is essentially all visuals, like the recent "All is Lost" or virtually all dialogue, like "Twelve Angry Men" or anywhere in between.
What matters is what the particular story is and finding the way to allow that story to unfold in a natural and believable way, whether that's largely through visuals, through dialogue or in whatever combination of the two is optimal, so that it can say whatever it has to say, without the hand of the writer intruding.
NMS
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Google "show-don't tell in screenwriting" and see how often it's discussed on screenwritng sites and in screenwriting books.
I find it easiest to phrase it as "The audience should experience it and learn the information themselves instead of having it explained to them." (It's probably not exactly the same thing - but isn't it more important to get useful help rather than precise help?)
So, in 'Looper' the audience obviously wonders what would happen if one of the assassins doesn't do his job.
The audience could have learned the answer by having someone explain it - or we could learn the answer by watching the scenario play out in front of us.
Which one is more effective?
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The 'experience the answer for ourselves' could be pretty verbal rather than visual. In 'Twelve Angry Men' we are basically eavesdropping on a very long conversation .. but even then the parts that have stayed with me over the year was information I experienced first hand (eg: A character saying "I went to a shop and found that the murder weapon was easy to buy" .v. pulling out the knife and showing everyone. I probably wouldn't have remembered the scene if I hadn't seen him pull out the knife and slam it into the table.)
Scene: http://movieclips.com/5npA-twelve-angry-men-movie-its-the-same-knife/
So, in 'Looper' the audience obviously wonders what would happen if one of the assassins doesn't do his job.
The audience could have learned the answer by having someone explain it - or we could learn the answer by watching the scenario play out in front of us.
Which one is more effective?
---
The 'experience the answer for ourselves' could be pretty verbal rather than visual. In 'Twelve Angry Men' we are basically eavesdropping on a very long conversation .. but even then the parts that have stayed with me over the year was information I experienced first hand (eg: A character saying "I went to a shop and found that the murder weapon was easy to buy" .v. pulling out the knife and showing everyone. I probably wouldn't have remembered the scene if I hadn't seen him pull out the knife and slam it into the table.)
Scene: http://movieclips.com/5npA-twelve-angry-men-movie-its-the-same-knife/
First of all, I never said "show-don't tell" is a rule. I see it as a suggestion to be used in cases where showing would be more effective than telling.
Second, my post was an attempt to explain "show-don't tell" as it is explained in such books as David Trottier's The Screenwriters's Bible. Trottier even uses an example similar to mine.
I don't believe you understood my post. Maybe you should re-read it.
You're right, they don't. Take Twelve Angry Men for example. That movie is about jurors deliberating the facts of a murder case, and that is exactly what we are "shown." But imagine if the movie was about one of the jurors explaining to his wife, after the fact, what had gone on in the jury room. That would be "telling," and I'm sure you'd agree it would not be nearly as compelling.
All The President's Men is another great example. That movie is not about the Watergate break-in. It is about Woodward and Bernstein's investigation into the break-in, and that is what we are "shown." And here is how the example in my post applies to that film. The filmmakers didn't simply write a scene where W and B tell someone that they met Deepthroat in a parking garage, and he said, "Blah blah blah." No. Instead, we get to see W and B in the parking garage with Deepthroat, and we get to hear that conversation for ourselves.
I could not agree more.
Second, my post was an attempt to explain "show-don't tell" as it is explained in such books as David Trottier's The Screenwriters's Bible. Trottier even uses an example similar to mine.
I don't believe you understood my post. Maybe you should re-read it.
You're right, they don't. Take Twelve Angry Men for example. That movie is about jurors deliberating the facts of a murder case, and that is exactly what we are "shown." But imagine if the movie was about one of the jurors explaining to his wife, after the fact, what had gone on in the jury room. That would be "telling," and I'm sure you'd agree it would not be nearly as compelling.
All The President's Men is another great example. That movie is not about the Watergate break-in. It is about Woodward and Bernstein's investigation into the break-in, and that is what we are "shown." And here is how the example in my post applies to that film. The filmmakers didn't simply write a scene where W and B tell someone that they met Deepthroat in a parking garage, and he said, "Blah blah blah." No. Instead, we get to see W and B in the parking garage with Deepthroat, and we get to hear that conversation for ourselves.
I could not agree more.
And yet, in Silence of the Lambs, Clarice "tells" us the story of her childhood experience with the lambs, notwithstanding the fact that they'd actually intended originally to film the sequence as a flashback -- using the young girl that we'd seen in those brief cutaways with the child Clarice and her father.
But they didn't, because the scene was much better simply "showing" the adult Clarice and Lechter.
The fact that she's "telling" the story doesn't mean that it's a "telling" scene.
No. It's a "showing" scene, because it's showing us what we need to see in story terms -- which is what's happening between the adult Clarice and Lechter.
That is where the story is happening, not back in time with the child Clarice and the sheep.
That is always the critical issue when one makes a decision about where to place or how to stage a scene - where is the story happening.
If it's happening where someone is hanging from a guide wire beneath a runaway zeppelin then that's where we should be.
If the story is happening at a kitchen table where two people are talking about someone hanging from a guide wire beneath a zeppelin, then that's where we should be.
But, at least from my perspective, that's not showing vs. telling, it's just the difference between good writing and bad writing.
NMS
There was a video I saw recently in which a very well known and very famous screenwriter (ironic that I can't remember who it was off the top of my head) did a talk on which he advocated "tell, don't show" and what he was addressing himself to specifically was this new tendency to believe that everything has to be seen as action, thus leading to a whole lot of uses of flashback scenes that were unnecessary and, in fact, undramatic. At times like these, he advocated "tell, don't show" because the act of the character telling us something sometimes says more about the character than what actually happened in the past. Such is the case with Clarisse in Silence of The Lambs, because it is the effect on the character now that is more important in the drama then what happened. A different character with the same experience might turn out to be completely different.
Two characters experiencing the same thing at the same time might also be effected in completely opposite ways and the experience of it will manifest itself in completely different ways. Therefore, sometimes "tell, don't show" is better.
I hate it when I am watching a movie and they keep going into flashbacks that are unnecessary. Flashbacks about the character's background or flashing back to events that I have already seen to remind me about the meaning of that event in the present context of the story. I've got it and I can hold onto it and reference the meaning of it on my own without "flashing back" to it.
Mystic River did this unnecessarily and, even though I basically liked the movie, it would have been much stronger without these little flahback reminders of what went on earlier in the film.
Two characters experiencing the same thing at the same time might also be effected in completely opposite ways and the experience of it will manifest itself in completely different ways. Therefore, sometimes "tell, don't show" is better.
I hate it when I am watching a movie and they keep going into flashbacks that are unnecessary. Flashbacks about the character's background or flashing back to events that I have already seen to remind me about the meaning of that event in the present context of the story. I've got it and I can hold onto it and reference the meaning of it on my own without "flashing back" to it.
Mystic River did this unnecessarily and, even though I basically liked the movie, it would have been much stronger without these little flahback reminders of what went on earlier in the film.
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Forgive my inexperience, but I thought just the opposite. I could have sworn I read that a writer isn't supposed to tell an actor how to act, but rather what to act, no?
George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, and Adam Sandler are all going to act out knowing that Bill is lying differently - and I'll bet they would wonder why they're supposed to give a cynical, sideways look. The actor and the director need to know what the characters know in order to reproduce the story truthfully, I would think.
What have I missed?
What Dr. Conflict said is exactly how I was taught in the 80's at UCLA film school.
One should write what is seen and heard, not what is thought or felt.
And actors live for figuring out character stuff. They read about the cynical look, and they know what the character is thinking. If they come up with a different way to express it, that's between them and their directors.
Saulisa