Show/tell
Kate Nepveu said:
I personally hate the advice "show don't tell," because unless you're scripting a graphic novel or planning to work with an illustrator, you _have_ to tell--all you've got is words, and telling is all words can do. Taken literally, it conveys no useful information: and since you're going to have to move up a level of abstraction to make it useful anyway, you might as well just say "exposition should vary by the pace of the story," or whatever more specific thing applies to the situation at hand, rather than have people tie themselves in knots over what's "showing" and what's "telling."
(Sorry--pet peeve.)
I don't think show versus tell is bad advice at all. Words are all you have, but they can be used in very different ways. It isn't necessary to tie yourself in knots over the subject, but there's a very real and very distinctive difference between using words to show and using words to tell.
Telling is not all words can do by any stretch. Words can tell, and words can show a picture as clearly as any TV. Clearer, in many ways, because words use the imagination. Pace of exposition really doesn't have anything to do with show versus tell, except sometimes as a byproduct.
Tell is just that. It's telling the reader someone can dance. "She's a good dancer" is tell. Show is simply letting the reader see that person dance. Show is the dancer in motion.
Tell is saying, "The sunset is lovely." Show is describing the sunset so the reader can see it, and thereby decide for himself whether or not it's lovely.
Some tell is always desirable and necessary, very few stories should be written with 100% show, but words certainly can tell OR show.
I don't think there's any abstraction to it. Both are very concrete terms, and very concrete ways of writing.
Show/tell is really pretty simply. It's the difference between letting the reader see something, and just telling the reader about something.
A professor of mine once came into the classroom and said, "I have a leprechaun in my pocket. Do you want me to tell you about the leprechaun, or do you want me to take it out of my pocket and let you see it?"
He did the same thing with a cassette of Mozart. He held up the cassette and said, "Do you want me to tell you how beautiful this music is, or do you want to hear it for yourself?"
It got the point across to most of us. You can do the very same thing with words. You can tell the reader there's a leprechaun in your pocket, or you can take the leprechaun out of your pocket and let the reader look at it.
Now, it might be said that music is impossible to show. It isn't. You show how beautiful music is, or isn't, by showing the reaction of the listeners.
If the listener says, "That stinks," or "That's beautiful," it's tell. But if you show the facial expressions and the body movements of the listener in reaction to the music, that's show.
Yes, we use words, and words are all we have, but words can, and should, do far more than simply tell. Words can paint pictures that are brighter and clearer than anything taken with a camera. And certainly brighter and clearer than any graphic novel. The imagination always paints better pictures that the eyes.
I never have quite understood why writers tear themselves up trying to decide which is show and which is tell. If the reader is told about it, it's tell. If the reader gets to look at it, or to watch it happen, it's show. There's no abstraction to either. Boiled down to the simplest terms, tell is usually a statement about something else, but show is that something else. Show is action and reaction.
