show versus tell example - showing too much?

If he felt doomed, I actually don't think there is a problem. He was doomed seems more like foreshadowing which would denote author intrusion. No one knows they are "doomed."

You could say something to the effect of : The cloying scent of decay seemed to presage his own demise. (too flowery, I know).

If you've established that we're in that character's POV, you can skip "He saw."

I prefer "--he was doomed." If you've established that we're in that character's POV, we'll know that's his own thought and not some omniscient being's description of future reality.

Dale

murmel said:

I'd have a question concerning the (in)famous show versus tell. Is there such a thing as showing too much?

The patchy path was boggy. The horses waded in fallen leaves, fetlock deep in mire, and the air had a rotten smell. The new year was about to begin, and decay would turn to growth in spring. However, spring would not bring relief and hope – he was doomed.

In my naïvité, I think that this is written from the his POV and I tie back the paragraph to his POV by the last comment. (I think). Do I have to write instead:

He saw that the path was patchy and boggy. He heard the horses's feet wading in fallen leaves, he saw their fetlock deep in mire and he sniffed the rotten smell of the air.

I'm wondering.

Click to expand...

A) Please don't filter everything through the character. He saw, he heard, he felt, he smelled. There's no need at all and your narrative will turn tedious. Since it's his POV, of course he saw and heard and smelled all that...

B) "The patchy path was boggy" is tell and not show. These adjectives are vague and not good examples of "show." They summarize. If you really want to do show, stick with the "facts" and five senses: "the path was a patchwork of moss and peat, damp, soft and thick under the feet." Words like "boggy" is great if you're tight on words and you want to find one that summarizes a whole sentence, but they're just not very visual and textile all by themselves.

C) To make the description even more vivid (without being tedious), again, be specific. "Rotten" -- rotten what? Meat? Eggs? Cabbage? Corpses? "Decay" -- decay of what? Meat? Eggs? Cabbage? Corpses? Give us the specifics so we can actually smell it ourselves.

This easy to remember explanation of how 1st person or 3rd person limited POV should work always keeps me on track:

Establish the POV character. Now we will assume that everything:

Seen
Heard
Smelled
Touched
Tasted
Known
Thought
Felt (emotionally)

...comes from the POV character. Leave out attributions as much as possible, including both sense and thought ones like "saw, thought, heard, felt, believed," etc.

I think your original paragraph was fine.

Showing and telling is a balance--too much of either will hurt a story. Consider the point in the story as well--the pacing will dictate when you can (and should) show a little more or less, depending on the action in the scene.

I think a great book on this is Description by Monica Wood.

murmel said:

See, when I walk a boggy path, I don't see moss and peat, I feel the springyness of the ground and hear the squawking sounds, however I do think Oh my the path is boggy (especially if my foot got wet). I do. It's a result of what I hear, see, and feel. So in fact, I come to think that the boggy sentence is fine after the observations.

Click to expand...

I understand your POV, I dare to say that much. And I think...I'd write the same myself.

Most people summarize in real life. We think: It's a sunny day. We don't think of describing. We think: The flowers are pretty. We don't think of describing. "Boggy" is a summarization of all those senses (the sight of green patches, the squawking sounds, the sponginess under the feet, even the smell of wetness). We think: the path is boggy. We don't think of describing. It doesn't mean as writers we do the same. Show vs. tell is for the benefit of the readers, not the writers. The trick is to do it well enough that the readers don't detect any unnaturalness: for example, too much or too little description.

Otherwise, what's left? We can just say "she's pretty" or "Bob was angry" all day long because that's what people do: they summarize. What's left is dull adjectives that do not give the readers any sensory cues.

I wouldn't recommend that to any new writers.

That reads like a list of facts, rather than showing the scene through the character's senses.

Maestro gave good advice as usual. You are nowhere near "too much show". But, to answer the original question, yes, there is such thing.

murmel said:

The patchy path was boggy. The horses waded in fallen leaves, fetlock deep in mire, and the air had a rotten smell. The new year was about to begin, and decay would turn to growth in spring. However, spring would not bring relief and hope – he was doomed.

Click to expand...

Addressing this from the show-vs-tell angle, I see the biggest example of telling in the last two sentences.

If the goal for this passage is as much showing as possible, then when we experience the world through the MC's viewpoint, we should feel the same way he does, without needing to be told he feels a sense of impending doom. Here's a quick-and-dirty example:

...the air had a rotten smell. Soon, he thought, the warmth of spring would force mushrooms to swell from the muck and flourish for their brief day, before they sank into fodder for others in future springs.

Depending on the style, you might not need the "he thought" if the MC's thoughts aren't usually attributed. But something along those lines would be an example of showing, rather than telling, that the MC has a sense of doom about the upcoming season, and combined with other observations like that, the reader can get a sense that this is one worried, fatalistic guy, without actually being told. Not that that's necessarily better, but since we're talking about showing vs. telling...