showing versus telling

This is a hard one for me and it comes up often in the critiques I receive.

I'm not really fond of formulas for writing. Principles, too, I think are guidelines. The thing is that, to break the rules to good effect, you need to have command of how to work within them first.

I can't say that 'telling' is always bad, but I can say when I think there's too much of it in a specific case.

In short, I wouldn't worry about the show/tell ratio. Just write a poem. If it doesn't work, then looking at show vs. tell is one tool at your disposal to improve things.

I think showing, always draws the reader in to the story more. Makes them feel, instead of just thinking, about what you've written. It's sometimes difficult to recognize the difference, but a simple word or two can change it completely. It doesn't have to be flowery or over the top wordy, to be showing. It's just a difference of including the reader rather than speaking to them. That's the way I see it, anyway.

I never understood why telling was such a problem, until I picked up some more recent mystery novels. There are authors out there as (or nearly as) skilled as the Golden Age writers, and there are also some who write bubble-gum formula pap but who are entirely capable of doing so with good and clear writing.

But good Lord, some of the more recent ones just hit you over the head with the telling and the telling and dear God more telling - I've had several books I coudn't finish at all just for that reason. I don't know why it seems to be so endemic to that particular genre - other genres have other problems, but usually they're intrinsic to the topic (like fantasy authors falling into the Bad Tolkien imitation trap). I'd give specific examples, but I have tried hard to forget them.

Steppe, some things are easier to explain by example.

"The first time she laid eyes on him,
She flushed down to her toes."

"The first time she saw him,
She found him very appealing,
And he had a strong physical effect on her."

See?
You know the difference at a deep level; you do it right in your own work, maybe not every time but more often than not. (And, I think, an increasing percentage of the time.)

Of course it's not possible to "show" everything, all the time. Nor is it desirable. You have to choose how close or distant you want each piece of writing to be, how emotionally attached or detached. A lot of the vague "show don't tell" arguments can be clarified by figuring out where you camera is at all times -- the further you get from the action, the more you're just sitting in a chair telling a story. And it's hard to give readers the escape they want unless you emotionally engage them somehow. Thus the proliferation of "show don't tell" advice.

Much of modern writing is expected to be action-packed, character-driven, emotional, etc. To achieve this, you have to be up close and personal as much as possible. In the sense of "SHOW what the characters are seeing right now" vs "TELL what's happening". There's not much tolerance for distant, aloof viewpoints these days. You're free to choose an outdated style, or a weak way of presenting a story, but it's not going to help your chances of seeing print. Note that different editors have different criteria. You should be able to tell which publications want action-packed work, which ones prefer ethereal work, and so on. On top of the genre, and variations within the genres.

Those two poem clips posted by Dichroic were good examples: the first is inside the viewer's head, and the second is just describing surfaces.

Now, poetry is its own world with its own rules. I personally can't stand poetry as a venue for describing things, when it can be such a powerful venue for visions, creative expression and enlightening viewpoints. If it reads like a cereal box, I have a hard time calling it poetry.

scottVee said:

Those two poem clips posted by Dichroic were good examples: the first is inside the viewer's head, and the second is just describing surfaces.

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I didn't do it on purpose, but paradoxically just the opposite is the case in those examples; the earlier one could be noted by an outside observer (though "flushed down to her toes" more usually refers to an internal feeling of heat rather than an external change of color) while the second one, the "telling" one actually requires an omniscient speaker who can see inside her head.

The difference, I think, is that in the former case the user has an easier time experiencing her feelings, rather than seeing them described like a butterfly pinned to a card.

Seems to me then, that "telling" versus "showing" are just tools the poet uses to "tell" the story ????

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I'd agree with that. I think "showing" brings the reader closer, wraps them more into the experience, but sometimes the rhythm of the poem needs the distance of "telling".

I suspect I'm quite a lazy reader, and hence, have a high tolerance for being "told" stuff. Being "told" unimportant stuff is a relaxing pause before diving back into the intensity of the important "shown" stuff.

Ultimately showing is still telling. I envision that it's the difference between
Thanks for the information
and
Oh yeah, I see.

I think both can be effective in poetry, it just depends on the particular poem. Hutchinson's poem "Artichoke" is a great example of showing in a short work "Oh heart, weighed down by so many wings." Yet, we have Housman, in his great "To an Athlete Dying Young" who tells us "The day you won your town the race/we chaired you through the market place/man and boy stood cheering by/as home we brought you, shoulder high." See the brilliance in both? Hutchinson shows masterfully in that shortest of works. Housman tells, but the effect is showing because it paints for the reader. Still, a cursory read of Housman might reveal the telly nature of his writing and miss how he paints with the simplicity of his verse.

Interesting, I might use the Houseman you cite as a great example of "showing."

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

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These first two stanzas paint contrasting pictures of a life. Before and after pictures.

The telling version would be: "There once was a great young athlete who earned the respect of his town through athletic prowess. Now there's somethin' wrong." Houseman instead puts the same info into two vivid contrasting scenes. He makes us see how his town celebrated without telling us that he was a great athlete. We're allowed to draw that conclusion from what we witness through his words.

Heh, it worked.