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Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
How do you get better at showing and not telling
- Thread starter lordorion7
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I can try that with one of my scenes. Yeah I see what you mean by looking into a dictionary feedback. I have gotten better in my word choice but I can always still improve. Tbh this was the first I heard of smargadine
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To save you having to start threads about all the various aspects of the writing craft, I am going to suggest that you read through these two threads, which cover the basics very well and are an excellent learning reference.
Learn Writing With Uncle Jim part one
and
Learn Writing With Uncle Jim part two
If it's too much useless information, yes. Every now and then is no big deal, but I've seen books where just about every single line of dialog or every paragraph contains the type of thing I illustrated. If I can be shown what's going on with the dialog, or the first part of the description, then there's no need to keep reading until the next line of dialog or the next paragraph. Very often I will start skimming if it's becoming clear this is how the writer is going to present things throughout the book. I've even seen some established writers do this, so I imagine it has its fans.
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That's still telling. You're just doing it through the character's words.
Show him struggling to button up his coat because his fingers are numb. (Or whatevs. I live in a place that doesn't do cold so I've forgotten what it's like.)
Big mood. I've never seen snow before, heard that seeing it is magical for the first five minutes until, 1) your extremities are numb, or 2) you have to shovel snow off your driveway/roof.
Anyway, for OP, like others said, in general to tell is to say, 'Jim was cold.' But to show is to be like, 'The harsh bite of winter numbed Jim's fingers, trembling as they did up the zipper of his poorly-padded jacket.' To describe does not equate to using purple prose, because I was not using complex words. But showing has the mild risk of being too descriptive, if you're harping on Jim being cold for ten lines without it leading anywhere. Sometimes one or two lines is enough to get the point across - Jim was cold, as a result of the weather or air-con.
How would your character say they're cold?
"Brr."
"It's ****ing freezing!"
"Of course the temperature drops the day I forget to bring my coat."
Part of showing is how your character experiences things.
Show breath fogging.
Let the reader "hear" the sound as an icicle shatters after breaking off the eave of the house.
Let the reader taste the hot cocoa when your character comes in from the cold and warms up.
Let the reader feel the air is so cold it feels like it's burning exposed skin.
How you show will depend on the character. A kid might be having so much fun they ignore the cold until they're ready to go in. An adult might grumble about having to scrape the car to go to work.
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I’ve been following this thread off and on through the day, and find it illuminating. A few moments ago, while playing with my cat, I thought of a splendid little example, from Jubilate Agno:
Jeoffry! Jeoffry! The rat has bitten thy throat!
Kit Smart tells us his cat has been bitten. But he shows us his grief, and so his love, for his pet.
ETA: Jeoffry recovers completely.
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This is a good way of showing character. So remember that showing can come in a bunch of forms.
Yes, if you have the opportunity, make your showing work hard for its place in the text.
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Showing not telling has become a mantra for many, as if it were an unforgivable sin. Telling is part of telling stories, but basic telling is just giving a summary of the basic facts . Showing is telling, but with elaboration using the senses , emotions , and more details. It is harder to write naturally . It needs to be developed . Below is a useful link about copywork .It is a basic improvement exercise that was used by many writers in the past,but has fallen out of use .
https://jonmayo.blogspot.com/2018/01/copywork-exercise-for-writers.html
https://jonmayo.blogspot.com/2018/01/copywork-exercise-for-writers.html
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No. If it feels like too much information then it very likely is too much information. That's the point, when it comes to when to show and when to tell. If you try to show everything, that will be too much information and you'll never get the story started and the reader will get bored and either skip ahead or stop reading altogether.
Lots of people bandy nice-sounding snippets of advice around like "show, don't tell" but they're not really helpful as they imply that showing's always better than telling (it's not) and that you should try to show everything (you really shouldn't).
For the big, important things in a story, it's usually better to show. For example, if your main character is a detective and they're very good at their job, and it's a detective novel, simply writing "Jack was a great detective. He could solve every case." is not enough. This you would need to show. The most obvious way to show it is by having him solve a crime. But if you wanted to show it before he solves the main crime in your story, and don't want to derail the story by describing another crime he solved, you can find other ways to show this, e.g. a scene where someone congratulates him on a crime he solved, or seeing his name in the papers with the headline "Detective Jack cracks another cold case" or something. Then as you start to get into the actual plot, you can show him spotting clues that other police miss, or making clever deductions. This is going to be much more engaging for the reader than just "Jack was a great detective."
However, there will be all kinds of minor details that the reader needs to know, but where you don't want to write an entire scene to show these them, because doing so would derail the plot or slow the action down. If that's the case, it's better to just tell the reader. Sometimes there are ways you can show things really quickly - if you want to show that a character likes coffee, they can be drinking coffee in a scene that already exists for plot reasons, i.e. it's still showing but you're not writing a scene just to show it. Or if you want to show a character's wealthy, you can show this by them having nice things in the scenes you have already. If not, just say it. Saying things in plain English is an underrated writing strategy.
Also, there's no line between telling and showing. You can tell things in a showy way or show things in a telly way. And ask any two writers they won't agree exactly about what telling and showing even mean. The "show v tell" advice exists to help to make writing engaging. A lot of the time, for important information, telling is more engaging than showing, but not always, and it's perfectly possible to write "telling" sentences in an engaging way.
This. But also remember that some readers just want to get on with the story to see where it goes, while other readers like to be immersed in details as if they are actually there. Spend some time in the SYW forum, and see how people crit stories. You'll find some who say "Here is where you lost me" while others "This is so rich! Wonderful!" Even just seeing the range of input you've gotten in this thread indicates to me that we've gone beyond the basics and into a realm where there is a lot of gray that will depend on execution.
I try not to get so analytical that I never write. Write now, and fix what doesn't work later.
This is curious, because I don't trust the readers (I'm forced to for the sake of the craft), but one persistent concern I have is the mere chance they'd miss something. Since I'm not a very attentive reader, or rather I skim when the going gets tedious, how can I expect anyone else to be different from me? Ideally, I'd leave no room for misunderstanding or lapses in comprehending what is going on.
It takes all sorts. 
As a reader I'm generally not quick picking up on subtle myself. One of the reasons I'm not keen on reading unreliable narrators is because I generally take a narrator at their word and I sort of get confused when they turn out to be untrustworthy in that aspect.
And as I am my own first reader I am not subtle as a writer either. But their is a difference between hammering on a point or characteristic and just alluding to it. Sometimes even the more literal readers like me pick up on the latter more easily than first assumed.
Especially when reading Pratchett I learned there is an art to NOT saying things and yet getting the point across. I'd like to be able to write as well as he one day, but then he was a master.
Sometimes I find there is a pay-off for the reader when it turns out in the end they picked up on the right cues. I know it makes me feel smug. But it's hard to get that pay-off if you spell out everything.
That said a reader takes their own perceptions and ideas into a story. I have had comments on my stories where a reader picked on something that was never intended and they remained adamant I must have done it on purpose. It led to (from my viewpoint) a very bizarre discussion where the reader kept trying to convince me I had written something which I -as the writer- knew I had not. But it brought home that sometimes, no matter how clear I try to be on a story element, there may always be someone out there who sees exactly the opposite. But then, I decided, I wasn't writing for them in the first place.
As a reader I'm generally not quick picking up on subtle myself. One of the reasons I'm not keen on reading unreliable narrators is because I generally take a narrator at their word and I sort of get confused when they turn out to be untrustworthy in that aspect.
And as I am my own first reader I am not subtle as a writer either. But their is a difference between hammering on a point or characteristic and just alluding to it. Sometimes even the more literal readers like me pick up on the latter more easily than first assumed.
Especially when reading Pratchett I learned there is an art to NOT saying things and yet getting the point across. I'd like to be able to write as well as he one day, but then he was a master.
Sometimes I find there is a pay-off for the reader when it turns out in the end they picked up on the right cues. I know it makes me feel smug. But it's hard to get that pay-off if you spell out everything.
That said a reader takes their own perceptions and ideas into a story. I have had comments on my stories where a reader picked on something that was never intended and they remained adamant I must have done it on purpose. It led to (from my viewpoint) a very bizarre discussion where the reader kept trying to convince me I had written something which I -as the writer- knew I had not. But it brought home that sometimes, no matter how clear I try to be on a story element, there may always be someone out there who sees exactly the opposite. But then, I decided, I wasn't writing for them in the first place.
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It's a balancing act, and I know what you mean because I too am a skimmer. I am a believer in "What you tell me three times is true", so if something is important to know I try to wodge it in three times. But I am also a believer in "If you show, you don't need to tell" so I try to strip out all my extraneous "she had long blonde hair" telling statements and instead show her being able to tie her hair back in a knot, then show her choosing a pink rather than red ribbon because it goes better with light coloured hair, and then needing an extra-large hair net when she goes to work as a sous-chef.
This is something I've been wondering. Where is it actually better to tell? It's something I've been meaning to ask.
It's a tough question, because it would depend on the story's pace and style. But generally, I use telling when I feel that it a) speeds up the story, b) provides a wider look at the world of the story, c) adds voice to the story.
I don't think showing is inherently better than telling, and I use telling a lot. What is important is to make the story taut, dynamic and alluring, never monotonous, never drawn out. Flexible switching between telling and showing helps.
By developing your ear through reading and practice you will develop your own preferences. My opinion is formed by Maass's Emotional Craft of Fiction, and reading.
(1) Summary is a good place for telling. e.g. When she arrived, she took a small room above the tavern. e.g. The next six months passed in an unremarkable way.
(2) Interiority (emotions) can often use some degree of telling. e.g. He wasn't just depressed, he was downright miserable. e.g. Another woman might be flattered by the words, but not Irene. She was enraged by them.
People will say "Don't say He was sad because it's too telly." But if you read widely, you realize authors use variations of this kind of telling all the time. They simply dress it up, make it interesting, add a twist, add context, movement, time, conflict, or a second and third emotion alongside the first.
He hadn't been so demoralized since the summer of 1992, when his dog lost her entire litter to heartworm.
The loss made him sad, yes, but he couldn't deny a sense of hope that things would turn around soon.
Thanks for that description. I have a tendency to worry about aspects of my writing and it helps to have other writers to ask, helps balance my worry with reality.
Thanks for that description. I have a tendency to worry about aspects of my writing and it helps to have other writers to ask, helps balance my worry with reality.
I heartily second that.
To address your question, LordOrion7, I'd suggest you don't worry about a scene being shown or told while you are writing it. Get your entire story done. You will then better understand your story, which we rarely fully do while writing it. THEN consider each scene to see whether it would be better shown or told.
Yes. Giving just the right amount of info is another of the hard parts of being a writer.
I was going to recommend this. How to do both and strengths and weaknesses of each.
The above book covers that, and Woollybear's answer. But it'll come down to what's in your story and whether it's better told or shown. Sometimes (often for me!) you can't judge that for yourself. An early reader/editor can help. I tend to write too much in scene and lack in the summary/interior thoughts department without which a story or character reads flat.
Examples from my current WIP, as relayed by an editor I hired:
- If this current draft were the final, readers might find it a bit flat and summarized
- Maybe streamline [this particular plot] problem by half; a lot of futzing is related in summary [aka telling] here.
- there’s a lot of summary when you get into the ... visit—family dynamics, how they spend their time. This material wants to be either more or less. [So could either be cut or expanded in scene--showing]
- This feels too much like emotional summary....The previous ... scenes might each continually probe this difficulty, differently each time, to give it more depth and weight in the story
So not really a helpful answer for you, but something you'll get used to as you work with critiques and feedback. Books like Alberts's and Maass's are helpful, but in the end you just have to dig in and do the work.