"Show, don't tell" is the most repeated advice in writing… and the least explained. Here’s what it actually means and how to use it to land your scenes.
One of the biggest issues I have with telling, especially in characterization, is when something is only told and never shown. For example, I don't mind being told that someone has a bad temper. But if people (or the narrator) are continually discussing his bad temper, but we never see the evidence of it for ourselves, it feels less like an established fact and more like I've lost trust that you're actually telling me the truth. 🫠
I agree. It often feels like the writer wanted the character to be that, but they may not know how to show it. I’ve seen cases in which, all characters are the same “template”, but they’re just differentiated by the fact that we’re told what they are 😅
Yes, or like they think just saying it makes it true. But when what I've *seen* is your character only being calm and patient, my brain begins to trust that more than the author's insistence that he's really bad tempered underneath.
I guess it's like meeting people in real life. If you tell me your friend is this way, I'll probably believe you. If I meet him once and you tell me he was acting totally out of character, I'll probably still believe you. But the more time I actually spend with him, the more I'm going to start trusting my own impressions instead of what you're telling me.
I think that's why showing is so powerful, because it's tricking my brain into thinking I'm making up my own mind (even though the author is still feeding me those details). 😎
Thanks for saying this Angie. Often times, your comments leave me thinking, lol. "Show, don't tell" or well, "show AND tell" is one of the things I struggle the most when writing. So I went back to my last example, I was sure I did a good job of showing the master's confidence and incompetence on it, but my apprentice was missing her frustration, which you made me realize. I added a few lines to the last example. Thanks for the help😉
I wasn't even thinking about your examples, just trying to verbalize something that bugs me about certain books I've read. 😆 I like the way you frame your discussions, though; somehow it gets me to put words to things I never tried to talk out before! 😊
Thank you for this article! "Show, don't tell," is one of the hardest aspects of writing for me. In one of my current projects, I'm actually working on a chapter that has three sequences that probably won't fit as scenes, but their information is important for the reader to understand the plot. I've changed one to "telling," tried to keep the emotional "showing" of the second, and will probably turn the third into a "telling."
Thank you for pointing out how you can use both together. Strong examples, too! I especially like telling in more introspective pieces where I don't necessarily understand what the character is going through just by feeling--in those stories, emotions are often one major part of a bigger, more complicated whole.
Thank you for reading Li! I was having a lot of issues with this rule too. Starting by the fact that apparently I didn’t understand it very well. I’m always curious about your projects, your book recommendations, spacetastic stories, and side projects (how do you manage it all?)
For a long time I tried not to use telling, and that made my stories worse. But I've read books that "tell" and those helped me understand concepts I wouldn't have understood through showing alone. Thanks for asking about my projects! It's mostly that some days are better than others, and then I get more done. When I get blocked on one project, I switch to another so hopefully I'm getting something finished. As for my book recommendations, a lot of times they are written off of reviews I wrote a while ago for books I enjoyed, so that saves some time.
One of the biggest issues I have with telling, especially in characterization, is when something is only told and never shown. For example, I don't mind being told that someone has a bad temper. But if people (or the narrator) are continually discussing his bad temper, but we never see the evidence of it for ourselves, it feels less like an established fact and more like I've lost trust that you're actually telling me the truth. 🫠
I agree. It often feels like the writer wanted the character to be that, but they may not know how to show it. I’ve seen cases in which, all characters are the same “template”, but they’re just differentiated by the fact that we’re told what they are 😅
Yes, or like they think just saying it makes it true. But when what I've *seen* is your character only being calm and patient, my brain begins to trust that more than the author's insistence that he's really bad tempered underneath.
I guess it's like meeting people in real life. If you tell me your friend is this way, I'll probably believe you. If I meet him once and you tell me he was acting totally out of character, I'll probably still believe you. But the more time I actually spend with him, the more I'm going to start trusting my own impressions instead of what you're telling me.
I think that's why showing is so powerful, because it's tricking my brain into thinking I'm making up my own mind (even though the author is still feeding me those details). 😎
Thanks for saying this Angie. Often times, your comments leave me thinking, lol. "Show, don't tell" or well, "show AND tell" is one of the things I struggle the most when writing. So I went back to my last example, I was sure I did a good job of showing the master's confidence and incompetence on it, but my apprentice was missing her frustration, which you made me realize. I added a few lines to the last example. Thanks for the help😉
I wasn't even thinking about your examples, just trying to verbalize something that bugs me about certain books I've read. 😆 I like the way you frame your discussions, though; somehow it gets me to put words to things I never tried to talk out before! 😊
Thank you for this article! "Show, don't tell," is one of the hardest aspects of writing for me. In one of my current projects, I'm actually working on a chapter that has three sequences that probably won't fit as scenes, but their information is important for the reader to understand the plot. I've changed one to "telling," tried to keep the emotional "showing" of the second, and will probably turn the third into a "telling."
Thank you for pointing out how you can use both together. Strong examples, too! I especially like telling in more introspective pieces where I don't necessarily understand what the character is going through just by feeling--in those stories, emotions are often one major part of a bigger, more complicated whole.
Thank you for reading Li! I was having a lot of issues with this rule too. Starting by the fact that apparently I didn’t understand it very well. I’m always curious about your projects, your book recommendations, spacetastic stories, and side projects (how do you manage it all?)
For a long time I tried not to use telling, and that made my stories worse. But I've read books that "tell" and those helped me understand concepts I wouldn't have understood through showing alone. Thanks for asking about my projects! It's mostly that some days are better than others, and then I get more done. When I get blocked on one project, I switch to another so hopefully I'm getting something finished. As for my book recommendations, a lot of times they are written off of reviews I wrote a while ago for books I enjoyed, so that saves some time.