"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.
I think you're right! One cannot do its job effectively without the other. It took me some time to realize that. At the beginning I would think that I was telling too much, but my story needed some telling and well, the usual showing by exposition. Thanks for reading.
I was recently struggling with a chapter of a story because of the same issues, and after giving myself decided that the best way to to tell this segment of the story was plain old telling 🤦🏾
It was information, the protagonist received an email with instructions.
I think my concern is that maybe I have too many messages and emaile but haven't shared much about the character. I'm kind of hoping the strangeness of the emails will keep people engaged till the character weighs in on what's happening.
Jesse, one of the strongest ideas in this article is that "show, don't tell" isn't really about choosing one over the other, it's about deciding where you want the reader to do the work. Telling transfers information; showing invites interpretation. That distinction extends well beyond fiction. The most memorable leaders, teachers, and communicators don't simply announce that something is important, they create experiences that allow people to arrive at that conclusion themselves. A lesson discovered is almost always more enduring than a lesson delivered.
What really struck me is that readers don't connect with stories because they're given every answer. They connect because they're trusted enough to participate in making meaning. That's true of writing, leadership, and even relationships. People rarely commit to conclusions they were handed; they commit to conclusions they feel they discovered. Perhaps that's the deeper principle behind "show, don't tell." It's not just a writing technique, it's an act of trusting others to become co-authors of the meaning you're trying to create.
Oh, I really like how you framed it "it's an act of trusting others to become co-authors of the meaning you're trying to create". It even sounds poetic 👌
And I agree with you, it seems like people usually don't listen to you until they get to a conclusion themselves and, honestly, all the power to them! There's a lot of value on making the connection yourself. Thanks for reading :)
This was another great article from you! We usually hear "show don't tell", but there's a place for telling too (especially when it's mixed with showing), and you demonstrated it so well in your examples. This is something I'll be applying to my own writing.
Thank you so much for saying that! I'm glad the examples demonstrated the concept well. In the beginning I was going to make it a game of "Am I showing or telling?", but I didn't have much time left to write them if I wanted to go on with my experiment for this month. Thanks for reading.
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! 😊
I know you didn’t! But I’m the kind of person that when there are those IG reels that go “readers, what’s the thing you hate the most about books?”, I read all of the comments to assess and to see if I agree.
I’m glad Narrative Baggage’s comment section is a good place for you to voice your points. I like to have discussions and open conversations. I think talking to other talented authors helps me better my craft 🙂
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.
That's such a great way to keeping the momentum going! I think Brandon Sanderson does this too. He has many projects he works on and when he feels stuck in one, he changes gears to stay productive.
I feel writing is a constant balance between showing and telling and trying not to let either one take over completely.
I think you're right! One cannot do its job effectively without the other. It took me some time to realize that. At the beginning I would think that I was telling too much, but my story needed some telling and well, the usual showing by exposition. Thanks for reading.
I was recently struggling with a chapter of a story because of the same issues, and after giving myself decided that the best way to to tell this segment of the story was plain old telling 🤦🏾
Was it just information or just something that needed to happen to move the story forward? What was the struggle? 👀
It was information, the protagonist received an email with instructions.
I think my concern is that maybe I have too many messages and emaile but haven't shared much about the character. I'm kind of hoping the strangeness of the emails will keep people engaged till the character weighs in on what's happening.
I'm kinda engaged now that I'm guessing it's a story partly told through emails
Jesse, one of the strongest ideas in this article is that "show, don't tell" isn't really about choosing one over the other, it's about deciding where you want the reader to do the work. Telling transfers information; showing invites interpretation. That distinction extends well beyond fiction. The most memorable leaders, teachers, and communicators don't simply announce that something is important, they create experiences that allow people to arrive at that conclusion themselves. A lesson discovered is almost always more enduring than a lesson delivered.
What really struck me is that readers don't connect with stories because they're given every answer. They connect because they're trusted enough to participate in making meaning. That's true of writing, leadership, and even relationships. People rarely commit to conclusions they were handed; they commit to conclusions they feel they discovered. Perhaps that's the deeper principle behind "show, don't tell." It's not just a writing technique, it's an act of trusting others to become co-authors of the meaning you're trying to create.
Oh, I really like how you framed it "it's an act of trusting others to become co-authors of the meaning you're trying to create". It even sounds poetic 👌
And I agree with you, it seems like people usually don't listen to you until they get to a conclusion themselves and, honestly, all the power to them! There's a lot of value on making the connection yourself. Thanks for reading :)
This was another great article from you! We usually hear "show don't tell", but there's a place for telling too (especially when it's mixed with showing), and you demonstrated it so well in your examples. This is something I'll be applying to my own writing.
Thank you so much for saying that! I'm glad the examples demonstrated the concept well. In the beginning I was going to make it a game of "Am I showing or telling?", but I didn't have much time left to write them if I wanted to go on with my experiment for this month. Thanks for reading.
Ooh, that would have been a fun exercise! Maybe you can do a similar one in your future articles.
I can try for sure!
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! 😊
I know you didn’t! But I’m the kind of person that when there are those IG reels that go “readers, what’s the thing you hate the most about books?”, I read all of the comments to assess and to see if I agree.
I’m glad Narrative Baggage’s comment section is a good place for you to voice your points. I like to have discussions and open conversations. I think talking to other talented authors helps me better my craft 🙂
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.
That's such a great way to keeping the momentum going! I think Brandon Sanderson does this too. He has many projects he works on and when he feels stuck in one, he changes gears to stay productive.
Thanks! Yeah, I think I heard he has a specific way he divides his time between writing a project, editing another, and promoting his writing.