Show vs. Tell

A first person should have more tell than a third person naturally - as the narrator/POV character is the same.

I have a lot more leeway because my MC is the story, storyteller, narrator, main character etc basically no story without him lol

Doing less telling now than I did a year ok but sometimes he would just say I am angry or that pillow is ugly (can't see a seventeen year old boy saying it is blue and fluffy lol)

 

But he could see an ugly blue fluffy pillow.

 

lol yeah but I don't see my seventeen year old POV character view going 'man that's ugly its blue and fluffy.' whereas he may go 'woah that's one ugly pillow.'

 

There's no reason you can't describe things through his eyes though - the "ugly" covers his view of it, while the "blue fluffy" describes it for the reader. I've been having a lot of fun with a first person viewpoint, where my character hates with a passion the lady he's gonna fall in love with eventually, and he describes her a couple of times - first by saying how she's plain and he thinks she looks totally boring, but then he goes on to explain *why*. It's not a question of showing/telling so much as just providing basic details. I could let him rail against her all day for looking bland, but until he says *why* there's no characterisation, nothing. But from his description you learn a lot more about how he feels about her, though it's just a few more words about her freckles and hair.

You can't say something is something without giving a justification. "Ugly" is not a description on its own, and you character isn't blind so he will know it is blue and fluffy. When a first person view point is looking around a room, you don't tell JUST the surface thoughts: when I look at those keys on my desk, I still see a pink tag and a battered old brown potato keyring with "IDAHO" written on it, even if, were I describing them as you did, I'd say "a childish label and a potato that symbolises an old friendship". Putting the two details together gives us a reason as well as a reaction, and some better description to fill the world out a little more.

So though this is not how I think at all when I look at them, this is how I would write that moment:

"I looked at the keys on my desk, smiling at the childishness of the pink label I'd never bothered taking off though my address had changed years ago, and the battered old potato, the 'IDAHO' almost worn off, ink-stains on the brown plastic, that was my last link to Amy..."

I know your character's just glancing at the cushion, if it was just an example, but he would see the details he doesn't have a comment on, even if you think that in your head you'd only say "my keys!" there's so much more acting on the subconscious level, all the stuff you process without thinking...

Sorry, getting off topic a little.

Anyways, this thread has now made me SUPER PARANOID and I am now going through and editing my current project since it's first person and told at a removed distance from the action, so I can work in as much showing as possible to compensate. I'm quite alarmed at how some scenes I blazed through without stopping to look around properly. :/ I know this story far far too well to trust myself to tell it. I'm almost certainly missing out Vital Plot Details because I know I wrote them in 12 previous drafts...

 

well to be fair as he is a seventeen year old boy he probably wouldn't even have cared the pillow was ugly lol

 

True... Still, I think you should probably try to make the world as textured as possible - always better to have to take out words than put them in.

 

If your analogy were correct the chief would have came out with raw food and dropped it on the table and grunted and walked off. That's how telling is in a story.

Showing is the chief preparing the food, cooking it, having a very polite waiter come out and place the food (the customer already smelled before it arrived) on the table and then customer takes the first bite and the flavors excite the tongue in ways they had not had the pleasure. That is showing instead of grunt telling.

Speaking of your experience, are you published?

This is important because if you have told your publisher this and your editor when they send back edits with the same idea your theory---and they bought it and you sold lots of books, then you have a point.

This is TELLING instead of SHOWING. Using the word obviously is hardly ever a good idea unless you mean to be sarcastic in your telling. And you just explained he was working out. Him sitting down and breathing hard or rubbing his legs would show he was tired. It is not necessary to be repetitive after showing

No need to say he walked over. He stopped working out and went and sat on a cot to massage his legs.

"sat down" is repetitive. When you say someone is sat you know they went down.

The hardest part of being a writer is knowing who to listen to and who to not.

Pick up any book on publishing and editing and they will stress show don't tell. So anyone speaking against it doesn't know it means and has not (most likely) been published. Be careful....and read up on editing. It will be a great help to yourself and your understanding of what an editor sees when they read over something.

And don't forget what it's like to read. When you're a reader....What is great writing to you? What is bad writing to you?

If your characters just went around thinking -- I'm mad because Billy stepped on my toe you might as well write a picture book. Have someone draw for you and you tell everyone what's going on. Your job as a writer is to draw pictures with words. It is complicated and it can be frustrating, but I would never pick something as more fun for myself to maul over and over...than writing.

I also suggest joining a local writing group that has a great person who leads. I go to one every week. We read a few pages of eveyone's novel/story and edit it. Great suggestions. I hear things I didn't think of. I hear other people's stories...it's great stuff.

Now that I know your link I have a few more suggestions I'll state over there.

 

This made me think of debate as an example of show don't tell.

In debate you need to show evidence. If you just told the evidence without referencing, you're telling.

Which is best in debate? To show or to tell?

Exactly what it is to write a story. You are giving the reader reference to feelings instead of going OMG just get it!!!! He's ANGRY!!!!! <----telling. Include the ! because some people over use those and they are one of those punctuations that should be rarely used...if ever.

 

Both if you want to be effective you have a mixture of evidence and directing the arguement though tell.

My debates both written and spoken have been reviewed by experts in the fields and I know I am good - not one has complained about when I have used tell to direct the arguement especially in the introduction and conclusion. In fact one law essay came back with the comment that if I was ever a prosecutor and she was charged with a crime she was gonna save herself the bother and plead guilty

I approach my fiction writing in much the same way I have done my non fiction writing and speeches and include a mix of the two.

 

It was an analogy to what is being discussed.

You cannot argue without backing. Arguing without backing is telling in this analogy. In other words someone who shouts, like a parent, because I say so.

If you have evidence and proof and papers that back you then that's showing even if you talk about them.

 

Man, I realize i need to improve my show-abilities too, its just that i have a hard time seeing what that would actually mean in the text im working on. I understand your examples but i have a hard time practising it. I guess i have to read more books... right now im in a write-rather-than-read-phase and cant find almost anything that makes it worth closing the word-document for. i should really sit down with a good book and underline all the good "showing" to get a better feeling. In fact i think thats what im going to do. any other ideas for improving??

 

Read self editing for fiction writers. They have great examples.

 

And I continued the analogy - both is required for the best debates written and spoken. The best essays contain more analysis than evidence. Same with fiction.

You can tell something then go on to show it - or sometimes it is appropriate to tell something that has been well and truly shown.

 

You are under the impression I mean eliminate the other totally. I never said that.

Analysis is also showing and not telling. Telling would mean you know what you're talking about and it's without a doubt right, analysis is opinion.

You misread what I'm doing.

 

Being published makes someone's opinion valid?

What if I weren't published, but had worked with hundreds of writers of various levels in varying capacities? I'm not saying I have or haven't, just wondering whether this would be good enough.

People put far too much emphasis on being published. Honestly, it's not hard to be published, while it is actually pretty hard to do things like edit at a respected level, conduct literary business as an agent, and teach writing. Publishing is actually one of the easier things to do in the industry if that's simply what one wants.

There are thousands of places that will enable someone to say 'I'm published' and I can assure you not a single one of them automatically makes someone's opinion valid on how to teach writing or even adequately express one's views on learning writing. Being published even in the most reputable places means you've figured something out for yourself, which is much different from helping others figure things out.

But no, I haven't been published. Then again I haven't really tried, yet. Not that I'm saying I would be, but right now my focus has been on learning craft, learning to teach, teaching (you keep learning to teach if you ever hope to teach well, heh) and getting into grad school so I can do more teaching and learning to teach.

That said, being published I'd only ever have to read my own manuscript, really. Doing what I'm doing I've had the pure delight of reading hundreds (nearing a thousand, I bet) of manuscripts from writers at various levels--from absolute beginners to those that have been published--and have first-hand see what works and what doesn't work for writers.

And I stand by what I said. Very rarely have I seen anyone who was to the point they were studying writing really need mantras like 'show, don't tell.' Sure, they might think they need them, or go searching desperately for some sage advice that will make everything better (and easier). But almost always, even if they don't know it, writers to the point they're studying writing, aren't helped by such simplistic adages as they're already on the right track to figuring things out.

By holding on to such basic, simplistic adages, writers aren't helping themselves but really just keeping themselves from progressing and digging deeper into the mysteries of fiction (which become less mysterious as one refines their knowledge and abilities).

But no, I'm not published. I guess that's it for me, my big secret is out (and listed on my profile, I think)

 

Ha ha, and I'm published and think I'm as dumb as the next writer on this forum.

 

"Showing" versus "telling" are just labels for tools. You seem to be not only rejecting the idea that "showing" is better, but rejecting the idea of labeling those tools at all. But doesn't digging into the mysteries of fiction involve, in part, labeling and understanding the tools used by the writer?

I don't think that you'd say that the terms "past tense" or "present tense" or "first person" or "point of view" or "omniscient narrator" are simplistic mantras and that the writer should just ignore all that nonsense. If you reject an understanding of your tools, you limit your ability to understand and improve your writing.

To use "point of view" as an example, if someone came along and said, "I'm having trouble understanding the idea of a consistent point of view. Can you help me with this?" would you say, "Don't pay atention to meaningless mantras like 'consistent point of view'; just write well."? I'm guessing that you probably wouldn't, even though a shifting point of view _can_ be OK, just as a story that's heavy on "tell" and light on "show" can be OK.

Writers need to be aware of the choices that they're making--first versus third person, limited versus omniscient point of view, past versus present tense, _and_ show versus tell. Every line of writing involves choices, and a writer who understands the choices he's making has the tools to improve his writing. Rejecting the labels because you reject the judgement based on the labels is, to me, a bad idea.

ChickenFreak

 

Show/tell is a lot more fluid though. Either a point of view sticks to a character or it doesn't. Showing and telling is something every single paragraph does in some degree, and it's just a matter of how much and when. People can only really learn it naturally through practice, reading, and reviewing their work and other's. There's no right or wrong answer, whereas if I saw a story slipping in and out of third and first persons it'd be an instant slap upside the head. If the piece was a bit too much telling, I might not even notice for the first read-through and feel that it was maybe a bit loose and empty, and then I'd re-read and see why. Unless the author is somewhere up the autism scale or direly inexperienced, there will be some showing in there. (I'm not being rude about autistic people - I've read stories from a couple of people who have surprisingly severe autism-related disorders, and that's one of the things I noticed).

Anyway, forgot where I was going.

Oh yeah.

Show not tell IS a phrase teachers burble at you in school, like training wheels for your bike. People who aren't great shakes at writing should still think very carefully about it, and some people who think they are great shakes should probably remember it more (*cough Melzaar cough*) but generally you shouldn't be freaking out about it once you are a fairly competent writer. It's not a tool because it's not just a thing you can apply like "don't use lots of adverbs" and stuff like that. It's the sum of your text and the feeling it gives, the way each scene resonates within itself and to the next. And very very personal to author, novel, and even the readers - some might take away a very different impression.

 

Hopefully the OP can sift through the philosophising in this thread and pick out some information to help with his dilemma. Sometimes a question is just a question.

 

If you want to show your work rather than telling, I found a trick to avoid doing alot of telling (some of this probably don't work for all writers, and it seem to work for me). First, I would write an openning paragraph about a place with no characters in it. Then, I would include one change that was made in the scene (something like "The room had two lamps in it, one without a lid, and the other had one on it. All of a sudden, one of the bulbs from one lamp blew out). The change would be the bulb being blowing out. And then, the next paragraph would have another location (or the same) withonly one character in it. This time, he would change something in that location. Something like he entered the room and demolished the other lamp. And then, on the third pragraph, I would add two paragraphs in the scene with a change of location, but the two characters adding conflict with dialogue. Finally, the change would change the emotion behind the two characters,. I never used this technique before, and I'm sure that some people do it.

Overall, I normally tell, since I'm a new writer. lol

 

Yeah, but writing a helpful book about how to write a novel is also fun.

 

Published matters if you dealt with editors and agents. You can tell me all you want how to deal with angry customers, but if you never dealt with one, then your opinion is not worth much as someone that has.

Ever read a book on editing? The best ones mention show don't tell.

It is not elitist. It is fact.

One thing agents and editors do not like are know it all writers.

I read about writing, go to writing groups, go to conferences, listen, listen and listen to others. I love writing a lot. It is my child. I will read and learn how to raise it well.

I like Superheroes. I think of my writing, also, like powers. practice using them with a teacher and I'll get better...

People have gone before and it is wise to use their lessons to learn from.

Show don't tell is not black and white as some have describe it.

It is similar to give a man a fish he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a life time.

 

Naming terms and features is indeed important. But once they're learned, one must take a step further.

Once you learn what a verb is, the next step is to learn what makes verbs affective and how affective writing uses verbs. And once you start doing that, it serves very little purpose to go back and simply point to verbs, stating they're verbs, showing you learned to label verbs.

The problem I see with 'show' and 'tell' is they actually aren't terms used by many professional writers and teachers. The best use of these terms is as a lesson on creative effective imagery in writing (which can be done purely through telling, btw). But as a teacher I'd never give a lesson using the terms 'show' or 'tell' as a means to effective writing, because (as I'm sure people are sick of me saying) at some point one realizes these terms have little to do with effective writing, as both can equally describe or lead to poor writing as good.

As a teacher, any lesson that you teach and students follow, and it leads to potential failure, is not a good lesson. Teach the terms, and they have terms that are actually not all that useful except to identify the terms (circularly defining), teach the terms and practices, and have writers employ them, and it can still lead to failure. At that point you then have to teach something else that will lead to a higher rate of success, at which point why not just teach that next lesson from the start?

For instance, if you do a lesson on empathy by always representing the perspective of the character, the success/failure depends on whether the writer manages to apply the lesson. If they have a misstep, it's because they lapsed in applying the lesson. But with 'show, don't tell' a writer can show quite effectively and employ the lesson perfectly and still have it lead to failure (the showing isn't relevant, isn't true to the character/moment, is contrived). With a lesson on representing the perspective of the character, the failures will be evident and the writer can see how their lack of applying the lesson lead to the failure, and then need only apply the lesson to succeed.

But yeah, these are the kinds of teaching/learning points that come beyond the naming and identifying terms and forms stage of the game. Most students in begin fiction classes are already beyond that point, most writers on writing forums inquiring about craft are beyond that point.

It's just that 'show, don't tell' is an easy thing to talk about. It's easy to master, so people hold onto it. It's natural, normal, somewhat beneficial at early stages of learning to craft fiction. But at some point to progress I believe people have to cut the cord. For some reason this one adage lingers (when others seem easily learned, challenged and un-parroted, like 'never use adverbs' that we all know is good advice to be aware of adverbs, but that never using them is ridiculous and not really even possible).

The 'show, don't tell' mantra usually leads people to the deeper lesson of writing in an engaging, vivid way. This of course is a hard thing to figure out, and even many published writers struggle with it at times. So, imo instead of pushing into this unknown and challenging territory, people cling to 'show, don't tell' as if it's the one root on the side of a cliff keeping them from falling because they can't see what lies at the bottom of the cliff. Trust me, it's like Lost Boys, you may not remember what happened exactly, but you'll wake up in your bed, a vampire, and it'll be awesome.

"past tense" isn't a mantra. I do reject things like "First person pov is inherently more connected" and "present tense creates a quicker pace."
Read widely enough, and you know these things aren't true.

As I said, there's nothing wrong with learning to identify terms. What you're going to do with them is what matters. And as we can see in any 'show, don't tell' discussion ever, unless some jerk like me comes in and flips the scrip'--it usually just ends with everyone sharing what they think the terms mean and why they think one or the other is better.


The odd thing is that 'show' and 'tell' aren't even traditional features of fiction. They're modern, writer constructed features. You'd never, ever study literature and discuss the 'showing', whereas point of view or tense is definitely a feature, tried and true. You may discuss the effectiveness of imagery, but you'll quickly realize that if you said 'because it's showing' you'd be tasked to defend that, and the defense would quickly involve more important ideas, like relevance and authority and specificity. Those are the kinds of things that make imagery affective, not whether it's shown or told, so what's the point of even leaning on designations that only serve to lead to better designations that actually describe what you're seeing at work in a text?

The only reason I (and all the teachers I know) ever entertain the terms, is because writers insist on using them. You have to first understand the place a writer is coming from and acknowledge their current knowledge-base before expecting them to ever move beyond it. This is why I don't begrudge or take offense to people using the terms, but will continue to give my perspective on them in the hopes of challenging people to think a bit deeper. If nothing else, it will just reinforce how important 'show' and 'tell' are for individuals if they don't agree with me after considering my perspective. Either way, I feel I've done my part.

 

And sometimes a question leads to a discussion and people learn more than just the answer to that one question.

Feel free to join the discussion (instead of just commenting on it), it's great fun! =D

 

Good point. All psychologists are obviously insane. Will keep that in mind!

I don't agree.

And I hope you're talking about actual books on editing, and not books to teach writers how to edit their own books. Just because it says 'editing' in the title, doesn't mean it's a book on editing, and is probably actually a book on writing.

I don't have a comment, just wanted to quote for emphasis.

You mean, as long as you already understand and agree with the lesson?

Pro tip: the best 'lessons' are often not the ones that have been adopted by the mainstream as the norm or conventional wisdom. Most of the best lessons are the ones in their infancy that are becoming a new way of doing or looking at things, that will lead to the conventional wisdom of the future.

I think we can all agree that 'show, don't tell' is accepted as a standard, the norm, conventional wisdom. I think where we disagree is whether that means it's 'good' or 'right' or at least always will be.

But eventually you actually have to teach the man to fish. If the extent of your knowledge of fishing is that it's best to teach a man to fish instead of giving him one, then it'll be a frustrating day at the lake.

And how many fisherman think it's best to teach a man to fish instead of giving him a fish? If everyone learned to fish, or even COULD learn to fish, then fisherman would be go out of business.

But that's another axe to grind, the way writers often horde secrets and knowledge on the one hand, and make a living advising based on the conventional wisdom people generally already know anyway. There always seems to be two schools of thought in fiction: today's standard, and tomorrow's revolution. Imo it's imperative writers, if they hope to be successful, are informed of the former, while always searching to tap into that latter.