So i'm in the process of writing my first novel and was wondering if anyone had any advice for showing not telling, making the images pour of the page with words. At the moment my first few chapters feel like i'm reading a church leaflet or some grocery shopping book but i need to really illustrate whats going on, i understand what words are perceived differently by different people but theirs always room for improvement, thanks!
I think it's important to first have a really good grasp of your POV and goals for the scene. If we understand "showing" as essentially a technique for engaging readers' brains and making them pay more attention to certain aspects of the scene, then you'll understand that there are huge parts of the scene that will either be skipped entirely or simply "told". So understand your POV for the scene so you can figure out what your character would be interested in, and understand your goals for the scene so you know which aspects you want your readers to be interested in. Like, if your POV character is an innocent young child being lured into an alleyway with a puppy and your goal is to create a sense of dread in your reader, then you'd "show" the details of the puppy from the child's POV, but you'd also find a way to "show" readers that the scenario is all wrong and there's something bad in the alley.
Also be aware that show don't tell is an oft misunderstood cliche, a good writer will both show and tell where necessary so its a balance not an either/or - a book that was all showing would be deeply tiresome. That aside I use the acronym SSHTT ( practice sshtt to stop your writing being sshtt is how i remember it) sight, smell, hearing, touch taste - ie show the reader the Pov character (or the MC if its omni) experiencing the important aspects, so that essentially they can experience it too. If the POV allows acess to the characters thoughts you can also add thoughts and feelings, but on the latter its a good idea not to describe everything, but instead let the reader feel it from the SSHTT.... e.g rather than writing Joe was horrified ... show us what hes seeing, hearing, smelling touching and/or tasting which make him horrified. Likewise don't write "bob was angry about his girlfriends infidelity" show us "you faithless whore" bob screamed "how many have there been huh, I bet you did the 2nd eleven and the linesmen, ref and half the ****ing spectators too" Lisa watched through her tears as Bob stormed out, the slam of the door sounding as hollow as her life" (yeah its over written, especially the last line - I exaggerate for effect in examples) " Another thing to bring images to life is simile and metaphor .... Josh ate like a pig is a simile , Josh was a pig is a metaphor (unless Josh is actually a pig in which case its neither)... similes and metaphors help us envisage the scene more graphically... e.g if you write "blood pumped rapidly from the bullet wound" we can probablty see it in our minds eye but its not as visual as "purpley red blood fountained from the wound, spattering the walls like paint"
Show versus tell can get out of hand, as all stories have some combination of the two. Sharp, strong prose is more important. Look how reducing and editing your post sharpens and quickens the pace: The first few chapters of my book reads like a church leaflet, or a grocery shopping book. What can I do to get the story to leap-off the page? Thanks! Telling: Ray got so mad he could have hit Rob. Showing: Ray clenched his fists and glared at Rob. Telling: Rose didn't want to embarrass Frank by calling attention to the underwear laying on the floor. Showing: Rose pointed at the picture on the wall, then scooted the panties behind the door. Editing is where the real magic happens. Look for ways to strengthen and sharpen your prose by removing words and sentences that don't carry weight.
thats still not very evocative showing... how about Ray felt the shock of the punch tremble up his arm, plasterboard (drywall if you're in the US) powdered against his fist. "that should have been your face" he snarled at Rob.
One person's "evocative" is another person's "overwritten". And one sentence may be evocative if balanced with sparser prose, but if the entire passage is worked to the same degree it can be too much. Each author has to find her own style and then play with it, I think.
I read something the other day about this topic. Essentially it said, show emotion, tell feeling. Don't show is that her eyes were bloodshot, her muscles failing to pick up another stupid box. Tell us she was tired. Don't tell she was angry. Show us that she was shaking, her fists balled so tightly, her nails dug into her palm. I don't know if this is an accurate piece of advice, because I'm not an expert on this topic. But it seemed interesting.
I'm not sure I get the distinction between feeling and emotion? And I'd say that if the main idea of the passage is that she was tired, it should probably be shown. If the main idea of the passage is something other than that she was angry, it should probably be told. I really think it comes down to deciding what your readers should be spending their time on.
It's all a feel thing. I find that amateur writers use their tells like topic sentences in an academic paper. They'll start a paragraph with something like, "Lisa regretted getting married as early as she did." and then launch into supporting "showy" sentences about why Lisa felt that way and how things that happened in her life brought her to that conclusion. More often than not, simply eliminating the topic sentence leaves the reader with a nice showy description that allows us to draw our own conclusions. There's nothing inherently wrong with tells until you cheat the reader out of their imaginative interaction with a story. It's okay to say, "Joey hated lima beans." Showing that would probably be a waste of word count. But picture shit--the things that really make a character tick--should be handled organically whenever possible.
Ok, so I have two different things to say to the above concern: 1) You mention concern about the way the first few chapters read and then say that you "need to really illustrate whats going on". Are you 100% sure that this need is really true? A lot of us - especially at the beginning - get caught up in spoon-feeding and hand-holding the reader. We unintentionally underestimate the reader's ability to connect the dots and sometimes come off a little condescending. Again, that last bit is usually unintentional, but it's what happens. 2) You're going to get all kinds of different opinions on what show is and what tell is in this thread and in pretty much every venue you go searching for illumination on this topic. Try not to get too frustrated when you seem to get a lot of conflicting opinions. I think a lot of that has to do with how granularly the person is regarding the topic. Is this scene show? Is this paragraph show? Is this sentence show? Is this clause show? Are these two words show? Is this one verb show? I don't think it's really possible for the answer to stay the same, especially when you start getting down to the really small parts. And honestly I don't think the last three in that little list even make any sense. I've seen examples in books where She reached across the table to grab the salt is given as a tell example and then She grabbed the salt off the table is given as a show example. The reasoning being that the tell example tells us of her intent, while the show example shows us the simple action. I don't think the aforementioned set of examples is a good way of looking at the paradigm and I think it confuses the matter by getting too pedantic about things that are barely different from one another. It's a mindset that tries to make everything fit into one category or the other, and I think there are some things that are simply other. "Is this a dog or a cat?" Wrey had that tone that said he already had an answer and just wanted me to agree with him. "Well, it's actually a rabbit, Wrey," I said, knowing this was not going to go well. "No, no. It's got to be either a dog or a cat. Those are the only two answers. Nothing else." Wrey's eyes were a little glossy. Not good. "Okay... Wrey... If I'm forced to pick, then I say dog." That answer smelled as bad as the ass I just pulled out of. "See! I told y'all! It's a dog!" I could see the rabbit try to wriggle free, one long back leg scratching Wrey's side. I shook my head. Poor Wrey. Sometimes these discussions really are as silly as that. Best advice I've seen yet is in the following post. Simple, direct, doesn't get bogged down in pedantry. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/show-dont-tell-is-kicking-my-butt.144045/#post-1410122
IMO show don't tell is also a very bad choice of words because EOTD all writing is telling (unless you are doing comics/manga), so its no wonder new writers get confused. The other trap not to fall into is he said/did adverbly as in Rob was angry = telling, "you ****" rob shouted angrily .... everybody uses adverbly sometimes and it's fine in moderation but its not a magic bullet for every show... in the example above "You ****" rob shouted would be sufficient if the rest of the context shows his anger I once counted 38 instances of adverbly on page 1 of a self published novel ... it was tiresome, and in fact in some of them would have been better as straight tells
Thanks for the advice, looks like its very situational as to how i write up my story, ill defiantly focus on prose to get to the point whilst trusting the reader to be able to connect the dots themselves And yes i'm very accustomed to writing academic papers so i need to try and break out of that mindset and hopefully ill develop some kind of style!
Hi OnesieWrites. You present great questions that not only encourage me to think upon the very same topics for my own writing but also allow me to benefit from the community here by reading their responses. Thanks for that. One little nugget I think I picked up along the way regarding the whole show vs. tell struggle is giving the reader the benefit of the doubt. Now certainly it depends a lot on your target audience. I would have much more tell than show for children for example but what I mean is if my target audience is say high fantasy enthusiasts I won't need to tell them much about dwarves and dragons to reel them into the story. Consider it this way; the majority of your audience already loves steak (steak being the genre). Your task is not to educate them about steak but to prepare a steak that is so delicious they can not put the fork down until they have devoured every juicy bite. Easier said then done I know but a worthy endeavor. Most readers don't just want you to tell them about something; they want you to take them there. Sights, sounds, seasoning. The sand between their toes type of thing. It takes a vivid imagination and a skilled tongue; neither of which I may actually possess lol but I do my best and encourage you likewise. Have fun cooking
Haha thanks dude, glad to be part of a community where i can ask these things and get speedy discussions going and yeah, i think i need to assume my readers know more than i think they do!
Yep. One of favorite aspects of our community too. Big enough to have lively discussion in real-time. Small enough to feel personal and neighborly.
I think it's very important to do what Bay View suggests here. Set a goal or purpose for a crucial scene. And see if you can get yourself beyond just ticking off plot points. You want to make the scene come alive for the reader. That means it has to have come alive for you. Put yourself in the persona of your POV character, and pretend you are that character. What is on your mind at the time? What are you noticing? What are you feeling? What are you doing? And what are the people around you doing? Or how is the setting changing. Don't fall into the trap of describing everything IN the setting, or every feature of every person in the scene. Instead, pretend you are that character. As the character, what are you actually noticing? You've been approached by a rather repulsive character. You're not necessarily going to notice that he's 5'7" tall, and is probably about 32 years old. Instead, you'll probably fixate on the person's grimy teeth and bad breath. Or that he's leaning closer to 'you' than you like? And you can't wait to get away? At the same time, you don't want to call attention to yourself because..... So ...write that scene.
Thanks, thinking about my scenes and the meaning in them has really helped me add more depth to the chapters! I feel like i tend to use telling when i have to get exposition or information to the reader, then followed by a bit of showing to give the readers minds a break and some imagery to process, so they don't feel like there slugging through loads of descriptions and info dumps and i can give the reader food for thought whilst they read!
I think it is important to remember that showing and telling aren't that different. Showing is just telling, where the message the writer wishes to convey is implied instead of explicitly stated.
Here's an example: I want to let people know my antagonist is evil, and he's the first character introduced. He doesn't do anything particularly evil in the first chapter, so I need my readers to feel that he's evil. Here is the passage where he introduced: I did a few subtle things here-- the reference to goat blood (especially in close proximity to the mention of horns) suggests a satanic element. While Zarakharn is not a satanist or anything like that (because he knows nothing of real-world religions such as Christianity, Satanism or the like) the allusion to goat's blood suggests evil on some level to the subconscious. I did a not-so-subtle thing-- I mentioned his claws made a sinister sound when he walked. I just slipped in there. It's not saying he's evil outright, but it gives an indication. Anyone could sound sinister when they walk and not actually be evil. But you might judge from that first impression that they're someone you want to avoid. And finally, I made him actually do something evil-- just a little hint. When he is presented with the petitions, he ignores a particular one. This shows a hint of corruption at the very least. Later in the chapter this is expounded upon. Maybe he's just annoyed the steward's taking up his time, but later in the same chapter it is revealed that he knows about their plight and allows it to continue. And then in the next chapter he straight-up murders a dude. Hooray for subtle hints!
I want that steak. Now. (wouldn't mind both a literal one and a metaphoric one in the form of a book) And as to the OP - another thing to consider (not sure if someone else hasn't said this already) is your point of view character. What would he/she notice? Consider what you really need to paint a picture - you need suggestions of something readers will recognise, things that can work as symbols that the general audience would interpret a certain way and thereby evoke a certain feeling in them. The trick is deciding which of these elements are worth mentioning, and then mentioning them almost in passing. So for example, let's say I describe a kitchen. You don't wanna hear about the oven and stove and fridge and sink. But what if I told you "All Mary could hear was the hum of the fridge"? You'd think it's a quiet place. There's probably no one else in the kitchen. You don't want to know that Mary has brown hair and blue eyes and maybe she's 5'4'' - but how about "She picked at the cereal stuck to her hair"? She's probably tired, probably a mother. Then the phone rings and, seeing the caller ID, she takes off her wedding ring. You don't need to know she has slippers on her feet. Telling and showing can be equally powerful - what matters is what particular details you choose to show or tell. In a way, you could say "showing" allows the reader to make a few assumptions based on your passage.
I think, for the most part, that this is what it ultimately comes down to. You have times when you want to imply things, because it allows the reader to make assumptions, or to guess at things, via the character. Use this to your advantage--you can let the reader into the head of your character, because sometimes the character is making assumptions and guessing at things. Implying can be really powerful. Invoke the reader's imagination, set the reader up for something that pays off later (maybe in an unexpected way). This gets the reader engaged and makes the character come to life. However, sometimes this isn't needed. If you're telescoping time, or if it's something that isn't important enough to delve into with this level of detail, just giving a quick tell line about it is often enough. That's why show don't tell is so misleading--in actuality, you need to learn when to show and when to tell. That comes with time and practice. And critique. Lots of critique.
Thanks! Loving the use of foreshadowing and subtle hints to get the reader thinking, ill be sure to use these to set up the shocking moments and plot twist!
