I believe if somebody thinks Showing=Good, Telling=Bad, they probably don't quite understand how these two storytelling tools work. It's not a matter of good or bad, it's a matter of choosing what works best in a given situation. Telling is more a matter of condensing time than anything else. Telling is a much faster way to convey information, but it doesn't have the emotional impact that experiencing a scene in real time will have. Personally, I 'tell' the reader about events that I don't want to spend a lot of time on. These might be bridging events between scenes, or information about what's been happening 'offstage.' You don't have to escort your reader through the entire story in real time. Instead you use 'telling' to condense some events, so the storytelling can move along at a reasonable pace and focus on what's important. You 'show' the reader important events you want them to experience in real time. You let us feel what the characters in the scene are feeling, etc, by letting us see what is happening to the characters and hear their thoughts. And let us draw our own conclusions. Try to avoid 'telling' us what to think about what you've showed us. Just show us what happens and let us make our own minds up.
Right, exactly. Unless there's something really important happening there it's fine to tell the reader that someone went to work, popped to the shops then came home. And once they get through the door you show them the argument that happens there. Good fiction does not have to apply to Dogma 95 rules. When you go on a car ride you should tell us that they arrive and leave out them singing along to the greatest hits of Simply Red most of the time. There's reasons why you would show their normal, boring life; to establish their character in the first instance, but in a general sense you need to be showing us the stuff that matters to the story and telling us how it fits together. And sometimes even telling us a bit about what you've shown us so we get the right message. The two things work together.
Yes, exactly. That's why I get bothered when people talk about how you should show and not tell. In a particular instance that might well be true. But in another instance, the opposite might be true. For example, if somebody 'showed' all the details of popping to the shops and then coming home, it might be a distraction from the main story, which has to do with an argument at home. Or that overused waking up schtick— 'hitting the alarm twice, fishing under the bed for slippers, staggering into the bathroom, brushing teeth, looking in the mirror and admiring her green eyes and red hair, choosing the black skirt and white blouse, applying makeup, going downstairs to make toast and have coffee before putting on the coat and leaving the house' —that so often opens stories. Seriously. Unless something important happens during that particular morning's ritual, better maybe to just tell us the person got up, went to work ...and then start showing scenes in detail that are actually important to the story. On the other hand, too MUCH telling results in a very flat recital of events and reaction. She got up and went to work. Her boss started calling her horrible names. She was very upset and ran out, screaming that she was quitting and wouldn't be back. He said he didn't care. So she went downtown and started looking at job advertisements in shop windows. Finally she found one that looked good, and went inside. The guy behind the counter hired her on the spot because he liked her looks. She put on an apron and started serving customers right away. Although she had to take a cut in pay, it was better than her old job, and she was happy not to get called horrible names. The end. Gosh, I'm so proud of myself. I really kept the word count down, didn't I? It's a good idea to study how to use these two writing devices, and understand what each of them can do for a story.
I think the received wisdom about 'show don't tell' is something that has a lot more complexity to it than really most people think about. It's some of the most basic advice that you can give someone about their writing and I think that it is good advice for a certain kind of novice writer (especially younger people) who is struggling to put some real feeling into their work; who's maybe rushing through the plot to get to the action and needs to slow down and let the story actually effect the reader. But 'show don't tell' is only really good advice if you are telling instead of showing and it shouldn't be construed as advice for all writing. It's silly on the face of it to suggest that a book can never tell and only show. Even movies, that are primarily visual can't do this. A movie where no-one ever gives exposition and where we're expected to figure out who everyone is without being explicitly told would be a weird indie film at best; dangerously avant garde at worst. We need to be told some things. Ideally uncontroversial things, things that aren't emotionally important, but that we need to know to put what we're being shown in context. We need to be shown impactful things. We need to feel along with the characters. But when it's not something that we're supposed to really react to or feel strongly about showing us is just dead words. It doesn't do anything for the book to show us that this character prefer English to Maths, you can just tell us that. To show us all the minutiae of someone's life would take, well, their whole life. Telling us takes six words. And as long as what you're telling is normal and reasonable for the character it's fine just to tell us in a few words.
Do you naturally 'show as you go' ? @jannert I seem to struggle writing in that manner. My initial drafts resemble your girl went to work, quit and got hired elsewhere paragraph (masterpiece ). I've found it's the speediest way for me to get my thoughts down re. progressing the bare bones of a story. I spend way more time in the second draft picking relevant bits, elaborating on them and filtering out the filtering, if that makes sense.
The trick for me is to slow down and spend a lot of time visualising my scenes. I live within the scene for a while, before I actually start writing it. Even a few hours a day, until I just must get it written because it's bubbling away. I imagine what is being said (and scribble down dialogue), get to where I know exactly what people look like, what their facial expressions and body language are like, how they feel. I don't decide what these things should be, I let them actually evolve. Before I write them. Try not to just tell us what happens. Let us experience what happens along with your characters, and make sure you know the purpose of the scene. If you know the purpose of WHY you're writing a particular scene, it helps you get beyond just telling us what happened. You want the reader to take something important from the scene, or come to an understanding about something, or begin to doubt something. That helps you direct your scene so that the relevant details are important and get recorded. That's a relatively new trick for me, but it works. If you like to preplan by telling yourself all the events in order, or whatever, do that for your own reference by all means. But when it comes to actually writing the story for real, slow it down. Enter the world you're creating and live there for a while. There is a lot more to writing fiction than just whacking away at a keyboard. The stuff needs to live in your head and heart before it will touch somebody else's. Just pick up any book you've enjoyed reading and see how the author draws you in and keeps you going. You can maybe help yourself by summarising one of their chapters or scenes in a few short sentences. In other words, 'tell' what happened. Then go back and see how they actually wrote it. This kind of exercise may help give shape to how you create your own story.
Although not addressed to me I think I can answer somewhat; in that I believe that to some degree every story starts with some degree of telling even if it takes a variety of different forms. Some people will make a plan of all the story beats they want to use, they might even write out what every scene is supposed to include. And this is all very brusque and concise and flat with no feeling. Just a few lines to say "Jane gets home, they argue, she's upset." And how different is that really to writing out a draft of the story that is more fleshed out but still tearse? It's not that much different. For me when I'm actually writing I have no problem with 'showing as I go'. In fact I know that I show too much. I never know where to stop and I just want to keep on showing everything even when it's not some big deal. But even as a strong proponent of writing off the top of my head without a plan I still have some idea of where I'm going and what I want the big moments in this story to be. I have these things in my head, these moments that I know are going to be a huge deal but that I haven't gotten 'in the moment' with the characters with. I know what they are, I know they'll be tear jerking, I know they'll be awesome. But I haven't shown them until I actually put pen to paper. When I do get to those scenes then it's no problem at all for me to get all the stuff I want into it, or even in scenes where I don't really know what I'm doing. But for all that, it only works because I have something told in my head to work around. So don't worry about 'showing as you go'. If your process works for you and you're able to get it down how you like, even if you do need to be more conscious of showing on a second draft, then it's fine. It doesn't make you a worse writer because you don't naturally show as you write. Naturally all I ever do is show, and honestly I think that's a weakness in my writing. I think that I badly need to learn to be more concise in my first drafts, to know more instinctively what stuff is a big deal and what stuff I can let slide.
I kind of disagree with that, although I'm sure the balance comes with practice. But I feel it's easier to write fully, then cut out the excess later, than it is to try to add life to flat writing. You're giving yourself a lot of material to work with, if you write in full-on showing mode. Later on, you can condense the bits that turn out to be peripheral or simply transitions. However, adding emotion and vividness to a flatly-constructed plot-heavy story? I suspect that's harder to do. However, there are probably people who do this well. It would be interesting to hear from them, and discover how they can work from flat to full. Is there anybody out there who writes this way?
It's certainly easier for me writing in my natural style to write a lot of material and then cut back; I literally don't know another way to write and I think it's served me pretty well so far in my writing. But it takes me longer to edit a book than it takes me to actually write it. The process of shrinking 170k or even 220k into 100k is not trivial and I absolutely loathe having to do it, and I really resent having to spend so much time in editing instead of the actual expressive writing. I'm sure for lots of writers having too much material is a good problem to have; and I can't say it's prevented me writing what I want to write but it's still not where I'd really want to be. I can reasonably write a book, even a 200k long first draft in twelve weeks. But then it takes me six months to edit it and that's not where I want that balance to be. I do definitely want to get my first drafts closer to the final book; try to have no more than 30 or 40k to cut from them, and be more discerning and considered in where I let myself just write freely.
I'm figuring there's no right or wrong way—more a way that suits a writer's personality. I don't think my method could be any more opposite than yours @LostThePlot—the biggest issue I face is actually completing something before the interest/enthusiasm for it wanes. I if create something skeletal that holds the info of the beginning, middle and end then, to my mind, I have a completed frame that gives me a greater incentive to go back and adorn it. My mindset's very binary too which may have a bearing on things—sometimes I feel sharp and productive (but impatient with it); other times see me mellow/philosophical-like (yet weirdly able to express myself more creatively). Having two or three stories on the go, at various stages of development, enables me to attach my mood to the most relevant. I guess I am a 'flat to full' type writer @jannert. This accounts mostly though for the short stories I cobble together (cobble? well more build than sculpt I'd say) . They're ostensibly pantsed with their outline only living in my brain for the duration that I frantically draft. The longer stories (novel attempts)—they're drawn up by sharpies mind map / herringbone style with a timeline threaded through them. That then becomes the flat object that I try to pump/plump full with life.
Whatever works to keep you motivated is the way that you should generally be approaching things. I can certainly see why having that skeletal structure works for you, particularly in helping you stay motivated and interested. Problems with writing are all in your head and whatever problems makes you feel you want to keep going is a good thing. But having said that; your approach and my approach isn't as different as you might think. I don't write stuff down, I don't make plans but I do have two or three really big moments in my mind. Not in detail, but something that when I came up with the idea made my eyes light up. Something dark and weird and painful and awesome that I know I want to do, that fits with the concept and the world and I just leave that in my head and write the book chronologically. And what keeps me going is knowing that everything is going to run through these big crossroad moments. Even when I'm writing otherwise not especially engaging scenes I know where everything is going to join up and that ball-tingling anticipation for making my characters fall apart and scream and cry is what it's all about for me. You keep writing to the end because you know what the ending is and want to make sure you get that written. So do I. I just do it a bit differently.
Well, you probably have a lot fewer structural problems to solve after you've written each story, because you saw the bones of the thing at the beginning. I think there is a lot of merit in the flat to full model of writing, if you can do it. I wouldn't try it with a novel, myself, because a novel is such an immersive experience. But if I ever try writing another short story, I will try that method. Because I'm such an immersive writer, my short stories always end up LONG. Maybe if I try another method, I could do it!
This brings us to that old but useful saw, "the first draft is the writer telling him/herself the story". This is probably especially true for someone who does not plan extensively. So, your method makes perfect sense to me. And whether you excessively "show" or militantly "tell" in your first draft (or even several early drafts), what matters is that you have a process to bring it to balance.
Reiterating what everyone else has practically summed up, I think, if you write in a style that suggests to the reader (sub-consciously or consciously) that they should be following a specific plot or section of a novel, it really discourages one from reading any further due to the fact it takes away the whole point of following the book. A good analogy of this might be one of the popular crime/detective series: NCIS. If the producers of that show told you subtly what was happening through the whole story - there would be little to no point of watching the programme. I believe it all comes down to surprising the reader. If the reader is expecting an event to happen, which is then flung around in a drastic U-turn; it really adds to the plot-line of the book - hence the popularity of the book rises in the same drastic manner. That's why an author like Stephen King (who does tell the reader what's going on occasionally) gets away with it, because his plots suddenly twist around to a different perspective just when you thought you had sussed them.
Agreed, and an awareness to know the balance needs to be brought. I like your phrasing 'excessive showing' and 'militant telling' btw. Structure's my comfort blanket Jannert, that's not to say I don't get caught out. Presently trying to (covertly) stitch a patch of backstory into WIP Also, you could trick yourself into writing an appropriately short...short story. Convince yourself you're working on a flash fiction and just apply your natural style.
When the author writes the information in the narrative, whether than having the characters speak about it.
Flash-what-now? You mean... *gasps* ...People write fiction that's shorter than a book? I don't... Understand...?
I'm confused. This seems to contradict However, in any case, you can use narrative for telling or showing, and you can use dialogue for telling or showing.
*raises hand* I'm SethLoki and I'm a flasher. It's procrastination in short-form, the lesser-guilt alternative to forum hanging and writing about writing. < I think a lot of us here are guilty of that!
Aha! You 'get' me so well! Pretend I have to condense my writing into only two paragraphs, and I'll end up with five pages. Yup. That's how I work.
Yeah, I'm with @ChickenFreak on this one. Dialogue has nothing to do with it, really. While most dialogue is 'showing,' lots of narrative is showing as well. It's hard to explain, but it has to do with the 'real time' idea. Are you condensing something by just telling us what happened? Jane was carrying a laundry basket when she slipped at the top of the stairs, fell down, and broke her arm. (telling) Or are you allowing us to experience the fall? Jane's foot slipped. She flung the clothes basket away and snatched at the bannister railing, but missed. In what felt like slow motion, she realised she was going down—head down—and there was no way to stop it from happening. In desperation, she flung one arm out to break the fall; her arm cracked when it hit the step. Buttons scraped off as she slid all the way to the bottom, teeth rattling in her head—and then she was sprawled, face down, atop a pile of scattered laundry. After a few numbed seconds—agony—her arm! (showing) There is nothing wrong with either choice, depending on what your story is about. If you simply want to explain how Jane ended up in hospital (where she meets the love of her life—which is what the story is about) the 'telling' scene will do very nicely. It's only a means to an end. However, if the story is about how Jane copes with being all alone in the house and badly injured, the second 'showing' scene might be a better choice. You're following her in real time.
Personally I prefer having a long, thick... Book in my hand. There's just something so much more satisfying when you give it to someone and see their eyes light up; something short never grabs them the same way *finally gives in and sniggers* You guys need a new name. I don't think you'll get many recruits as the flashers. Or at least you'll have some embarrassing double bookings.
Not sure I would agree with this. Every time a character brings out a facet of the story through dialogue, it's "telling".
But you, the writer, are actually 'showing' what is being said—whether the speaker of the dialogue is telling or showing. You, the writer, are not condensing the event into its core meaning. Your speaker might say: "I went to the shop, and realised I'd left my bag at home." Or you (the writer could say) When she got to the shop, she realised she'd left her bag at home. However, in a passage of dialogue the speaker will be saying this to somebody else in real time. The conversation she's having is what's actually taking place at that moment—whatever its subject might be. You're showing us the actual conversation, not what prompted it.
