Yeah, you're right. I'm trying to be less overwhelming. I tend to be a thread killer and thought the forum would be better with the conversation going on without me. I do have some ideas for new threads. I might post one later and see how it goes. Maybe it will be one of those threads everyone comes back to. Maybe it will burn out instead of fading away. We'll see. Here's the simplest explanation I've ever found for rhythm in the paragraph. I know I've quoted it before, but it's lost in forum-post yesterday. Think of a story as a stream of information. At best it’s an ever-changing series of rhythms. Now think of yourself, the writer, as a DJ mixing tracks. The more music you have to sample from—the more records you have to spin—the more likely you’ll keep your audience dancing. You’ll have more tricks to control the mood. To calm it down to a lull. Then to raise it to a crescendo. But to always keep changing, varying, evolving the stream of information so it seems fresh and immediate and keeps the reader hooked. Then Palahniuk (he's the author of this) goes on to mention different sentence styles, varying 1st/2nd/3rd person, and something he calls big-voice/little-voice. I always thought of that as the voice of aphorism—and I'm the only one who calls it that, haha—but I know what he means. It's that grand voice that likes to switch into present tense and speak from afar. * There are quite a few other tricks he left out, but at least he said it, on page 1 no less. That's what will determine how a proportion error is fixed. Something was left unsaid and you correct it by looking at what the paragraph will hold and with what the paragraph lacks. You reshape the paragraph and give it a new emphasis. You're fulfilling story. You might be lifting tension, looking outward to the reader to fulfill the big picture, or any number of things. Your revision has to fit what's around it because no sentence exists as a lonely island. It bends about its neighbors so that they're all supporting one another like a Tetris tower. The contrasts hold them tight. Sameness breaks cohesion. (* I once wrote a story based solely on this conceit. I sold it to Pseudopod and they audio-booked it. They do that with everything they get. Pseudopod pays VERY good rates. I highly recommend them if you're looking for publishers for your short story. It needs to be spec-fic and somewhat dark though.)
Off the top of my head, Misery, Shining, Salem's Lot and Dark Half. Write about what you know and all that...
He really mixed up the formula with Lisey's Story, where the protagonist is only the wife of an author.
I really, really, appreciate the clarity and commitment to statement here. As for the content itself, yeah, well said. I agree. There, I fixed it for you. . I could be wrong, but it sounds like you do the whole sudo app get thing. And @Xoic, it's quite vital what you said above re: practising perspective. There's "Really the scene speaks to me and draws itself—anyone can do this if they set aside their preconceptions of reality," and there's "I'm able to more intuitively portray perspective now because I've drawn about five thousand cubes with horizon lines." Sometimes I think aspiring creators need to hear a lot more sentiment resembling the latter in all disciplines. Edit: further, I'll extend that in the sense that intuition/ability can be built on ignorance. You can be really good at something and mistakenly retro-associate one of the outcomes as an initial aid. It's why people will tell new drivers to just be confident and new socializers to just be yourself. Driving skill had to be honed. The social presentation (the yourself) had to be honed. But we forget...
It's the apt package manager (apt-get and apt are two separate things) for managing deb software packages, and while the kernel is distributed as a deb package (else you'd have to compile it yourself), it wasn't useful in my case. You can't really go deep with it, so I had to do things my way. That's off-topic though, and last thing I want is to cause another de-rail with this stuff, so let's stop there
With all due respect, this doesn’t sound right to me. But to paraphrase what you stated in the beginning of your post: if your understanding of show and tell is working for you, more power to you.
Some thoughts after reading all that and sleeping on it— First (and almost off-topic): It doesn't take thousands. Honestly it only takes probably a few dozen unless someone is having a lot of trouble with the concept. The main thing is just to struggle to understand the ideas, and to actually go in and do the practice. Drawing a dozen cubes, the last being better than the first, is far better than skipping the whole thing. And another dozen might just about do the trick. And on the general idea being discussed— It seems to me the main problem people have is with the bastadized phrase "Show, Don't Tell". Yes, there's more, but this is the main theme I see here. I need to talk around this a little to get to my point. There's a quote I saw recently in somebody's signature, attributed to some esteemed Asian gentleman, probably Sun Tzu who wrote The Art of War (not sure on that): "When ideas are understood, words fall away." And I think there's a general railing against the words going on here, because they don't perfectly express the ideas. I remember a conversation from shortly after I joined here, not sure if it was current at the time or an ongoing one and I went back and read it from the beginning. But it was about Show and Tell, and Wreybies was involved. And he busted out his idea of not thinking of these things as RULES, but as TOOLS. In other words learn how to use them properly and they become extremely useful, and then you can do with them whatever you want. It's basically another way to say what Sun Tzu said about words and ideas. @Friedrich Kugelschreiber and I both expressed essentially the same idea just the other day on another thread, where I went into some detail about the difficulties involved in clearly expressing your ideas to another person. They might not be paying attention, some of the words might have different associations for them than they do for you, they might have prejudices or biases that prevent them from seeing it the same way you do, etc. But yet all we can do is send the words, maybe in various different forms, and hope they can reconstruct something close enough to your original thoughts from them. And often this works remarkably well despite all the things that can go wrong. Not always of course. I completely agree that "Show, Don't Tell" are the wrong words put together wrong, and get across the wrong ideas. Unfortunately it's a nice pithy saying that caught on in a flash (sorry for Monster Mash reference) and refuses to die. And I totally agree we need to combat that distortion and try to get across the better set of ideas hidden under it. There is a certain utility in even the distortion though, because the problem most often is that beginners do everything through clumsy telling and nothing through showing. And then, once they've encountered the new set of ideas, they start clumsily showing and go way too far in that direction. This is how we learn—we lurch awkwardly one way and then overcompensate, back and forth a few times until we reach an equilibrium point. I'm NOT saying therefore we should just push "Show Don't tell." Not at all! But I do believe the ideas expressed on this thread are too advanced to give directly to beginning writing students. They're the kind of ideas we come up with after we've become thoroughly familiar with the concepts behind those unfortunate words. I do absolutely believe we should present the ideas of showing and telling while stressing that both are extremely useful, and that they need to be learned and understood. But something like a pithy statement is needed in the beginning. That's why Show Don't Tell caught on in the first place—it's memorable. My formulation is too much of a mouthful. Nobody is going to memorize it. I guess if it works it's because they remember Show, Don't Tell, and also my caveat. The point I'm trying to make is, the words don't have to be perfect. They have to get the ideas across. The vital thing is to help beginners understand these two concepts and how to use them. We have only imperfect words and sentences to do this with (unless we can come up with something better that's memorable). But that's actually how learning has always been done. Once you understand the ideas the words fall away. The rules are made, not to be slavishly followed or to be broken, but to be transcended. I think the ideas @Seven Crowns expressed above are advanced, and the ones @Not the Territory and I bandied about are intermediate. At the basic level—the level beginners need to hear, is something like Show and Tell and Do Them Well. No, it'll never catch on. But there's no way we're going to un-stick Show, Don't Tell from the lexicon anyway, so all we need is an attachment to it, a caveat, that explains it at a higher resolution. All this is my way of saying I understand where you guys are coming from, but I honestly think the best solution is to do what I've been doing. That's my solution anyway, we all have our own. After you've drawn those few dozen cubes and learned to do it right, you no longer need the guidelines. You can now vizualize in three dimensions (what you're really learning) and draw it properly. But you can't tell the drawing students "You need to develop a 3D rendering engine in your head". Well, you can, but what they actually need is to do the exercises and to be shown how to correct their mistakes (how to see them actually), and then they need the gumption to keep practicing until they get better. The rest will unfold naturally from there.
Sorry, @Xoic, but I fear you're making this more complicated. I understand show vs. tell, and I think a lot of people do even if they are struggling to put it into practice. But what you've got going on has me lost. I prefer to play with my words rather than pictures.
That's ok. I know this conversation isn't for everybody. I just was extremely curious about these comments people were making and wanted to understand what they were talking about.
(More IMO) Show/tell means "show me more," which is emphasis, really, and is fulfilling proportion by another name. The problem is that the solution given by show never takes into account where the words are going. That should be the first consideration, and IMO, it's the only consideration. You shouldn't ever be looking at a line and deciding that "it tells." That doesn't matter in the slightest. "Tells" are pure, forward-moving ideas and not mistakes. What you should do is look at your work and with the experience of reading many, many good paragraphs, feel that something is missing. You might read a paragraph and realize it's flat. The rhythm is locked in place. That creates many bad effects: purple prose (too much imagery), kindergarten prose (see spot, see spot run), poindexter prose (too many complex terms), detached/distant prose (not enough reader involvement), etc. Proportion says that there can be too much or too little, so add more of what's needed or chop what's in excess. You want shifting structures and purposes to your lines. Aside from the disingenuousness of using Chekhov's name, what bothers me about show/tell is it always turns to deep-POV, sensory writing, active verbs, etc. Go look up a few webpages on how to use show/tell and right under the Chekhov "quote" they'll always list these as fixes. I don't agree with that approach. Those are completely separate issues. What I've heard many posters mention, and what I believe myself, is that there are frequent caveats to show/tell. The reason for that is that aside from every fix needing to fit your voice, the fix also has to fill its own absence in the paragraph. There is a spot waiting for it because on some level the paragraph is monotonous. Something being oversaid ==> something is undersaid. If the fix breaks the paragraph by adding too much of a quality, then it's not a fix. That's why I say that the whole issue is really about understanding your paragraph. It's not about seeking out a "tell" and elaborating it. One way you can vary your sentences is by changing where they look to complete their message. "Tells" make a statement and are complete in themselves. An idea is said and that's that. "Shows" set up a premise which a reader must deduce. They don't explain their message. They rely on the reader to complete it. For example: Sensory details expect a reader to understand what those senses imply. Showing a few vivid details forces the reader to assemble the unsaid whole. Emotional language expects us to have experienced shared sentiments. Metaphor relies on the reader's logic and knowledge to grasp a comparison. Back in the day, religious language made the readers draw upon their faith to complete meaning (not so much anymore). I've noticed that the "show" fixes adore the above reader involvement (Quoth Jebediah, "Thou might fix a tell with a Bible passage."), but those type of fixes only work if the paragraph can hold them. When a paragraph is already stuffed with lines that are constantly looking out at the reader, then it becomes lost and won't get to the point (something tell does very well). When I read about nonstop dry mouths, sweating palms, dizzy heat, fluttering hearts, a pulse in the MC's throat, (sensory details) I want to drop the book on the floor and step on it. That's because these techniques can appear in excess. You want a rhythm that moves forward, looks to the reader, looks back into the story, floats up out of the paragraph for grand statements, etc. in a completely unpredictable motion. (That doesn't mean every neighboring line is different. That would just be another pattern. Clusters can appear.) You have to look to the source (the paragraph) and it will tell you what's missing, what needs to be emphasized. Whatever change you make has to fit there. It is very possible that none of the above bullet list will fit. That's because a "tell" might be perfect, and it often is. But all this is my approach. If you like show/tell and aren't too bothered about why those exceptions are there and what's really calling the shots, you're in the vast majority. The show/tell concept is set in stone. I only suggest that you might think about why show/tell doesn't always work, because there's a reason that "tell" is sometimes fine and "show" can make a section feel overworked. And IMO, that's really where a writer should be looking before revising.
Back when I did a lot of critiquing, I did much the same thing, initially. There's still some analysis going on in the approach you describe, whether it is conscious or not. I think it is more helpful for the beginner to explain to them the rationale behind the advice--why are you advocating showing or telling in that particular part of the work. But whether it is explained or not, there is a basis for the advice. What I dislike most about "show don't tell" is the rote recitation of it, as if a mantra, any time one encounters telling. That always seems to me to be lazy or to be an inexperienced critiquer who is falling back on it for lack of anything better to say.
IMO nearly every good writer deploys showing and telling, along with inference and omission. the trick is learning when to use which... the thing i notice a lot when i'm giving critique, especially for beginners is the unnecessary telling of things that have already been, or are about to be, shown... the general advice there would be show or tell but don't show then tell
Aw man, that's exactly what I was going to say (insert full range of smileys here). Seriously, and a lot more believable, that's one useful post. I am (still) new to creative writing but figure the big error writers make is disengaging the reader and that can arise for many reasons that are nuanced and sometimes beyond obvious fix. Or have numerous potential fixes. Regarding critique, often the best thing to offer is to identify where it began to unravel or was very strong, possible reasons for same and, depending level of expertise, giving suggestions that may or may not gel with the author's intent. From experience, it's helpful hearing back about something not working, confusing, disturbing my much more prosaic notion of rhythm; all that can identify deficits that need attention. Good writing, showing/telling/whatever, captures and holds the readers attention, satisfies enough of what we might be looking for to keep turning pages and get to the end with a sense of time well spent. What will do it for one might leave another cold. Purporting any formula (show/tell, serve the plot, brutalise your darlings) will miss the essence of that story by that author.
I definitely understand what you're saying, and I agree with all of it. But (you knew that was coming! When someone begins with "I agree with all of that" it means there's a but on the way.) I want to add that many of these techniques overlap each other and support each other, rather than being in opposition. Some of them are mainly different ways of stating the same things, and some include several other components within them. I found that thread I mentioned earlier with Wreybies talking about "Tools rather than Rules". Let me pull a quote from him: If you click on the upward-pointing arrow beside his name it will take to right to the thread. He wasn't talking about showing and telling, but about rules in general, and it started on a thread about mutiple POVs. I see the idea of showing and telling as sort of a small tool kit—a little portable one that holds several tools. Those same tools are in a few other small tool kits as well, but I'd need to think for a while to say what they are exactly. This is the first time I've tried to put this idea into words. This is what I mean when I say showing and telling is in many ways the same as what Seven Crowns means by what he said above (which doesn't have a simple name). His has some different tools in it that can be used to do largely the same things I accomplish through talking about showing and telling, though you have to use different methods since mine perhaps includes an electric orbital sander and maybe his has a block sander instead. Somewhere, I think it was on the thread but I'm having trouble finding it right now, Wreybies said that you want to learn how to use many different tools, so that you can handle different jobs, or so you have options for how to handle whatever job you're working on. A well-trained carpenter knows many ways to tacke the same problem, each of which will bring somewhat different results. All of this to say that I don't think we hurt anybody by pointing them toward things like showing and telling. Even though as Seven Crowns pointed out, it can lead to certain problems. As I've alluded to periferally a few times but don't think I've specifically stated yet, my main reason for talking about showing and telling is for teaching purposes. Not so much for critique, though the teaching does often take place in the context of a critique (maybe always). From having studied several other art forms, chief among them drawing and painting, I've come to understand the vital importance of learning basic principles. If showing and telling isn't actually a principle itself, it contains a couple of them, or is a way of getting several of them across in a way that beginners can easily latch onto. I also understand the importance of not trying to give a beginner advanced principles they're not ready for yet. It needs to be done in stages. Just as you wouldn't prop a baby on a bike and shove them off—they first need to learn to crawl, then walk, and then run. Then they're ready for the bike. I see showing and telling as a nice, easily-digested set of lessons that quickly help beginners get past some of the most egregious problems most of them suffer from. Yes, if they fail to grow and develop afterwards, and come to rely entirely on showing and telling, they might end up with certain bad habits. But that's not how I learn, and I don't think it's how most people do. Some do, those would be very dogmatic people who learn the 'rules' and then just push them on everyone. But most of us seem to develop and grow after we've absorbed a principle, so that within maybe a few weeks we can see things we couldn't before. Including realizing its limitations. Though that part may take a few years. I firmly believe that as we develop as writers, our taste develops. I believe some of the problems Seven Crowns pointed out come down to a matter of taste, like purple prose. Learning an artform helps you develop your taste, though we all have different aptitudes for it. But that can also be addressed here in critique. It isn't like that first critique you give is the only feedback they'll ever get. If you notice purple prose in their writing, you can simply point that out and bring it to their attention, maybe link them to a few videos or articles about it. Each of these things can be addressed separately, or we can give nice compact packages like showing and telling, which include several principles (I think) and are easily learned, and they help get beginners on their feet pretty quickly. I think I'm repeating myself. Time to stop.
Well duh! Seven Crowns already pointed out many of them! Deep POV, active verbs, action and description rather than doing everything through narration alone. I don't think any of these are inherently bad, and in fact they're more tools to add the the kit of most beginners, who know nothing about them usually. They're doing everything through shallow POV, inactive verbs (was, were, is), and all in narration rather than in description and action. It's like they're missing half of what writing is about. Yes, any of these things can become a problem if taken to an extreme, but that's true about all of our tools. And the problem for most beginners is that they aren't aware of any of these options yet. So linking them to some videos or articles about showing and telling quickly puts that other half of the writing toolkit into their mind. Yes, they'll probably use these things clumsily at first, like a baby struggling to walk. But that's necessary. You need to go through that struggle for a while before becoming facile with new ideas. And I believe anybody who learns about them and never develops any real facility just might not be much of a writer to begin with. Most of us will improve and figure out how to use these things decently in a while. And as I said, if they're having trouble in some area like purple prose, we can nudge them about that. To me a much worse problem is if they never learn the deeper and more active half of the toolkit. @Seven Crowns sorry, I don't mean to just say "My way is better"—I'm honestly thinking through these ideas, and I'm extremely glad you came in and wrote up your take on it. It's given me a new set of tools for evaluating the ideas behind showing and telling, and my take on it might change now as a result. Right now I'm in the stage of examining those ideas from a somewhat new perspective. But it's when we look at things in a new way like this that our ideas begin to expand. And I guess sometimes that begins with squaring off in opposition against the new ideas. As I've said elsewhere a few times, it's common for people to rail against your suggestions in a critique, and then a month later they're doing the things you suggested. Without ever admitting you were right or thanking you. And then if you say "Ah, I see you took on my suggestions" they'll be all like "Nuh-uh! I came up with this on my own dude!" It's not an easy process to let go of ideas or to take in new ones, and it involves fragile egos that want to feel they're right and in control.
I’m currently reading a science fiction novel — considered by most to be a classic of its genre — published in the mid twentieth century, in which the author ‘tells’ information I would have preferred him to show. Very narrator reliant. Very bird’s-eye view of how the world functions. Then I was reminded of two other sci-fi books I’ve read this year, both of which were published last century, that I also judged as having the same flaw. Now I’m wondering if excessive telling was more rampant (fashionable?) in that science fiction era?
I don't think it was considered excessive then. I believe the insistence on showing is pretty recent. But the good authors from Back In The Day knew how to tell with subtlety and power.
One of my favorite authors is Joseph Conrad. He does a lot of telling but he does it well. Having an engaging style or narrative ‘voice’ allows an author to do a lot more telling imo. The trend to more showing seems to align with the trend toward making the narrator invisible, which makes sense I suppose.
Perhaps. Though it’s likely you and I are far apart on what strikes us as subtle and powerful telling.
Yes! I agree with all of that. Omniscient narration was very common, and so were stories with a strong authorial voice. Some of my favorites are told in first person through a character with a strong dialect/accent, like True Grit or Huckleberry Finn. I suppose that's authorial voice coming through the narrator/character. They're sort of all rolled up into one and it gives the best opportunities for character voice.
As i mentioned on another thread James Clavell likes to tell to set the scene, i don't find it problematic. For me the issue with telling is when its used clumsily or unnecessarily as "Bob slammed the door and strode across the floor kicking the cat out of the way, he was angry." the same applies to showing - its good done well, its bad when its done poorly, like the guy who said that his dragon roared like a badly tune Ferrari..in a fantasy world where Ferrari's weren't a thing for me its also an artificial distinction because all writing is telling unless its a graphic novel or similar
Or possibly it aligns with the trend toward cinema-style writing, in which traditional free narrative is non-existent. But turning from the invisible prose narrator to the prominent cinematic narrator, there's this: It's rare that more-or-less mainstream TV series and miniseries appeal to me, and I didn't get into Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone. I tried, but I found it painfully conventional and moment-to-moment predictable, almost immediately full of one Hollywood cliché after the other. However, I was hooked by the second episode on the same writer-director's recent miniserial prequel to Yellowstone, titled 1883. It's every bit good enough to justify the requisite trial subscription to Paramount+. Indeed if money or commitment is an issue, one can watch the entire series for basically 99 cents by subscribing through (Amazon) Prime Video, binge-watching the 10 episodes of 1883 in under 7 days, and then canceling the Paramount+ subscription. One could even watch that way on a laptop, thus without needing any kind of TV-streaming box, only an okay internet connection. One of the key contributors to my enthusiasm for the series was Sheridan's choice to give 1883 a part-time narrator and to make her voice prominent. Had I not known the genesis before watching, I would easily have believed the series was a high-quality adaptation of a literary novel. As it progresses, it engages in a few forgivable tropes, but the voice and the journey into adulthood of the 17-yo female narrator-protagonist feel achingly authentic and intelligent. It disappoints me keenly that there is no underlying (and pre-existing) novel to turn to after watching, to revisit the story with even more depth. IMO the series surpasses Lonesome Dove.
Well, my POV is that written media is always telling. If you actually show, then it becomes a graphic novel or a movie. You just need to tell the story in an interesting and engaging manner. Which, of course, is the hard part.
You're missing the point of this writing advice. There is a way to show things with words. Learning about showing and telling as a writer is a great thing that can really elevate your work.
