Show me, don't tell me!

Hello all,

I'm often told by professional writers that good writing is showy and not telly. I greatly appreciate that and am aware of it while I write. Having said that, I sometimes find it difficult to show as opposed to tell. In this thread, I will ask about situations where I'm trying to "show" and hopefully get suggestions from you.

 

This is my first question: I'm trying to describe a situation where a couple go shopping. The woman comes out of the dressing room. The man is thoroughly impressed but he is trying to hide it. I want to show his amazement and I would appreciate your suggestions. This is what I have:

Julia stepped out of the dressing room in a dress molded to her body. Leo somehow managed to hide his amazement. Her dress whispered her beauty.

"What do you think Leo? The dress is kind of begging me to buy it," she said, twirling in the gown.

"Yes, and now it's begging me to tear it up to have you," Leo answered in his mind. "Look, you know you would look great in a rice sack. So you don't need it. The price tag is kind of scary!" he said, trying to hide his amazement.

 

This show and tell business can be hard to work out. I think it's sometimes easier to see in someone else's piece than your own. Also, sometimes the tell can work fine, depending on context and what is being told. Again, maybe easier to recognise what does or doesn't work rather than define. I know I've read distinguished authors giving show and not tell and I didn't feel cheated when reading it.I

In your scene, your character is bristling with amazement that he is struggling to control and disguise. Telling us is not enough. Picture your scene and Leo's internal dialogue. Then imagine what he is doing, how he is behaving. Body language, voice tone, eye movement, whatever gives a glimpse of what he is truly thinking. Try some versions of that instead of the rather dull telling. Maybe give us a more vivid picture of Julie and Leo's reaction will tie in better if you capture why she is so amazing.

 

Stephen King made it pretty clear to me—he said telling is done in narration, and showing in action. That means it shouldn't be the narrator speaking, or anyone's thoughts or feelings, but action. And that means use action words and let us see what's happening.

This is pure telling. The narrator just straight up told us he tried to hide his amazement. Instead you must do it through action... let me try.

'Leo swallowed hard, but recovered his composure quickly and pretended to be unruffled.'

I still had to do some telling in the second part of the sentence to make it clear what was going on inside his head. And since that's an important part of the sentence, that probably can't be avoided. I mean, I can show him swallowing a lump or goggling his eyes, but the reader needs to know why, and I'm not coming up with a way to show that without narration. I could but it would take a few sentences rather than one, And that's the thing with showing, it usually does take longer, but is also stronger and more visceral.

 

This is one of the situations where this book: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression/dp/1475004958 can be useful. Even if you don't use any of the suggestions for say 'Amazement', it can still maybe guide you to the right direction of how the character may internally or externally respond.

I'm new here, so my suggestions are probably just as much to get feedback for myself, so here goes:

I think the suggestion to provide the body language, voice tone, internal dialogue is the way to go, which the book above may help with. Also maybe describing the dress in detail may also provide a more vivid image. Maybe something like:

"Julia stepped out of the dressing room in a blue silk dress that advertised her every curve. Leo's heart skipped a beat as he struggled to keep his eyes from exploring every inch of her body. Her dress whispered her beauty.

"What do you think Leo? The dress is kind of begging me to buy it," she said, twirling in the gown. Leo offered no response. "Leo?"

"Oh, it looks good on you. But the price tag is kind of scary!"


"heart skipped a beat" - this is cliche, may not be the best expression but you get the idea.

 

... And THAT ^^ is what I meant by taking a few more sentences to get across why he did what he did. Well done Bruce.

 

Going to have to agree adding details and smoothing the dialogue as
Bruce has done, is the way to go.

 

Here's another way to explain it that might make it more understandable.

Telling just tells us what's happening inside a character, things you wouldn't be able to see physically—their thoughts and feelings. With showing you're outside of the character, seeing their actions and attitude through body language and facial expression as well as direct actions.

It's literally showing what the character looks like and is doing in the moment, as if the reader is watching a movie. Internal thoughts and feelings can't be shown, in a movie you could only get those across through voice-over, right? So that's telling.

 

She took hold of his massive rod, running her hands over it and feeling the smooth, velvety skin. - Showing

He gave her his oversized fishing rod, which had a leather-bound grip. - Telling.

 

Are these sentences telly? How can they become showy?

-John gazed pensively at the glass in front of him, lost in thought.
-John stared pensively out the window.

 

They're both telly.

John gazed out of the window, his brow furrowed as a jumble of thoughts raced through his brain. The tangled images darted in and out of focus, as he struggled to latch onto one and bring it into sharp relief.

Just be aware that there are times when it's more efficient to tell rather than show. Telling can be a way to move the story forwards to a relevant point quickly.

 

This is very intriguing. It seems to be showing, or at least very close in that grey zone in between, and yet it takes place entirely in the character's head. That seems to go against King's idea, that showing takes place in action rather than narration. But then, maybe thought can be action at times, just as dialogue can if it's well written—if it powerfully affects the people involved

It feels showy because you used good strong verbs as well as a solid subject-verb structure, and you avoided all the weasel verbs like felt, thought, saw, heard, remembered, realized, understood etc. It seems there's some really powerful stuff clunking and grinding inside his head! And you didn't just tell us it's happening, you made us experience it along with him. To me it feels close enough to qualify as showing, though I'm not sure that's technically true. But then, as writers I think most of us are less concerned with technical than with what works.

 

Then am I now Jedi, master?

 

You are. You have forged your lightsaber. Use it well. And kill without mercy.

 

Is this piece I have written showy enough? Can I make it more showy?


As they were driving home later that night, Jack tried to joke with Nicole in the hope of having a night of passion with her. "I gotta tell you, I think your attractiveness is a reflection of your mom's. She's hot!" he said.

"You think my mom is hot?", she scolded. "That is super weird."

Realizing the gaffe he'd just made, Jack went into damage control mode. His eyes were moving fast between her furrowed brows and the road. A cold sweat began to trickle down his face. "No, I mean she is hot because she looks young just like you," he stuttered. A red light began to flash in his mind. When you are in a hole, stop digging, said his inner voice.

Uncomfortable, Nicole shrunk back in her seat. An awkward silence descended.

 

No, it's still tell, not show. You've told us that Jack tried to joke with Nicole because he wants to sleep with her. Then you tell us he's realised he made a gaffe.

Show us that he wants to sleep with her. Show us through his dialogue, his actions, his words, not by telling us that he wants to. Show us that he's desperately trying to backtrack. You don't need to tell us that he's in damage control mode if you can show us.

And don't do it by overdoing the physical reactions. The cold sweat is just cliché.

 

Do you understand what narration is? That's the key to it. The narrator is the person telling the story (note I said telling). Interestingly, here are your own words from above:

You straight up TOLD US you were going to tell us! And then you did.

Aside from furrowing his brows, everything was told in narration or in dialogue, and not the kind of dialogue that counts as action. It can be action if it has a powerful emotional effect on the characters. But in this case you just told us it had a powerful effect:

If you say things like "in his mind" or "He realized" or "He understood", you're telling the reader about things happening inside the character's mind, things we can't see and that have no direct impact on anything except in the character's mind.

As an exercise, try writing about animals for a while. Interacting in powerful ways, doing things and having things done to them that impact their lives powerfully. But don't tell us what they're thinking or feeling. Express that only through their actions.

Or write about people, but don't take us inside their heads—don't explain what they're thinking or feeling. Just use actions and reactions.

 

Telling:


Showing:


Stay out of people's heads. Don't mention their thoughts, feelings, memories, ideas, plans etc. Voice-over is narration, and telling happens in narration. Showing happens in direct action. Show us body language, movement, facial expression. It might help to think of a story like a movie. Use silent passages (no talking, no thoughts etc) for powerful showing.

I want to state clearly, before somebody misunderstands and calls foul on me—the silent movie stuff, with no talking and no voice-over etc, represents absolutely pure showing. I use it here for demonstration purposes, to make a clear distinction between what is showing and what telling. You wouldn't use pure showing for long in a story. You pepper it in here and there, for important stuff that needs to be impactful, and then you return to using anything and everything, to narration with some telling, etc.

 

I'm not entirely sure I buy this whole deal of showing only being in narration.

I'm thinking about a particular passage by King, in Salem's Lot. The gravedigger is burying a (unbeknownst to him) vampire after a funeral. He's alone.

The only thing that really happens in the scene before the climax is that he goes to his car and comes back to the unfilled grave. The rest of it, takes place in his head - his feeling of being watched, what he imagines the corpse is doing, etc. I definitely wouldn't call it telling and it's very, very creepy.

As you said earlier, dialogue is action. Even by King's definition, it is because it is something observable by a third party. Thoughts are a substitute for dialogue, as if the character is speaking out loud.

 

Not always. I forget who wrote the book where I learned it, but dialogue can be passive or active, depending on the direct impact it has on the people involved. And as you showed a little ways up, narration can be very active as well.

I'm like you though—since reading that little nugget by King I remain open-mindedly skeptical about it. I hadn't tried to test the idea myself yet, the first time I saw it bent seriously since reading it was your post above. But I'm still testing the hypothesis. Maybe it's just a rough guideline. In fact that seems to be all we really have when it comes to showing and telling, you almost have to be able to feel the difference.

Of course, not everything King writes is showing either. I wonder how he handled that scene? I suspect like dialogue, narration can be active and feel like showing at times. Well, you showed us it definitely can. I suspect he wrote it in a very showy way. Wish I still had the book so I could check.

Also important, he didn't say all narration is telling, just that telling is done in narration.

 

My view, and I'm new to this, is that it's always preferable to show if the thoughts, fears, etc. can be portrayed through action. Sometimes they can't.

A soliloquy is really a one person dialogue but it's basically thinking out loud.

Back to Stephen King, I'm reminded of this passage from 'Secret Window, Hidden Garden' (don't get angry, I only know it from the movie and didn't know it was based on a book by King until now):

"I know I can do it," Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl. "I'm sure that in time her death will be a mystery, even to me."

Here's there's both showing and telling though, I guess.

 

Hello @Xoic , would you have/know of any good passages that demonstrate this advice? I keep a scrapbook of well-crafted sentences that I dip into occasionally, not so much to memorise/plagiarise, but to remind myself of (and subconsciously absorb) this aspect of the craft. Cheers.

 

Here's a short passage from the part in Salem's Lot I mentioned:
It occurred to him that the feeling of being watched had stopped as soon as he could no longer see the coffin nestled at the bottom of its hole. He had a sudden mental image of Danny Glick lying on that little satin pillow with his eyes open, No-that was stupid. They closed the eyes. He had watched Carl Foreman do it enough times. Course we gum ‘em, Carl had said once. Wouldn’t want the corpse winkin’ at the congregation, would we?

Now, the first sentence is exactly what we spoke about earlier - "occurred" as one of the weasel words. But how else do we show this?

Then the rest of the paragraph takes place entirely in the character's head - it's his internal narration.

You could argue this is all telling, but I don't think it is. It's showing - showing what's going on with the character's thoughts and emotions, but it's not something an outside observer could see.

 

Telling is often when you use adverbs and adjectives instead of expanding on those terms. Amazement is a noun, but it too removes the need to actually paint the picture of what's going on.

The fix is deceptively simple. Replace adverbs and adjectives and place holder terms with a description of how you see your characters acting in the scene. I said deceptively simple because not every author sees these scenes in their heads in great detail. Adjectives and adverbs are short cuts that get around us having to see how things actually play out.

This is how I see this playing out in my mind's eye:

Leo slammed his jaw shut with a loud click. He couldn't afford to let her see how much it was affecting him, but he might need an urgent cold shower to alleviate the growing tightness in his trousers if this kept up much longer.​

She didn't smirk or seem to react to his slack jaw or his over correction. He might have got away with it, but he was now self conscious and could feel the heat of a blush starting. He quickly turned away and coughed to get a moment to compose himself. Setting a hopefully not insincere smile on his face, he turned back towards her. ​

The trouble with using place holder terms is it frees up your reader to fill in the blanks themselves. This can quickly lead to dissonance between what your reader sees in their mind's eye and what you as the author want or need your reader to see.

I can almost guarantee that what I described from my mind's eye isn't what you saw when you wrote the piece. I may have ascribed actions and feelings to Leo that are actually completely out of character for him. This could quickly turn off your readers because they won't see your character as believable or internally consistent when they read passages that contradict their own perceptions of Leo.

So the take home is to describe what is going on and, by doing so, let your readers get to the conclusion themselves that Leo was amazed. As a bonus, at the same time, you're also taking the opportunity to flesh out your character. Good luck!