I'm currently writing a chapter from the POV of a character whose eyes are closed the whole time, but I'm having a hard time 'illustrating' it and not making it sound like telling. Help! How do I 'show' a door slamming? (currently: There was a loud slam and the room shook) How do I 'show' boots walking or footsteps? (currently: Boots scraped along the floorboards) ...or is this a situation where I may need to or it is okay to just tell?
Actually those are pretty decent examples of showing I think. Using the word slam (or bang) is good, because it evokes the actual sound and feeling (transferring through the floorboards and the bones of the body). And same for boots scraping along the floorboards. Scraping evokes the sound and the feel of it. The telling way to do those would just be 'The door closed' and 'Someone was walking across the floor.' Showing doesn't have to be strictly visual, it just means to evoke the senses of the reader directly, which you're actually doing. It also means to go into a little more detail than telling usually does. You could add just a bit if you want, though I don't think it's necessary, especially since these aren't important plot points or anything, more like incidental actions (I think, could be wrong). But showing can be more than just evoking the senses. It can be done through dialogue, or through thoughts in the character's head, as long as you directly let the reader experience the thoughts and don't just tell them what they are. For instance: He feared for his life (telling) "Holy shit!! I'm a goner for sure!" (showing)
I agree with @Xoic that those two Showing examples are actually good. And echoing his advice: When one of your character's sense is limited, rely on their other four senses. It's common knowledge that sensory deprivation of a particular sense heightens the others' sensitivity. I also agree that sometimes Teling is the way, though. There's no harm in just Telling it straight to the readers once in a while, especially when you're trying to achieve what Showing couldn't in a certain scene. Unbeknownst to Kow, one of the kidnappers passed a knife to the other, tapping his shoulder while gesturing to the chair.
Feel free to use your Spidy-senses! I could feel him drawing closer to me, almost as if his gravity were being pulled by my own
If you have the time, read the book, Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo, told largely from the point of view a badly wounded soldier left deaf, dumb, blind, and limbless in a hospital bed.
I have spent a very large portion of my professional career working with sound, the last 20+ doing audio post for indie projects, primarily. One exercise that might be helpful to you is to spend some time wearing a blindfold. I spent a whole day that way, once; an amazing and very educational experience. Another interesting exercise is listening to films without watching the visuals. And, perhaps, go way back and listen to a few old radio plays, such as HG Wells "War Of The Worlds." In other words, you should try to experience the world exclusively from a sonic perspective. My personal love is the beach. I would spend hours listening to the surf. On nice days the breakers would roll over and rush up the sand with a whoosh. On other days the waves would fall over hard, pounding the beach. You could tell what the seagulls were doing by the urgency and frequency of their caws. Listening to the kids playing in the sand and the water, someone with a radio, mom warning junior to be careful... You get the idea. We live in a sonic world, and sounds tell us lots of things that we never truly consciously acknowledge. Quite a few people have mentioned the subtle differences in how you present the difference between showing and telling. Quite obviously, you cannot "show" something with your eyes closed, but describing the sounds created by the actions of the characters is showing. Kyle crouched in the corner of a closet, an old letter opener grasped in his sweaty hand, his heart thumping so loudly he was afraid it would be heard. He struggled to contain his breathing as the heavy steps grew louder, each step creaking the ancient boards of the hallway. Kyle closed his eyes when he heard the footsteps stop, praying with all his might. Hinges howled as a door slowly opened, then a boom that reverberated throughout the house like a thunderclap as it was slammed shut again. Floorboards groaned as the steps continued, coming closer. A doorknob rustily turned, hinges squealed as the door opened, heavy thudding footsteps echoing as the what-ever-it-was entered the empty room, its gurgling, growling breaths making the hairs stand up on Kyles neck... Pretty bad example, I know, but I'm just a sound-hound with pretentions. However, all the character knows is what he hears. How he reacts, what he thinks, feels, etc. in that situation is, of course dependent upon your story. Hey, sound is my gig, but we live in a sonic world that is largely ignored, even by those in the TV/Film world. Listen to the world around you. Describe the sonic world you experience. Peace, Uncle Bob
Listen to your Uncle Bob! I once walked almost all the way down my street with my eyes closed. I was doing a lot of dynamic meditation at the time, and had heard of walking meditation. I did peek a couple of times, because it kept seeming like I might be wandering off completely in the wrong direction, or maybe there was a somehow completely silent car about to mow me down. There never was, and when a car did approach I could hear it long before it was a problem. But what's far more remarkable is that I never lost touch with where I was. I could tell by the slope of the street if I was moving toward the center of the road or toward the edge, because it's a blacktop road made the standard way, high in the center and low at the edges to help water run off rapidly. What's more I could tell pretty much exactly where I was because there's a ragged edge of blacktop that drops a half an inch or so to a dirt shoulder. I could easily feel that through the soles of my tennis shoes. I highly recommend trying something similar (only if the street is very deserted). Rest your eyes for a while and use the other senses. It will 'open your eyes' tremendously to things you can use in your writing, ironically enough for some good solid showing.
Minus vision, one is left with hearing, taste, smell, and touch. You could throw in spidey sense/6th sense if appropriate to the story. Slamming door: obviously one would hear it, but it might also shut off the smell of the rain or the jasmine blooming along the porch rail. One might feel the small puff of air generated by the swing of the door as well. Boots walking: sound, obviously, but perhaps also the smell of new leather or the cow pie the wearer stepped in. I experience sound as a physical sensation (yeah, I know, but it's no weirder than experiencing music as color) and I might feel a boot scraping on the floor as a rippling sensation on my left arm or a scratchy tingle up my spine. Many people also have a sense of someone being in a room or a house, even if they neither hear nor see that person.
Excellent feedback from everyone. Here's an article to dig further into showing and telling... Seven Ways to Show AND Tell | Creative Writing Forums - Writing Help, Writing Workshops, & Writing Community
Really, if you consider it, everything is a tell. Let's say that what you were trying to get across was a loud slam that shook the room. Then this is a tell. There was a loud slam and the room shook. Even when it's used for another purpose, the details are told plainly and are still "tells" in themselves. That never goes away, but the line can be put to another purpose. For the above, what's unsaid is the idea of a door being closed. So the concept of a door closing is "shown." I always think of the shown idea as sort of floating above the sentence. The lines tell and tell, but if there is an idea they lead to, floating up above, then they are "showing" a higher concept. If there is no higher concept, then they are only tells. It should be called "state and implicate." I guess it's too late for that, but that's how I imagine it. I feel it clears up a lot of approaches. Anyway, the best show/tell has both of them mixed together. And you can tell with other senses. Your second line, "how do I show footsteps?" I wouldn't use it. I would simply tell that with sound. The guards thumped across the cell. (that's an audio tell) There was a loud slam and the room shook. (that's an audio show, implying they left and shut the door behind them) They're both tells really, if you look at them closely enough. The details are always told. The second line says more (shows) because of its implication. Maybe you could make the case that the first line is showing them walking, and that's its implication. Maybe. Show/tell exists on something of a gradient, and that line is close to a show if you think of it a certain way. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is don't try to show everything. Use a mix (show/tell works best when mixed) and don't try to write around the obvious because convolutions aren't necessarily better. Use a variety of senses, of course. You have little choice there.
Wow, thanks everyone for a full course buffet of feedback! I love the idea of going about portions of my day with my eyes closed and intend to do that, Uncle Bob. Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo...cool, thanks @GrahamLewis ! @Seven Crowns , some great points. I still question "boots scraped across the floorboards" because for all a blindfolded person knows, it could have been a 2x4 being scraped along the ground. But then if you try to say "there was a dull scraping along the floorboards" it almost feels like, as you said, I'm trying to write around the obvious. Most people know the sound of boots scraping vs. a piece of wood or metal, right? Is it a fair assumption? Or is there a better way of showing boots scraping?
That's absolutely right. Even if we don't know exactly why or how, certain sounds, smells, or other sensory impressions tell us a great deal intuitively. And often you can tell the difference for instance between a man's tread, a woman's, and a child's. You can also detect emotional or intentional differences, like an angry stride from a timid one.
Your ears never "turn off," they are constantly hearing the world around you, even when you sleep, to act as an "early warning system." How do we tell the difference between sounds? A combination of instinct and experience. Animal growls and similar predatory sounds affect us on an instinctive level. Sound designers use the growls of real animals for supernatural creatures and aliens; they affect the members of the audience on a visceral/instinctive level, much more so than artificially created sounds. In Alfred Hitchcocks "Strangers On A Train," tiger growls were dubbed with the sounds of trains entering/exiting tunnels to make the sound more threatening. Other sounds are learned through experience, sirens for example. Not a natural sound, recognizing it as a warning sound is learned through life experience. Other sounds are learned through experience and context. If you've been driving your car for a while you know when it doesn't "sound right," even if you don't know what's wrong with your vehicle. Those who live and/or work in the outdoors experience this all the time. It's a standard cliche in films and TV - "It's too quiet." Yet this is based entirely on real world experience. Soldiers in wooded areas become used to the chatter of birds and other forest creatures. When things became "too quiet" it would mean that enemy soldiers are trying to sneak up on your position; the local fauna is spooked by humans (perceived as predators) creeping through their domain and cease their noises, thus the unnatural quiet. The characters life experience will tell them about the sounds they are hearing. The characters geographical place in the story will also have an affect. If your character is being pursued in their own home they will be hyper-aware of what sounds normal and what does not; if in an unfamiliar setting, the character will draw on previous experience. How unfamiliar the setting is will determine how well the character recognizes and adapts; a city-dweller will have few references if lost in the forest, and vice versa. Well, that's enough rambling for today. KoW - enjoy your day as a blind person; a truly revelatory experience. Peace, Uncle Bob
And you don't necessarily have to walk blindfolded down a street, just go out somewhere, in nature or in a cafe or something (or right where you're sitting now), close your eyes, and pay attention to what's going on in your auditory field. Also pay attention to things like smells and the feel of air moving (wind, a door that just opened or closed etc). You take in a lot non-visually, and often people don't pay much attention to it, though it does inform your ideas of what's going on around you at an unconscious/intuitive level. And yes, vision is the only sense that's really directional and that you can shut off. Hearing is directional in the sense that you can tell which direction sounds are coming from, but they can't be aimed this way and that the way eyes can (well, except that you can swivel your head around). All these other senses are omnipresent, they're always 'on' and taking things in passively. Only the eyes can be directed, squinted, or closed at will. But eyes are weird. You have a very broad field of peripheral vision that's low-resolution, and a small zone of tightly-focused direct vision, where you see things in great detail. We're constantly searching and scanning around turning our direct vision onto anything that seems relevant, anything that suddenly moves or seems like a possible danger etc. This is all done unconsciously for the most part, but we can take conscious control of it if we want to. Of course the conscious mind is clumsy and ridiculously slow compared to the unconscious.
You don't really completely shut off vision when you close your eyes either, you can still tell broadly when something moves in front of you. Try it—shut them puppies and wave a hand slowly in front of your face, between you and a light source. Now cover your eyes with your hands (while the lids are still closed). Note how much darker it gets. The lids are translucent and have a red color to them. Human skin and flesh does when light passes through it (at least the reddish/yellowish light we normally use). Did you ever cover the end of a bright flashlight with your hand?
Thanks @Xoic and @Alcove Audio. I believe I had written one of my characters looking at the fiery red blaze beyond his eyelids.
I got a lot of positive responses to a story that I wrote a year or so ago and won the monthly short story contest with: Nyctophobia. I was in a similar situation where the story took place in complete blackness. Emotions are key, instead of describing the sounds, describe the emotional reaction to the sound. Tell us what about how hearing the dull thud of a footstep followed by it echoing through cold halls causes the character to suddenly become very aware of their heart beating hard, making them unsure if they even heard a footstep at all. Without eyes, most of the drama is in the mind, so make sure you keep your focus centered there.
