You show it and use dialogue as help. If a guy gets on a bus and says, "there's that damn bitch", then chops a lady's head off, you don't think we observe that he is angry at her??
No. "There's that damn bitch!" "You honky motherfucker!" "Can you believe we've been friends since grade school?" "I enjoy our inside jokes and references." "I too appreciate you're companionship."
Not getting you. The point is you CAN'T rely only on dialouge in a story, you have to show-not tell doesn't mean no dialouge, action speaks plenty and they compliment each other. Effectively doing it separates the good writers from the mediocre.
The point is that dialogue can be “telling". Most importantly, it can be bad "telling"--telling isn't inherently bad. Eliminating the inner view of your characters does not in fact force "show, don't tell". Bad, BAD "telling" with the use of dialogue: Joe looked up. "Why, hello, Edward, my old friend of thirteen years." "Fourteen years," chuckled Edward. "You're forgetting the year that we were in the same kindergarten, in Polar Falls, before you and your mother disappeared on that unexplained voyage. Joe, you look very dapper in your tweed suit--the orange fleck pairs well with your short wavy brown hair and green eyes. A person might think that you were a good deal taller than your five foot nine." "Ah, yes," said Joe. "Well, your height of six foot two will always exceed mine. Listen, Edward, as you know, my red-haired sister, Megan, has recently finished her doctorate in applied moss breeding, at Wilbur U, the top school in the plains of Minnesota. Megan--who is twenty-four, as opposed to my own age of twenty-eight, and yours of twenty-nine--is coming to visit. I remember the crush that you had on her in the summer of 1996, when we all happened to meet on the mysterious cruise to nowhere from Polar Falls. Would you like to meet her?" "Well, Joe," said Edward, "As you know, my mysterious bout of amnesia caused me to forget most of that voyage. But I would be delighted to once again meet your elfin-faced five-foot-three sister."
This is pretty much my point. I guess it didn't work, though because I tried showing instead of telling.
Hemingway, McCarthy, etc. I've tried reading them. I've even read them. I don't enjoy them at all. I find I simply can't get immersed in their stories any more than I get immersed in a newspaper report. Don't get me wrong; I like reading 'heavy' literature. However, I'd rather think about the meaning of the stories and the significance of what happens and what the characters are like after I've finished reading. I don't want to be puzzling this out WHILE I read. We all have our preferences, I reckon. But I dislike 'objective' fiction, even when it's well-written and not pretentious. It just doesn't draw me in.
That is an example of bad telling for sure. The characters are saying in dialouge what a narrator could describe in description or the characters could have in conversation in a more colorful way. But the point I was making is to use dialogue and description together effectively as a tool of showing not telling. Show not tell doesn't mean silent movies. The narrator doesn't have to say that Joe had anger in his eyes as he angrily stepped on the bus and angrily swung the axe and chopped off Angela's head. Just have Joe use words other than "I'm angry" and chop her head off. I think we are making the same point but illustrating it differently.
I think comic books run into this problem too. When ever a hero fights a villain, they are always monologuing to each other. It makes their fight scene look awkward because nobody would talk while fighting. I read those tropes in many Marvel and DC comics.
I'm not the one who said it. It came from an article linked to above. Argue with them about it. Even when I agree with you on something you have to have the last word. If I said, "He is lacking in melanin"... You'd tell me I'm wrong, that "he is lacking in pigment". The advantage of Objective Point of View is that it’s a good discipline for you as the writer. It absolutely forces you to show-not-tell. (This is directly from the article @MilesTro linked to for us, http://www.fiction-writers-mentor.com/objective-point-of-view/). I do happen to agree with it though.
She's not arguing anything illogical or pedantic, and making things personal really won't enhance the discussion. If you feel you're never going to agree, you're free to stop! I happen to disagree with the article, too. There's no way objective POV "absolutely forces you" to show and not tell.
If anyone doesn't agree to an article, that is fine. Rules are meant to be broken, and writing has no rules, just guidelines. Hammett did some telling in his Maltese Falcon book to speed things up. I think describing how Spade travel to the hotel from his office would be boring.
This is a shame, because this is one of the threads that interests me. Also, I've already reported EBohio. First time for me. Lord willing, the last.
This is the problem with the idea that 'show' is somehow good and 'tell' is somehow bad. As you say, sometimes telling is the better option. It would be EXHAUSTING to read a novel entirely in 'show'.
At first I did not agree this statement in the Fiction Writer's Mentor POV article: Also, I wouldn't recommend using this POV in First Person Point of View. You'd just have the protagonist relating what happened and what he/she did, with no commentary at all. The big advantage of first person POV is the level of intimacy between reader and character, and if you’re not availing of that, there’s no advantage to you in using that POV. Then I realized that H.G. Wells does this in the War of the Worlds. It's told using 1st person narrative, but the protagonists is a journalist who relates his experience to the reader using a declarative narrative similar to 3rd person objective.
As has been discussed before, I don't really think First Person is inherently more intimate than Close Third, so I don't really agree with the quote. And it's weird to think of First Person as being an anomaly that needs to be justified with some "advantage"... I feel like Second is obscure enough that an author probably shouldn't use it without a damn good reason, but First? I don't see it.
The style is the reason I've never been able to get through WotW, despite loving the premise. I've realised I *have* to have a close connection to the protagonist to enjoy a book.
If you post something that you disagree with, or have zero opinion on, you should indicate that. People usually quote things because they agree with them. (Though, really, it’s still an opinion stated in the thread. It’s not immune from comment just because it’s a quote.)
Reported. If you’re going to make incorrect statements of fact, people are going to call you on them.
I've actually written a novella in 3rd Person Objective / Present tense. It looks like this. CHAPTER ONE Tulse Hill, London, 2nd June 2008 Inside a house conversion project in south-east London a young man finishes plastering a wall. He pauses, taking a moment to admire his handiwork before turning away. Momentarily, he hesitates. His eyes glaze over as if his thoughts have taken him to another time and place. The faint sound of a radio returns his attention to the here and now. "Cholera, to nic nie rozpoczął," he shouts, before jumping down from his trestle, rushing over to his plaster-splattered old radio/cassette player, retuning it to another station. He turns up the volume. "Naprzód Riley! Do boju Riley!" he shouts, turning a plastic bucket upside-down, before sitting on it. Eyes closed he listens intently to the broadcast. " . . . We’re past the midpoint in this world championship final, and young Jackie Riley is riding like a woman possessed. It’s all over for the American; Sianna Phillips will have to be content with the silver medal. She’s in danger of being caught by the young Brit. Jackie Riley powers her way down the home straight. By the end of this race she will be the World Individual Pursuit champion. The gold medal is hers. In every round she’s destroyed the competition. She’s 0.7 seconds inside of world record schedule. Her race is against the clock now. Off the banking, into the back straight. She’s flying, still powering away. She’s . . . OH MY GOD!" "Shit." The plasterer lets the float fall from his grasp and raises his hands to his head. "Co do cholery się stało? Co do cholery?" And then he's silent, sitting on his upturned plastic bucket listening to the unfolding drama. A carpenter enters the room and places a hand on the young man’s shoulder. "How much did you lose?" "Fifty pounds." A young woman lies unconscious in a bed in a hospital room. She has various tubes attached to her body. A monitor measures her heart-rate, blood pressure, and respiration. An unopened lilac envelope sits on the cabinet beside her. In the doorway, a doctor clasps his hands whilst talking to a middle-aged couple in sincere and sober tones. "We’ve done all that we can. She’s stable for now but she’ll need several more operations." "Will she walk again?" asks the woman. The doctor lowers his head further. "You have to understand, there was extensive muscle, bone, and nerve damage. I didn’t even think we’d be able to save the right leg . . ." The woman bursts into tears and turns to the man, burying her head into his chest. He embraces her, pulling her tight to him. "Sorry." The doctor shakes his head. "There was simply too much damage. The nervous system . . ." "Is there no hope?" asks the man. "Sorry," replies the doctor.
Yes, I was pleased with the results. It added another string to the bow. My goal was to see if I could do it. I was inspired whilst writing late one night with the TV on. Popular TV programs are often rebroadcast late at night with a signer (for the deaf) and audio commentary (for the blind). I was impressed with commentary, being made aware of what was happening without having to look at the TV screen. The experience taught me a lot about writing and has influenced my style. The commentary apprised me of what I needed to know, when I needed to know it. e.g. "A young woman enters the room. She is crying." - this focusses the reader on what I'm trying to SHOW them. vs. "A young woman dressed in a black dress and white hat . . ." - fuzzy.
I became curious as I was using the movie "JOOTOPIA" in my third person limited point of view. There is a scene in which the main character, Judy, fell down while being chased by a tiger and gave off fake blood. There I described in Judy's view the smell of fake blood and the texture of the sticky one were also. Then, Judy's parents, who were filming her with a camera, shook their heads when they saw it. But I couldn't describe it because Judy couldn't see it. However, the scene was too soon to break off the scene. Would it be impossible for me to write this kind of content using a third person limited point of view? Or is there anything to describe what Judy's parents did by adjusting the distance of the narrative? Or should we use the third person multi-view? Please give me the correct answer. If you are able to describe this even at a limited point in the third person, I would like to give you an example of how to do this.
