Any explanations/general musings welcome, as this is something I am currently trying to get my head around.

And also, showing v describing, for anyone who is feeling particularly intellectual this morning

Jane, someone (Emma?) posted a link to a really good blog post on this subject quite recently. Was it the crabbit old bat's blog? If someone could point Jane in the right direction, it was a really good explanation.

Yes, it's the ever-wonderful Nicola Morgan.

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2009/07/show-not-tell-let-me-tell-you-how.html

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2009/07/show-not-tell-part-2.html

Must say, I think her Write to be Published book, that she's working on for Snowbooks, is going to be a cracker.

Emma

I'm not sure that I quite know what you're getting at with 'showing vs. describing', but this post of mine on psychic distance, which is closely linked to showing/telling, might help:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it.html

if by 'describing' you're thinking of the more remote psychic distances?

Emma

Maybe also think of it in terms of description v's explanation. I find plain old description, from the mc's pov, which helps the reader visualise the scene, is often good, but the reader rarely needs explanation, at least, not in the first half of the novel.


- NaomiM

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Objective description tends to be the baby that gets thrown out with the bathwater when writers follow Show not Tell too diligently, to either be replaced by too much subjective description, chock full of metaphors and similies, or virtually none, just the bare bones.
Or writers start micro-managing, right down to the last remaining adverb and adjective.

It seems to me that the 'tell don't show' instrument can be found in the toolboxes of many many best selling authors. e.g. 'Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everyone came to for help, and never were they disappointed'. (The Godfather) or ' Becker was dark - a rigged, youthful thirtyfive with sharp green eyes and a wit to match' from Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. I'm sure Dan Brown knows all about 'show don't tell' advice (and green wit) - he also knows how to sell to the mass market.

Well it's not a question of 'don't', or at least it shouldn't be. Showing and telling are two different tools in the writer's toolkit. Most beginners, and most bad writers, and most writers trained on non-creative writing, do too much telling where they should be showing. The reverse is more rarely the case - although learner-writers do sometimes over-compensate in the other direction for a while, enumerating every last detail in reams of dialogue and description of pouring the wine, when they should be cutting to the chase of the row... (Of course, pouring the wine might be a hugely revealing, show-y stage in the row. But usually it isn't, it's just writing-by-the-yard.)

But it's really about understanding how each works, what effect it has, how to do it to the best of its showiness or its tellyness, and knowing when to use which.

Emma

it's really about understanding how each works, what effect it has, how to do it to the best of its showiness or its tellyness, and knowing when to use which

that pretty much sums up what I'm currently trying to get my head round, but I think I'm overthinking it, trying to work out where the cut off point is for the showing, so its not just showing for the sake of it.

I have added the blogs to my to do list for the day

To a certain extent it also depends on the genre. A memoir-style novel is going to have a lot of Tell, while a crime or thriller novel will be mostly Show.

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- In novels like Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, which is part memoir, part thriller, you'll see both.

I have just finished 'The Wizard of Earthsea' (written in the late 60's I think), and it's very much in the tell mode. It does work, however it is a very different experience to the more modern style of 'show'. You certainly feel slightly removed from the action, it's more akin to being told a story around a fire place.

Ben Yezir.

Good point, Ben. Reminds me that one thing to watch out for is slipping into omniscient pov as there's too much temptation to use it for info dumps and background Tell.

But I think Ben also makes the point that telling is part of the voice of some kinds of book - the ones with a storyteller feel to them - The Wizard of Earthsea is, by all accounts, one of the great children's books...

After all, if you can start a novel:

Listen! I'm going to tell you about how I saved the world. My name is Aldomovar, and I was born just as the Great Deluge began.

then surely you can start it

Listen! This is the story of how Aldomovar saved the world. He was born just before the Great Deluge began.

and follow on to suit...

Emma

As a point of interest, these are the opening words to Earthsea:

"The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards."

Compare that to the opening line of any modern kids book and you will see the difference.

Ben Yezir

telling is part of the voice of some kinds of book

True, but fashions change, and publishers prefer a child's 'voice' to an adult's these days, unless it comes in the form of Lemony Snicket or relegated to a Prologue.



- NaomiM

Tell:

Bernard was a very irritable man with a bad limp.

Show:

"What the fuck are you doing now?" Bernard shouted, entering the kitchen to find his son standing red-faced over a broken vase. Bernard lurched from side to side as he made his way towards the shattered pieces.

Not exactly good writing - just trying to illustrate the difference as I see it.

Deb