So...

The orthodoxy states that it is better to show not tell and even though that orthodoxy is healthily challenged, fleetingly, by folk who demand the right to move the story on once in a while, it is only justified as a shortcut, so to speak. Even those who support a bit of tell now and then do so in semi-apologetic terms.

But...

There is also the argument that when you show, not tell, people are forced to interpret and, without the tell to give context, will invariably misinterpret.

Moreover...

Anecdotal case-studies (ah... watching reader reactions at a writing group I attend) show that far from finding it dry, preachy and a bit unwelcome, readers / listeners often respond very well to a significant chunk of tell to fill in the gaps and provide context, motivation and explanation for characters' actions.

Equally...

When presented with just the disembodied actions of showing, it is easy for nuances and important plot points to simply be overlooked. As another anecdotal case-study; a lengthy section in something I wrote, showing a complex power-play as the background to the setup for a critical plot point was viewed instead as simply the terse physicality of the final seconds.

And...

When huge tomes like Franzen's Freedom that have reams of straightforward statement of the facts and is deemed to be not bad at all...

...is the orthodoxy actually as orthodox as it is portrayed?

Discursive of Dublin

Whatever works, I think, Mr C.

For me, the question starts before whether or not to show or tell, with what? What is it you want to show or tell about? And I think that comes down to emotional range. Some emotional reactions (in the reader) are more likely through showing them what's happening, and letting them feel their own conclusions. Some work better if the author simply tells them. Kurt Vonnegut, for me, was very good at emotional tells, which he usually did in his own voice, a little like the story-teller drawing away from the story for a moment to include the reader in what the author is feeling at this point about his own story.

So, I'd say the first thing is to get hold of the real emotions behind the story you're writing. Then let their nature point you to showing or telling. Looked at that way, Gaius, your questions look at little stuffy, if you don't mind me saying so; as if you're looking for a technique before you've got the content. Get the content and it will choose showing or telling; you won't have to.

I think 'telling' has unjustly got a bad name. There are times when it works really well and is essential to a story.

In the same vein, I think exposition is often frowned upon when it is a vital tool for a writer. Pretty much all the novels I read have healthy doses of tell and exposition.

I think we sometimes worry too much about these things.

Nick

I think we sometimes worry too much about these things

Yes, which is really the origin of the thread, rather than stuffiness...

For a long while, I went out of my way to "show" everything and the result, I think, became a little anodyne. There is also the difference between parts of a story I care about enough to "show" excitingly versus parts that are surely a priori statement of the bleeding obvious.

But I'm a little baffled also because the separation between exposition that works really well versus the stuff that feels like an info dump seems quite so reader specific. One recent comment in particular triggered this train of thought as it showed just how extremely reader expectation affects the emphasis that should be used... What to me, the author, was dull trivia with no story relevance turned out to be a prime motivator for the reader who felt cheated for not getting it. Likewise, in something I read outside of WW recently, swathes of info-dumping back story that I would have cut for dullness were almost universally praised as moving the story along.

So, no Terry, not having a technique and looking etc. More that I've reached a turning point where I have realised one experiment in writing didn't work as intended so I need to become more flexible just that I also need to brainstorm a little.

I think it maybe comes down to the whole psychic distance continuum and... getting it right. I'm just getting my head around how much your intended audience affects "right" in this context.
G

Being told a story is wonderful - we all know great storytellers, people who can keep us rapt and laughing along with the story of their bus journey to work, and we all know people who can bore us silly telling the exact same story. I think Terry is right in that sometimes it works better to step back and let the reader make their own mind up, and sometimes it works better to step forward.

I think it's not that telling is bad, it's more that many creative writing maxims are about pushing against the lazy default that we revert to when we can't be bothered to do the real work.

So "don't use adverbs" doesn't literally mean don't use adverbs, just that very often saying "he said angrily" is the lazy shortcut to writing out a real humdinger, or describing his body language properly.

Telling is what people do when they start to write (very often) and it's what we revert to when we can't quite fully realise a scene in our mind's eye.

I must say, I rather disagree with this:

There is also the argument that when you show, not tell, people are forced to interpret and, without the tell to give context, will invariably misinterpret.

People are just as likely to misinterpret telling rather than showing, and really, is there such a thing as misinterpretation anyway? What we are really saying when we say someone has "misinterpreted" is that they have come to a different meaning than the one we, the writer, intended. But is that necessarily a bad thing, and do I have the right, as a writer, to ascribe the only meaning to a text anyway?


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which is a long way round of saying I agree with you and Terry and Leila that there is a place for good telling, just as there is a place for good showing.

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and in fact Bunbry and everyone else on this thread :D Shouldn't post in haste.

People are just as likely to misinterpret telling rather than showing

Consider;
"She cried as Billy boarded the bus." >> Tears of... joy? happiness? from the dust the bus threw up?
Versus;
"She was happy to see Billy go." >> She was happy to see Billy go.

is there such a thing as misinterpretation anyway?

Yes. See above.

What we are really saying when we say someone has "misinterpreted" is that they have come to a different meaning than the one we, the writer, intended. But is that necessarily a bad thing, and do I have the right, as a writer, to ascribe the only meaning to a text anyway?

For some things, obviously, no, it doesn't matter. And I have greatly enjoyed seeing reader comments from the things I find out from them.

For others...

Specifically, plot-point others...

Get the content and it will choose showing or telling; you won't have to.

Totally agree. Telling has a bad name because it's dull and awful when it's done badly. If it's done well, readers accept it.

'Show don't tell' is just another of those rules that has been extracted from the mistakes that beginning writers make, and thrown like a great wet blanket over the work of the more experienced.

I'm with Jem: whatever works.

Consider; "She cried as Billy boarded the bus." >> Tears of... joy? happiness? from the dust the bus threw up? Versus; "She was happy to see Billy go." >> She was happy to see Billy go. is there such a thing as misinterpretation anyway? Yes. See above.

Except that the reason for her tears will have been built into the story before that moment, or will be explained as the story progresses. It's the desire to explain everything, right there and then, rather than weave information into their story, that makes some writers use 'telling' badly.

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or, should have been

Except that the reason for her tears will have been built into the story before that moment

Possibly...

But even then...

How one interprets tears is based largely on your upbringing. To me, tears of happiness simply didn't exist as a concept; I was a boy in a macho, all boy, household and crying meant you were in pain or, exceptionally, if you were very, very upset indeed... (also that you were not a cowboy as "cowboys do not cry", apparently).

So...

No matter how much it is built into the story, my natural inclination would be to assume tears were sadness or pain and I would be utterly thrown if the preceding pages had been about how it was building up to happiness.

"Why is she suddenly so upset and / or in pain that she is crying?" would be my instant reader reaction. Yes, I know, that's my problem and sometimes (as per FloraPost) that doesn't matter. Sometimes, however, if it is a critical plot point, it _does_ matter.

What I was trying to say earlier is that we can all get bogged down in the baseline details of technique. But the 'answers' as such exist above the baseline. So the question really is how to elevate one's writing. I don't mean spiritually; more to do with working in fast time rather than slow time - where the story-need reaches downwards to grab whatever materials are required, rather than the need is sitting on the bottom (excuse all these mixed metaphors) wondering where to move next.

Getting above the immediate need is I think to do with pushing onself further into the creativity zone, where nothing is obvious or definite; and having the courage to keep working with it, even though you don't know for sure where it will end up. Then, once you've got hold of something urgent, real, emotional, visionary, you search around for the best tools to form it into a story.

But that's just inadequate showing/bad writing Gaius - isn't it?

I mean you could equally write

"She cried as he boarded the bus, great ugly racking sobs that echoed around the fast-emptying station, and left the remaining passengers turning away from the sight of such immoderate grief.

Vs

"She was sad to see Billy go, no, not just sad, but bereft, unmoored by grief. She felt that he was taking everything with him - their shared past, their no-longer-shared future."

Showing doesn't *have* to be ambiguous. It depends on how you show.

Your post is very interesting Terry. I was thinking the other day that I almost never think about technique when I write, or not in a conscious way. I often think about it when I edit, but in first draft almost never. It's just about telling the story. I suppose I do swap between showing and telling and close POV and distant and all that malarky, but I never consciously think about it or analyse why something works or doesn't.

It would be fascinating to be a fly-on-the-wall watching someone else compose a novel - except I suppose you'd need to be a fly-in-their-head to really know how they worked (except that sounds gross!)

Well, then, you establish that this person was prone to expressing her happiness by crying before she cries with happiness as Billy gets on the bus.

I think statements like 'She was happy to see Billy go' are OK if they are not just stand-alone bits of tell but the culmination of a her thought process. At the risk of sounding like Robert Webb, something like, not this, obviously, but:

She'd raised him the best she could and it was time to let him live his own life. His hair was newly cut, neat and professional, and he'd polished his own shoes the night before. He wanted to make her proud, and that made her proud before he'd even got on the bus. He was going to be alright, she knew that even though she cried. She was happy to see Billy go.

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crossed with florapost