Hi everyone - hope ya'll had a lovely Easter, I know I enjoyed eating loads of chocolate and spending the day in bed watching Kelly's Heroes!

Anyway thought I'd drop this old chestnut into the cooking pot that is the WW technique forum!

It's about showing-not-telling. As we all know this is something we should have tatooed on our heads/arms/cats/sisters or at least posted outside our writing places in hew-age neon letters.

I'm a big fan of showin not tellin, in fact my life has become devoted to it. Sort of. So I need to throw this out to the ravenous WW lions and see what help I be getting.

The first place to start is the number of words, the fewer the better, the more chance of showing with less words. This is all well and good when describing action and interaction with two or more characters. But where I tend to struggle is when writing in the "author's voice". So I mean with things like this:

"The early days spent on the Estate with his late Mum were all but distant memories for Aaron. Perhaps even just feelings. He could barely remember her face, it was framed in memory as an angelic woman, beautiful but always concerned."

So what do people reckon, is this okay, does it show the image, or is this too much like telling. Is this acceptable as a piece of backstory and exposition, which is still moving the story forward. After all, Aaron can't just go around describing his innermost feelings about his late Mum to everyone, that process has to happen in his head.

Right?

Or not?

Any thoughts would be welcomed like Jim Cavezial's Jesus into the Kingdom of Heaven, if, like Mel Gibson, you're into that sort of thing.

Thanks for the help I know will be coming my way very soon from you lovely WW people!

Regards


Dav

<Added>

Er...okay, maybe not then.

Hi Dav

Just seen this, o impatient one! Lol.

I think show-don't-tell is fine, but it is ok to mix it with a little exposition or the reader will be trying to figure the whole narrative out. You can do some wonderful tricks though, such as replacing the standard 'He could barely remember her face' with 'whenever he thought of her, his mind presented him with a cloudy patch'. Ok, that's utter crap but you get the idea. As it stands, I didn't see anything wrong with your paragraph. Show-don't-tell often reveals itself in action sequences, rather than backstory, but I'm sure the two are interchangeable. Well, I'm no expert!

Less is more, agreed. Which is why my novel will end up being a slender 80,000 words (from over 200,000 written) and also why I am going on a diet after binging on Easter eggs. (The Easter Bunny is still locked in my basement next to Santa Clause.)

JB

I wondered what happened to all me pressies this year, and why I had to hit 24 hour Tescos for a load of eggs. Bloody Bunny!

Maybe you should release the critter as a good will gesture to help the diet on mate.

Speaking of which (diets I mean, er...kind of) that is impressive editing, 200,000 to 80,000, nice one JB, an inspiration!

Thanks for the show not tell stuff, I thought I'd somehow managed to clear out the entire forum! That's kind of what I was thinking, so cheers mate, I think I'll run with it!!

Nice one JB,


Dav

Hi Dav,

You're right of course that you can't show everything. Perhaps the 'rule' (not that I'm overly fond of rules...ok maybe a few) should be "Show what you can, tell what you can't". I think too much telling can smack of laziness, which I guess is why people always pounce on it, and prevent us from getting underneath the words and close to the characters...on the other hand, too much showing might lead to a narrow outlook or a scarily long, intense book.

Myrtle

Thanks Myrtle, brilliant to hear your cyber voice!

That's a fine way of looking at it. I think your spot on about the laziness. It takes genuine effort to restructure sentences sometimes, especially when editing paragraph by paragraph, line by line. Maybe as an experiment it'd be worth writing a novel that only shows!!!

Hmmm. Perhaps a tad difficult. Although, I guess that could describe a screenplay!

Thanks for your valuable help as always Myrtle.


Dav

Can I just say first off that I really liked that little para, DS? I'd be reading on anyway.

I got really hung up about showing and not telling with my finished novel, then a friend (a writing friend) read it and said: 'you use too may words ending in 'ly' and it's really annoying!'.
It was SO helpful and a great way to think about adverb over-use (which I believe is another SNT no-no)

I went through the book scything them all out and improved it enormously.

I must say I'm a bit confused by the whole show-not-tell thing. I don't have the patience to analyse my own writing that far - I just write what feels right, in an almost mathematical way, weirdly enough.

But I think I there's a really beautiful example of show not tell in a scene from Casablanca. Claude Rains/Louis asks Bogart/Rick what he did before he came to Casablanca and runs through a number of suggestions, all slightly dodgy. Of course. Rick doesn't answer his question but the audience understands instantly that Rick could have done any of the things that Louis is suggesting so they are introduced to the idea of what sort of a man he is, without actually being told what things he has done.

I tried to work out some alternative to Davy's example (although I agree with Caroline that this was a good example). The best I could come up with was:
'Aaron looked at his face in the mirror. He had always been told that he looked like his mother. He tried to imagine himself with longer hair and a softer jawline...' etc. Okay, that doesn't work if Aaron is not the sort of guy to stare into a mirror but I think its a way of showing what his mother looked like rather than telling, and you could vary it by having him talk to third persons, or watch relatives, his mother's sister or something. Does that sound right?

S

I'm sorry, but I have little patience with the 'show, don't tell' school of thinking -- not that I think it's entirely wrong, but (a) usually the wrong people fall for it, and (b) those who do, tend to overdo it.

There are, of course, writers whose idea of intense, evocative prose is a long, abstract description of the main character contemplating the essence of a dishcloth, and there's no doubt they would benefit from a generous dose of 'show, don't tell' -- but in my opinion these writers are usually either beginners (I'm thinking about my own teenage effusions here) or more interested in self-expression than improving their craft. The majority of the writers to write, read, write, and read some more, and do all this with a critical eye, tend to know what works in a given passage -- in other words, what kind of writing this or that passage calls for. But with the 'show, don't tell; show, don't tell' mantra running in the background, the writing tends -- again, in my opinion -- to become hesitant, sterile, and, well, boring. (I'm speaking from the experience of reading several other writers' forums, not anything I've seen here, by the way.)

Because telling, just like showing, has its place. Most obviously, you tell when you need to summarise something quickly (and Davy's paragraph does its job admirably). You also lean towards the telling side when you're trying to establish a strong narrative voice or when you're trying to draw attention to the workings of the narrative itself, rather than the content 'behind' it. When you're trying to present a scene in an 'immediate' way, you obviously lean towards showing at the cost of telling, but even then, it's not simply a case of replacing 'There were books lying scattered all around him' with 'All the books dropped on the floor'. It's all about foregrounding the appropriate element, striking the right balance.

And the most important thing to remember is that there are no invisible narratives. You're always telling something, only sometimes you do your best to hide the fact. But if you're trying to eliminate the telling component entirely (which, again, is not even possible) you risk sounding antiseptic and dull. If poetry is language that draws attention to itself, 'show, don't tell' at the extreme means pruning away all individual style. Is this really something to aim at? Is this, in fact, the tenet of good writing nowadays? Wouldn't it be better to say, 'tell your story in a way that best shows it'? Or 'avoid abstraction when you can and give your reader something concrete to seize'? (Okay, I admit they're not as catchy as 'show, don't tell', but...) 'Show don't tell' seems so authoritarian and beside the point; if a writer tells something boringly and then converts it into 'showing', I bet the scene doesn't become any more genuinely involving. And when a heavily 'told' passage is written well enough, I bet most of us don't even notice it's 'telling'.

Or have I just missed the point entirely? Or am I just grumpy because of the 'flu?

<Added>

Ahem... I now notice Myrtle said pretty much the same thing much more concisely. 'Show what you can, tell what you can't' sounds good to me!

I think Fredegonde is right about not getting too hung up on the rules.

I tend to get this one wrong - I either dump in a section of info that sticks out like a sore thumb - or miss it out entirely and rely on the unfortunate reader to work it out.

I guess the secret is involving the reader so completely in the narrative that it flows and thsy don't realise that you are downloading necessary information because it all reads as part of the story.

Like the classic example of if the hero's going to burn his way out of his ropes in chapter 10 you have to show he's got a lighter in his pocket somewhere in chapter 3?

Also triggers - if the MC starts thinking about his mother for no apparent reason and the reader can "hear" the author then it's artificial - but if something happens to make him think about her then it's natural?

You've got me thinking anyway!

Sarah

Fredegonde and Myrtle,

I agree entirely with your point on the 'show, don't tell' mantra. Not only is it catchy but it also seems to give a solid point of reference in a world full of grey but it seems to me to have gone too far. Telling has its place as Fredegonde says but it's important to be clear about what exactly is being shown too.

Sorry if I don't explain myself very well but to take Davy's point about showing or telling the physical appearance of a person, I'd say that you should show or tell depending on the importance of the issue. Say for example if a paragraph like 'The girl by Tom's side had the face of an angel with long blonde hair, legs to match and eyes of a blue that would melt an iceberg. As he introduced her to me all I could think was how did a loser like him end up with a goddess like her.' Please excuse the prose, it's just to make a point, but what I'm trying to show is the relationship between Tom and the narrator, the beauty of the girl is incidental so I think it's OK just to give a straight description.

If on the other hand I'm writing about the narrator being in love with someone then it may be more important to show the impact their beauty has on the narrator rather than merely desctribe it.

Personally I find it much quicker to tell than to show. It's easier to say 'Jill and John had been best friends since kindergarten and each knew instinctively what the other thought.' (badly written, I know, but you know what I mean) than it is to set up a whole scene where the reader comes to understand the kind of relationship they have. So my adaptation of the 'show, don't tell' phrase is 'show what's important amd tell what isn't'.

I hope all that makes some kind of sense but I have to get lunch for the starving hoards.

A.

Caroline - thanks for the compliments by the way, this thread has really helped coz that paragraph was worrying me, and now I’m all embarrassed like!

Adverbs are definitely worth hunting. I have a rule of only one within two lines of each other, and that’s being very lenient. Any adverb has to plead its case else it pays the ultimate price!!!

Sarah T – I know what you mean, but after what feels right, editing has to be priority and that’s when you can change things so it is showing. The problem with the mirror thing is it’s a bit overdone. I remember something about Alex Garland saying he had to use it to introduced Richard in The Beach (there’s a modern classic by the way in reference to the self-publishing debate that was raging), as it is difficult to show the character when writing in the first person. In the third person it shouldn’t be needed, because there are loads of things that could be used. I kind of like to keep the author’s voice clear and definitive tho, as when I first started writing, I bashed through an entire novel without considering such things, and the author’s voice is more indecisive than half the characters! Therefore, it’s almost beyond repair, though it is good fun ripping it apart like an old engine and seeing how it works, and how it can be made to work better!

Frede – I think we agree really, my problem is like you say, getting to the point where as a writer I instinctively know whether a para like the one I wrote is good or not. I think it is something to aim for definitely, because surely as fiction writers words are our tools to tell a story and the best story, for today’s reader, is surely one told with the fewest words but the most excitement, tension and character drawing. Poetry is more about using language to, well I dunno coz I ain’t a poet and cringe when I offer anything up. But to me, only the very best poetry, like Benjamin Zephaniah’s “White Comedy”, works because it says something but more importantly uses language superbly well to say it in a few verses, and I would never attempt poetry after reading such brilliant stuff, coz I wouldn’t be able to compare. I dunno Frede, I’m probably wrong, but I don’t think it’s too authoritarian, it’s just a way of saying, modern writing needs to be tailored to the modern market, and the showy ways of “literary fiction” are no longer needed. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dickens, but he did write over 150 years ago and things have moved on, not just because of publisher’s whims but because that is how things develop naturally.

Hope you feel better btw, and thanks for your input. And you certainly didn’t miss the point

Sarah – Yep you’re right, you have to make it believable and for the reader to have faith in you as a story teller. It’s all worth thinking about, but as for rules, I guess you gotta know them before you break ‘em!

Ashlynn, I know what you’re saying, but isn’t it the point that it’s easier to tell. It’s the easy route but not the best, because it detracts from the story, subconsciously making the reader lose faith in the author. I mean it depends what you’re writing. JKR does enough telling I’ve noticed, so maybe kids books are different. Sorry, I know that jars with a lot of you, I meant baby goat’s books But anyway, bad jokes aside, JKR gets much much better as the stories progress, and by the time you get to Goblet of Fire, it is , IMHO anyway, a blinding read and she does show far more than tell. I think anyway, but could be really wrong!!

Anyway, I tip my cap and offer my humblest thanks to you all for helping me with this, it’s all really helpful and saves me going off on one to my non-writer friends. Okay, you got me, I have no friends. My cat then.

And btw Sarah Optimist did you hear, they let Pete D out? The little bohemian rapscallion is free; free to write his tunes and shoot up his smack (latter not recommended). Hoorah! Gawd bless the bleedin urchin, gor blimey, luv a duck, mind ya back darlin, barrah comin frrrrrrrrrew…

Regards


DS

I never was that good on rules.

BTW - should have said before - the para read fine to me!

Sarah

I think that the 'show don't tell' thing has become a little overcomplicated. One phrase I use for reference is :

'Don't tell the reader its raining. Make them feel like they're in the middle of a downpour'

That works fine for me eg:

Tell.

As Dave shut the door it started to rain.


Show.

As the door slammed behind him, tiny droplets of warm summer rain began to patter against Dave's face.

Rubbish example perhaps..but thats how I understand the 'show don't tell' principle.

Darryl

Like all rules, 'show don't tell' is only be a guideline for beginners.

The much more fundamental rule seems to me that every word should be earning its keep, and have its throat cut if it isn't. If you get that right, then you don't have to worry about crude rules like show-and-tell. To that end, every word needs to be interrogated:

Is it conveying the right and necessary facts? (do we need to know this, either for plot or atmosphere?)

Is it conveying them in the right way? (which is often to do with PoV but also pace and mood: at some moments, plain telling is most powerful: 'The man came over the hill and wept. It was raining.')

Is it adding something to how the piece works overall; does it alliterate or raise the emotional pressure, do the words heighten the banality or the lyricism of the prose, is the metaphor I've chosen here part of a bigger scheme of images or ideas?

If the word or sentence or paragraph doesn't pass those three tests, it's out with the knife.

It's also worth remembering, as JB says, that anything that's 'told' from the point of view of a character is simultaneously a 'show' about them and how they see this thing. As so often, the key is knowing exactly how far inside the character's head you are.

Yes, tell is quicker than show, and sometimes that's what you want. Even if you're inside someone's PoV, that someone wouldn't always notice the size of the drops pattering relentlessly down on the grimy pavement that are so like the ones on the roof of the caravan on childhood holidays in Bognor. At certain moments we all just think, 'Damn, it's raining', and so should a writer write it.

Yes to being particularly ruthless with adjectives - but then, this sentence wouldn't be at all the same without that particularly. And my personal irritation is all those horrible words bad CW teachers tell people to use instead of said - he asked, she whined, they grumbled. They're all tells, and if it's not implicit in what words are said, then change the the words. (Unless it's a fruitful contrast - I'm all for 'I hate you,' she whispered.) For this one it helps most to think playwright: the audience can't read the stage directions, so they'd better not be crucial.

Emma

<Added>

Okay, I take it back, you do need 'he asked' if it's a question. But better still - much of the time - to leave the speech tag out all together, and perhaps make him do something alongside it instead. Speech tags are always tells, it's just that 'said' is almost invisible.

I think we agree really, my problem is like you say, getting to the point where as a writer I instinctively know whether a para like the one I wrote is good or not.

Still, Davy, it isn't about having some instinct or magical touch that turns all words into gold. It's just about deciding what you want your paragraph to do, and then using the tools you have to achieve it. My point is that the 'telling' tool isn't automatically inferior. You don't hammer with a saw or saw with a hammer. Why throw away half the weapons in one's writer's arsenal without first trying what they can do? You obviously prefer showing over telling, and that's fine -- but I can't help finding it a little bit sad that having one perfectly serviceable, succinct paragraph of summary with a clear purpose might be considered 'too much telling'. Who decides that? If you think this paragraph calls for telling, does it really matter that you're breaking an internal rule of your own? After all, you're the judge here -- and this is why the 'show don't tell' doctrine annoys me, because it creates a doubt where none is necessary. Or rather, it emphasises the wrong doubts.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Dickens, but he did write over 150 years ago and things have moved on, not just because of publisher’s whims but because that is how things develop naturally.

There's no need for me to accept it, though, let alone conform to it! And if I never get published, I'm 100% sure it won't be because of my spicing up the showing with a few pinches of telling... I think there's room enough for all of us between Dickens and Hemingway (and beyond).