“Showing vs Telling: How to Make the Decision”

Every storyteller and writer of fiction has to decide how to proceed through the decision in the title above.  It’s a daily decision:  should I tell the reader what Jamie is thinking or should I show his thoughts in some kind of action or reaction?  Should I tell how the Seomish city of Omsh’pont was destroyed by the Ponkti or should I show it happening, from someone’s point of  view?

As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time and a season for everything.

When and why should you tell the reader what is happening:

1. When the event or the story moves better, faster, more believably by telling.  Sometimes, events in the story occur over many days or even years, even centuries.  You can’t dramatize every single day…the book would be 10,000 pages.  Use the ‘tell’ method to summarize in some kind of compelling way what happened and why.  Use tell to telescope story time.
2. When you need to add explanatory background to the story.   Why exactly does Dobie really hate that little town of Cypress Hills?  You could have Dobie explain why to someone.  That would be showing versus telling.  Or maybe the real reason is something Dobie won’t even admit to himself.  Explanation time.  Or maybe another character could make this observation.  Fiction techniques offer a wealth of possibilities.  Whatever moves the story along is best.
3. Internal narrative.  This idea is from autocrit.com.  Here’s the deal: Showing relies on a character’s actions.

“He shoved back his chair and slammed his fist against the table.”

This might show us that a character is angry, but we have no idea what he’s actually thinking. Maybe he’s not really angry, but scared. Or maybe he’s secretly thrilled but is pretending to be outraged. We don’t know unless you tell us.

Yes, in nine cases out of ten, it’s infinitely preferable to show John is angry by describing the way his fist hit the table or how hard he slammed the door on his way out of the room. But sometimes, you just need to tell it like it is.

When and why you should show what is happening:

1. According to autocrit.com, showing is always preferable to telling.  Generally, I would agree, but there are exceptions. Showing provides immediacy.  Showing provides or allows better empathy between reader and a character. 

In a nutshell, showing is about using description and action to help the reader experience the story. Telling is when the author summarizes or uses exposition to simply tell the reader what is happening.  Autocrit.com provides this example:

Telling:

John was sad to see his girlfriend leave.

Showing:

John wiped tears down his face as he watched his girlfriend board the plane.

 Here’s a longer example:

Telling:

The house was creepy.

Showing:

Only a single dim candle lit the room. The house smelled like dust and rotting wood, and something faintly metallic that made John think of blood. Stuffed animals were mounted around the room: a wild-eyed buck, a grizzly frozen in fury, a screech owl with sharp yellow talons.

In both examples, showing makes the writing vivid and more descriptive. Showing also helps readers experience the story by allowing them to interpret the descriptions of places, actions, and scenes.

Telling, on the other hand, is flat and boring and limits the experience for the reader. It also tells editors and agents you’re an amateur. After all, if the very first rule of writing is show, don’t tell, then telling says you don’t know the first thing about writing.

Where autocrit.com is really helpful is in describing how to turn your tells into shows.

1. Use strong verbs: Don’t use walk if you can say gallop, skip, saunter, stroll or amble.
2. Use specific nouns and clear adjectives in descriptions that paint a picture for the reader. Don't just tell us Grandma baked a pie; say a cinnamon-apple pie with a golden crust rested on the windowsill above the sink.
3. Include sensory details—describe how something sees, smells, sounds, tastes, and feels
4. Use dialogue: ‘“Don’t you walk out of here!” Mom yelled’ is better than Mom was angry.
    
   Every rule of writing is made to be broken, but it’s better not to break them without first learning how the rules work.  They’re called rules for a reason and you ignore them at your storytelling peril.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on October 2.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B