Help needed. Show don't tell

St Force

Evenin' all.

I'm having trouble with my novel. It's 2d and a bit flat if you know what I mean. I've been showing the reader what was going on instead of telling them. (Have I got that the wrong way round?) Has anyone got any adivce on what Showing and telling is? I know there will be a piece about it in the next magazine but I'm not sure when my copy is due to arive.

Cheers everyone.

dora

use search - show don't tell

and

show v tell


STF, for some previous threads on this.

Piper

It's showing, not telling. You're like me, having the same blinking trouble with the same blinking thing. I hate those words. Show not tell. Just when I thought I was mastering one thing, another thing crops up and I have a down day, like today.

As Dora said, there are other threads on this. An example I can think of (Of the very top of my head to do with my novel) would be this, but it probably wouldn't be a very good one.

Telling: Pixie turned around and saw a shadow and was frightened.

Showing: Pixie saw something out the corner of her eye. She swallowed, slowly turned around. Her throat tightened, unable to scream.

Or something along those lines. As I say, it aint the best example. I'm sure there are better ones out there.

Phots Moll

Don't get too stressed out about always showing rather than telling. In a novel, sometimes it's OK to tell us a few things occasionally. As you'll see from Pixie's example, showing is usually longer. If what you're showing is an important part of the story then that's fine. If it's a minor point and showing would require a lot of words and give it more importance than it warranted then just telling us and getting on with the story might be the better option.

Jenny

You can also show by getting one of your characters to use dialogue, eg: (not a particularly literary example!)

Telling: Fred didn't want anyone to see him, so he hid under the table.

Showing: Fred said, "I don't want anyone to see me. I'll hide under this table."

St Force

Thanks guys. for anyone else stuck with this there is an artical about it in WM.

B Darter

I was in Waterstones on Saturday and came across a book called Showing and Telling by Laurie Alberts. It cost £13.99 but you may be able to get it cheaper on Amazon. I hope it may be of some help.

machinehurt

Hello, I'm new here.

I had the most terrible trouble with literary assessors, agents and publishers in the middle 1990's trying to get children's fiction published.

Finally, I found a lovely online writing group - FRUSTRATED WRITERS SOCIETY that loved my work. They had a retired literary agent sending it out to publishers, but I didn't get anywhere. Then the founder of this society died suddenly in hospital. The group packed up with all my dreams in tatters !

You will be shocked at the reaction I got to my writing from the other so-called "professionals". One of the silliest problems is that they couldn't CLEARLY SEE - HAD VISION PROBLEMS - with my clear word processor type ribbon. I wouldn't recommend any assessor, they spend a couple of paragraphs telling you your own plot . . .

None of these professionals, except of my society, had clearly read my words and paragraphs, and couldn't connect them together.

I GOT - YOU HAVE TOLD NOT SHOWN.

It can drive you mad . . . until you can understand their crazy way of thinking.

Firstly, I need to explain the difference in an easy way . . .

TELLING is a newspaper article. Just writing what happened with events and places.

SHOWING is dialogue, actions and thoughts. I.e. A novel. And you need to have the occasional TELLING paragraph - that is fine.

That really is all you need to understand.

If you know what books are like - you SHOW. Don't write a newspaper article and think it's a book ! ! !

You should be fine if you keep to the basic rules of writing. But do try to change TELLING into dialogue or thoughts etc.

But consider this . . .

I never realised that many people SHOW unnessary scenes, and then TELL major events, that should be SHOWN.

So, in my case, my stupid professionals hated my work so much, that they rubbished my great SHOWING, and wanted my TELLING - SHOWN.

My TELLING paragraphs didn't need making in dialogue, actions or thoughts - they were quick information passages !

I hope this clears the matter up. I spent years failing to understand the reasoning behind this SHOW DON'T TELL.

That phrase can be a load of crap ! ! !

Liz

Hello machinehurt... why don't you introduce yourself on the new writer thread and we will all be able to welcome you properly!

Phots Moll

There's no point telling someone to 'show don't tell' if they don't understand the difference - and as you've pointed out it isn't always obvious. Perhaps it'd be better if they'd shown you what to do and why they thought it would help?

St Force

I can't believe this thread is four years old. Doesn't time fly?

Lizy

I'm still struggling with the concept of Show not Tell, but this is one example from my WIP.

Tell: The cauldon was only half full - there wasn't enough for them all.

Show: Tom peered into the cauldron. "Is this all we've got? There's not enough for everyone."

heather

Two very good articles here on showing, telling and why sometimes it's better to tell!

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/showing-and-telling-the-basics.html

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/10/are-you-showing-too-much.html

Carol

Yes, it's that issue of balance, sometimes you do need to tell because it's the best use, and some things just can't be shown well.

Mrs Bear

A classic example of telling not showing is the line, 'What (the character) didn't know was...' which I've come across all to often recently.
That's also authorial intrusion. Condemned on both counts.

Tiny Nell

Dammit. I love nothing better than to stick my nose in.

C2

:^o we know that.

Jen

I've been thinking the same lately. I have been re-writing some short stories and finding it hard to show and not tell. I bought a book hoping it would help but there's only what I already know in it. I seem to say 'she heard' or 'she felt' is most common with me and I can't think of how to show somethings and not tell them.
I read somewhere that using a mix is ok, but if it's a tense scene you must show. i don't know if I'm doing it right, I know show a character's emotion and describe a scene instead of saying 'she felt' and show their thoughts too but I do get stuck still and I thought I knew what I was doing

Tiny Nell

:^o we know that.

Cheeky!

There's a lot of good advice here, Jen.

Lizy

Maro - ~i do the self-same thing! Tough, isn't it!

Phots Moll

Jen, I think telling is fine sometimes, especially if it's a minor point. If you tell everything the writing will seem flat and won't engage the reader. If you show every tiny little detail it might feel padded and slow paced.

Claudia

Yes, agree with that, PM. If there's one thing I've learnt with this writing lark, it's that you should never blindly follow all the spouted 'rules' but use your own judgement!

Carol

So true, Claudia.

datco2014

I didn't really think about any of this before and got by so I'm not going to worry now. I think sometimes as writers we can be too fussy/self-critical. I wrote a 2500 bit of novel last week, read it back a few days later as i always do... and hated it. I tried to re-write it 3 times and then read back the original piece which for some reason I preferred to the re-writes. I obvioulsy wasn't in the right mood to do a read-back when I did. There's 4-5 hours of my life I'll never get back lol.

Mrs Bear

datco, poke yourself in the nose with a sharp stick for wasting so much of your time.
Rules have their place; slavish adherence to them doesn't. Who made them anyway? Not me, guv.

Liz

I lose confidence in my poems every single time I'm about to send them off somewhere!

Tristram_Shandy

I think the word "rule" is a trick, a misdirection. Writers wrote, printers printed. Readers started reading, and continued reading or kindled their fires to make a hotpot. Critics started critiquing, and the critical thinkers started analysing.

Out of that, somebody cottoned on to trends, the reading tastes of the day (perhaps by sifting through the cinders of the population's fireplaces). Some readers stole away with the books that almost went on the fire. A new breed of publishers evolved -- those who saw the monetary value in "pot boilers" or otherwise -- noted the trends and how much money was coming in. More authors produced work for the masses and also counted the money.

The developing species of Publisher, and their offspring, the Agent, noted the techniques identified by the critical analysts and held up these literary models against the profitable books and saw something that looked like a rule. They started listing them.

Meanwhile, another Publisher and Agent sibling sold a different type of story, to a different type of reader, and they held up their bestselling books to the light of critical analysis. And so another rule was written.

Meanwhile, writers continued to try different ways, different methods, sometimes reflective of their times, of social, political, moral and artistic thinking (or just because they were trying to be clever). The critical thinkers kept analysing and publishing papers, while the readers tried something new and found they kind of liked it (or found another source of fuel).

The publishers noticed trends shifting, and the rules altered a bit and passed on to the agents, which passed on to the authors in agent critiques of their writers' work.

Out of all this apparent rule writing you find another word: guideline.

Meanwhile, some writers, not motivated by the trends and profit, keep trying new things. Sometimes the new things turn out to be old things re-used, but you never know a reader might just like it.

And having said all this, if you want to appeal to the masses, what you have to do is think about why you're employing techniques. What is the effect you're trying to create? How do you acheive that? That's what the critical thinkers have been analysing this whole time, after all -- not applying rules, but seeing what's been written and if it works, and why. And that's what you need to ask yourself as a writer.

Should I tell or should I show? Both. To acheive different effects. Perhaps for pacing, perhaps for irony, or something else. Who knows? Depends on the context of the story.

machinehurt

Thank you for the excellent comments after my piece. I was surprised that you all weren't talking about this SHOW DON'T TELL lark sooner !

I've started up something haven't I ?

What I've seen in the threads that looks wonderful advice is about PASSIVE TENSE.

That's something I've not really dealt with, and maybe how we write our basic paragraphs is the real meaning to our hated phrase.

Tiny Nell

I think it started a long time ago, machinehurt - in 2010 by the looks of things, but, yes, you did a good job of reviving it!

As Liz wrote earlier, if you start a new thread introducing yourself, then the rest of TB can get to know you. It's always lovely to welcome a newcomer.

Jen

Active writing I've heard it called, probably read it in one of the many magazines I've read over the years ( and since abandoned)