Thread: Showing versus Telling

We all know the old maxim, "Show, don't Tell!"

I am, however, beginning to wonder if a good balance between the two makes for better writing. I spent a good hour last night "showing" an action sequence that would have lasted less than 10 seconds in real time. It was nearly two pages of writing, and it was tiresome for me. I'm having a difficult time gauging if I'm possibly showing too much, where telling would suffice.

Out of curiosity, I cracked open Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" since it was nearby, and flipped through until I found an action sequence. Some of his action is over in a few sentences, whereas if I were to write the same moment, it would easily span a few pages.

So then a new thought came to mind.. gauging the level of intensity and involvement in a scene. Is it fair to say that one can rely on Telling in low insensity sequences, then slow things down with Showing when high-intensity is called for?

Is it too tiring for a reader to have an entire novel that is all Showing?

From this I'm beginning to view Telling as real time, and Showing as a literary form of "slow-motion". Picture the stylized movie "300" where, during intense fighting, the dramatic moments are zoomed in on in super slow-motion.

Any thoughts? When do you (you personally) decide to show, and when do you tell?

Maybe, it should depend on the intensity of the scene that you're writing. If it's something that you want your reader to be fully involved in. You want them to feel the impact of your action scene, I would play it out, showing it piece by piece. I want to read a book that takes me through it step by step. Feeling the moment as it happens, living the moment as it happens. I don't want to be told how Peter stabbed Michael. I want to feel the knife wound; the gash burning like the knife was coated in gasoline and flames. I want to see the blood running down his chest, dripping on the floor. I want smell the smoke from the burning village in the distance, stinging his eyes with toxic poison so he can't see to defend himself. I want to hear the groans as Michael falls lifelessy to the ground.

Anyway, that's how I write my own. That's how I try to write my own.

My entire novel takes place over a one week period. A lot of books I read are like that. I like show instead of tell. But I guess you as the writer, have to make the decision on how much you want to play up a certain scene.

I know I'm not much help, but that's my two cents! ;0)

I don't decide or even think about it. I just write. Most of it turns out to be showing, as far I can tell. I can't really imagine consciously make a choice to write it one way or the other.

The key to action is time. If its something that is going to be over in ten seconds, then write it as such- brief and brutal. I'm not an action expert, but fights in stuff that I've written or read (one-on-one, I mean) rarely if ever top three paragraphs. What should really take up space is if you've got ten or twelve people shoveling bullets at each other as fast as they can reload. That could occupy most of a chapter, if the action shifts and people run about the building where the fight is going down. Of course, if everyone is just standing in a circle, then that fight is likely to end in a matter of seconds; in fact, I'd doubt if a single POV character could even catch all that happened in that frantic blur of blood and godawful noise before the godawful silence sets in.

I believe in always showing. I just don't always show everything that I possibly could.

That help?

I don't think showing means telling every little detail. It just means don't gloss over the story. Don't hand the reader something as a statement with no proof. Don't say Judy went to the store when you could say Judy went to buy an ice cream and a lotto ticket like she did every day at 3pm because that's what her and her late husband did on the day he died. Unless it doesn't matter at all that that's why she went. In which case, why even say she went? Show vs. tell doesn't always have to be as literal as it's often taken. Within a story you might choose to show that a pair of characters get along by the dialogue they use and the physical closeness or the general tone of scenes between them, rather than saying "Peter and Joan were good friends."

I think the kind of expanding you're talking about is more like scene vs. summary.
Some things should be scenes, we should be there for every breath of them, but some should be summary. And you can still summarise and not have it read tell-y. You can still be 'showing' even though you're summarising. I had a friend who wrote an excellent novel. The story was amazing and her prose brilliant. But a lot of things that should have been scenes were summarised, and she drew out a few scenes that really weren't that necessary. Choosing when to do which can change the emotional experience within your story a lot.

Show, don't tell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Show, don't tell is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character's action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the narrator's exposition, summarization, and description. The advice is not to be heavy-handed, or to drown the reader in adjectives, but to allow issues to emerge from the text instead. The advice applies equally to fiction and nonfiction.

"Show, don't tell" should not be applied to all incidents in the story. According to James Scott Bell, "Sometimes a writer tells as a shortcut, to move quickly to the meaty part of the story or scene. Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. If you try to do it constantly, the parts that are supposed to stand out won't, and your readers will get exhausted."^[1]

Showing requires more words; telling may cover a greater span of time more concisely.^[2] A novel that contains only showing would be incredibly long; therefore, a narrative can contain some legitimate telling.

Scenes that are important to the story should be dramatized with showing, but sometimes what happens between scenes can be told so the story can make progress. According to Orson Scott Card and others, "showing" is so terribly time consuming that it is to be used only for dramatic scenes.^[3] The objective is to find the right balance of telling versus showing, action versus summarization. Factors like rhythm, pace, and tone come into play.^[4][5]

According to novelist Francine Prose:

[The Alice Munro passage] contradicts a form of bad advice often given young writers—namely, that the job of the author is to show, not tell. Needless to say, many great novelists combine "dramatic" showing with long sections of the flat-out authorial narration that is, I guess, what is meant by telling. And the warning against telling leads to a confusion that causes novice writers to think that everything should be acted out ... when in fact the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of language."^[6]

Nobel Prize winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was a notable proponent of the show, don't tell style. His famed Iceberg Theory, also known as the "theory of omission", originates from his bullfighting treatise, Death in the Afternoon:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

While writers such as Prose and Munro may champion "the specific use of language", and while creative writing experts may seek to debunk misleading myths, it is nonetheless true that most great novels rely heavily upon subtext and the art of what is left unsaid. The "dignity" Hemingway speaks of can be interpreted as a form of respect for the reader, who should be trusted to develop a feeling for the meaning behind the action without having the point painfully laid out for him. It could be argued that showing and not telling is what separates fiction and literature from news-writing or historical narration.

Show don't tell is garbage. Most useless canard that ever emerged from a creative writing class.

I'm convinced it developed from a combination of the 50's adjustment to television as a competitive medium and Hemingway worship.

It's all telling anyway. You ain't showin' nothing but words.

Canard.

That may be overstating things a bit. I think there's such a thing. As I've understood it, it just means something like, instead of writing:

"Fred was hungry and broke."

write something like this:

"Fred heard his stomach grumble and looked longingly at the sandwiches behind the deli counter. He couldn't remember his last good meal. He fished in all his pockets for change or on the off chance he might come across a forgotten bill, but he came up empty -- as usual."

One is literally telling. The other really is showing, because it paints a mental picture -- you might even imagine a feeling of hunger. If I said something about the smell of hot pastrami, I'd begin to involve the other senses. So if I was reading something and the author was doing a lot of the first thing, I might say, "you're telling too much and not showing. It's not very interesting. It's not engaging me." And I think that would be a valid criticism.

As far as the OP goes, it just sounds like it's about knowing how much you should show -- as opposed to showing vs. telling. If it was that, it would be more like two pages of describing the fight vs. saying, "They fought long and hard, but in the end, Fred was victorious."

this reminds me of my kid's school where they have a session once a bluemoon called :
'Show and Tell' and another one callled
'The Golden Time'
as far as I know showing is demonstrattion something like
1) Intructions for example the Air Hostess with the life jackets
2) means it involves gestures/movement
3) Indicating something/getting someone's attention
so showing is for information purposes and is meant of fulfill an aim which the listener will respond by either completing why you showed them or memorise them.

Telling however is for listening purposes and does not necessarily imply that the listener is to respond or is stimulated by listening.
you can Tell me to do this and that but it deos notmean I will do it.
you can tell me off but that does that no mean I will comply.
There is no reponse or stimulus from the listener's part when you are telling them something.

In other words showing implies that the listener is LOOKING as well as LISTENING.
telling only means the listener is ONLY using his listening sensor.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

We all know the old maxim, "Show, don't Tell!"

I am, however, beginning to wonder if a good balance between the two makes for better writing.

Let's start with this, because this is the key point. There's no issue here. Writing fiction is about using both show and tell, and using them appropriately. "Show, don't tell" shouldn't be taken literally. You'd be hard pushed to find a novel with no tell at all. The problem, for novice writers, comes from not understanding the difference between show and tell, and even when known, from not knowing how and when to use them appropriately. Once you have a grasp of what the terms mean, all of the fiction books at your fingertips become training material. You can analyse them and see how others have handled show and tell. What you'll find, as with so many things, is that the balance will vary widely between authors and books and still be just fine.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

I spent a good hour last night "showing" an action sequence that would have lasted less than 10 seconds in real time. It was nearly two pages of writing, and it was tiresome for me. I'm having a difficult time gauging if I'm possibly showing too much, where telling would suffice.

Novice writers struggling to get to grips with show and tell often go overboard, showing far too much and almost completely avoiding tell. Not only that, but probably the most common problem with novice writers is that they haven't yet developed a sense of what to include and what not to, so they put in all kinds of stuff that isn't needed, irrespective of whether it's show or tell. Not much you can do to shortcut that other than write plenty of fiction, read and analyse plenty of published fiction, and seek good quality feedback on your own stuff. It's not possible to tell whether you've gone overboard with last night's effort without seeing it, but it could be the case.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

Out of curiosity, I cracked open Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" since it was nearby, and flipped through until I found an action sequence. Some of his action is over in a few sentences, whereas if I were to write the same moment, it would easily span a few pages.

Good comparison. Check out a few more novels, too. It might not be quite so black and white, but you'll get a feel for how others manage it.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

So then a new thought came to mind.. gauging the level of intensity and involvement in a scene. Is it fair to say that one can rely on Telling in low insensity sequences, then slow things down with Showing when high-intensity is called for?

I don't think it's helpful to think of show and tell in terms of intensity, even if in some instances that might be the case. I'm sure I've read plenty of high-intensity telling and low-intensity showing, and intensity isn't a factor in defining show and tell. An example of where low-intensity might suggest tell is with a scene or chapter transition, where you may use a paragraph or two to ground the reader without too much detail, but I don't think there's a general case for viewing it in terms of intensity.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

Is it too tiring for a reader to have an entire novel that is all Showing?

I don't think the question is particularly meaningful, almost any novel will use a combination of show and tell. Well written show, in combination with tell where appropriate, shouldn't be tiring. Poorly written show can be.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

From this I'm beginning to view Telling as real time, and Showing as a literary form of "slow-motion". Picture the stylized movie "300" where, during intense fighting, the dramatic moments are zoomed in on in super slow-motion.

No, I don't think that's at all helpful.

Originally Posted by KyleColorado

Any thoughts? When do you (you personally) decide to show, and when do you tell?

First of all, you need to understand what show and tell are, what the terms mean. So many people have provided definitions, and some of them I find are not very helpful (IMHO). Probably the simplest and most concise definition I have to hand is this one, from Studying The Novel, by Jeremy Hawthorn:

Showing and Telling. A term used to distinguish two ways of providing the reader with relevant information. Telling is seen as the cruder technique, involving overt statement on the part of the narrator or character. Showing is more subtle and indirect, presenting scenes of dialogue, thought or action and allowing the reader to draw certain conclusions him- or herself.

There are two elements here that should be emphasised. One is the use of show to present things through a scene, with dialogue, thought or action. In other words, events unfolding in front of the reader, rather than reporting something that happened. The second is allowing the reader to draw conclusions. If you take a simple example, of the type usually trotted out in these discussions, you have something along the lines of:

John was angry. (Tell).

John thumped the door. (Show).

Even with this simple example, the latter exhibits the two elements above, while the former doesn't. John thumping the door is something that the reader experiences through the character's action, and the reader interprets from the action that John is angry. (Technically, you might need more of the surrounding context to know that thumping the door in this instance means anger, but the example is a simple one).

But show can be more subtle than this. It's not always apparent at the sentence level. You might have many sentences that on their own are considered to be tell, but they might still allow the reader to draw a conclusion, thereby showing something. You might include a whole scene to show that John is a bad father.

Best way to understand show and tell better, if you're comfortable with the above definition, is to look at how it's done in the books you're reading. Does the show in those books fit the definition above? When (and why) does the author use obvious tell? What's the balance between the two? The author has made choices about which to use when. Are there any that you might have done differently?

Also in Hawthorn's book, by the way, not that I'm plugging it, is an analysis of the first line from Chekhov's short story The Lady With The Dog. It's quite amazing how much the analysis reckons is shown in the first line alone, certainly far more than most of us would consciously pick up on. Similar, also, in Orson Scott Card's book How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, where he analyses the opening to a story by Octavia Butler.

I think the show don't tell maxim is more applicable to poetry than prose. To much show in a novel could become wearing, whereas a poem, which needs to pack more punch per word without being an instruction manual, can be obtuse without being boring, and is probably better for being so otherwise it is a greetings card verse.

I try not to think in terms of films when I think of action. In a book action could be the action of a character deep in thought. I think telling is best when it is information about the character that gives an impression the character is real but the information itself does not mean anything to the story. In my current work I have a short paragraph telling the reader about something the main character did over the week. Later it has turned out this action is more important to the story so I will have to go back and show the reader what the character does. That way it will be remembered more and appreciated when the action has consequences later on.

But with regard to the OP I would not be comfortable if I had written an action sequence that should last only 10 seconds over several pages. Perhaps you have gone too deep into the detail and it could end up becoming boring. How has it ended up over several pages? Check to see the character hasn't started having thoughts during the action, or check you are not describing the same thing several times. Also it is down to the pace of the story, check if such a slow pace works or is right for that point in the story.

But otherwise showing could be that you don't overtly tell the reader something but instead put it in other words as other posts say. I am a bold man could be written as I would stand up to authority if I felt it was right. Which in turn could be reworded or extended into an action scene showing the character standing up to authority.

I usually think of the "show, don't tell" guideline as operating on two levels: small, word-based, and much larger, as Fox said, Scene vs. Summary.

Where a writer can get into trouble with the smaller kind is if he often relies on abstract words. For example, "John was angry." Everyone is angry in their own way, and so that word has little power. It is not concrete enough, does not create enough of a vivid image in the reader's mind. Enough of these abstract words can drain a story of its power. My personal rule is that I try to never name an emotion in my writing. I feel if I have to tell the reader my character was angry, or elated, then I am not looking deep enough.

And then there is the larger kind of "show, don't tell", the difficulty in choosing which scene to dramatize, and which to summarize. This is pretty easy to decide, I think. The scenes where the story is advanced, or where the character learns something, goes through some sort of personal arc (changed by the end of the scene), should be shown. Put another way, don't write the boring stuff.

I think the "show, don't tell" guideline is useful for beginning/intermediate writers. It teaches you (ideally) to be completely accurate in your descriptions, to use visually-rich language, to slow down and look for the details. Even if the writer ends up with loads of dramatized scenes he can't use, it is all good practice. But at some point, I agree with most others here, the writer needs to find that balance between what deserves to be shown, and what need only be summarized.

I have been reading about this in "how-to" books on fiction writing. Everybody has different ideas (what's new, right?).

I use telling when I need to get a character from point A to point B quickly. The reader doesn't want to know what every squirrel and bird looked like during two days of travel on foot. I need to fast forward to the interesting part - I need to get the character to what he/she needs to accomplish.

But when the character is doing or experiencing something critical or important, it's time for showing. If you want the reader invested in your character, you need to show them how the character perceives things through their senses and emotions. The reader needs to see, more than hear, what is going on, and this means using vivid language to describe reactions, facial expressions, body language. Instead of being told that your character is frightened, they should be able to see it on the characters face and in their body language.

One more thing: In my mind (and I am no expert!) I think when things happen fast, like an action sequence, it's better to use shorter sentences, be brief with description, and keep things moving. Have you ever had something happen to you (like a near car accident) so fast that you didn't have time to think? The reader won't get this sense about your action if you spend too much time describing every micro-movement and minute detail. You can describe the character's shudders and amazement AFTER the action as they think about what just happened, just like we do in real life.

My two-cents worth... I do agree that checking popular novels and noting the variety of methods of employing Show and Tell is a good idea. So many ways to do it!