Blog 22: Showing -v- Telling

Hi there, my busy little writers! You may be interested to know that June is Adopt a Cat Month. As we have six, I won’t be participating in this particular event, despite the fact that when we visited a cat café a couple of weeks ago, my youngest daughter asked if we could bring one home! Having three snakes too, our house is a little overcrowded at the moment.

As you will gather, we are very much a cat house. Each one of our felines has their own personality. We have our cheeky one, shy one, loud one, bossy one – they are quite the entertaining bunch. Over the years, we have become familiar with the ways of cats, their behaviour, and how to translate it. If you pay attention, they are very good at showing you what they want and how they feel.

Yes, it’s show, don’t tell time, as of course inferred by the title. I am so sure that you have heard this phrase that I would bet my kids on it, though not my cats. I wouldn’t dare gamble with them! Seriously though, it has to be one of the most well-known pieces of advice that springs up when writing fiction. But what does it actually mean?

Well, to show is to paint a picture of what is happening. Some writers try to explain what the characters are doing and how they are feeling, but don’t show it, to enable us to work it out for ourselves. When you watch a film, you don't need a voice-over explaining how everyone is feeling; we know from what we can see. Here is an example of telling,

Carrie was fuming, she wanted to smack her brother into the middle of next week for how he had treated her. She went up to him and said, “How could you do that? I can’t even look at you right now,” and walked off angrily.

Showing may read more like this,

Carrie’s face felt like a kettle that was coming to the boil. She clenched her fists as she stormed over to her brother and jabbed her finger into his chest. “How could you do that? I can’t even look at you right now.” She shoved into his shoulder as she pushed past him, then charged out of the room, slamming the door.

Instead of saying that Carrie was fuming and wanted to smack her brother, we see she is angry by the fact her face feels hot, she is clenching her fists, and jabs her finger into his chest. Similarly, when she walks away, she shoves him and slams the door. Can you see we have created the scene here, rather than summarised? Giving the reader a visual of the scene is a much better way for them to engage with the story and connect with the characters.

However, some writers take it a little too far and include far more detail than is necessary. It's like they are comparing their writing to a film and feel they need to account for everything. For example, standing up, walking to the door, turning the doorknob, looking at someone, and getting into the car. These minor details are common sense and slow the action down. And when you use it constantly, they slow it down a LOT.

We know someone is looking at another character if they are talking to them, unless you choose to make them avoid eye contact or they are distracted by something else, in which case, you should mention it. If Carrie talks to her brother, it is clear they will be looking at each other, if not you should tell us.

Going from point a to point b, whether it is in a room or a journey somewhere, if it is important to the story, such as, while they are walking across the room or opening the door, they discover something significant that the reader should know about, then by all means include it, but if not, leave out all these little details.

What about scene setting? This is a tricky one for me, personally, I don’t like to be overwhelmed with a lot of detail to recreate in my head. However, there are authors who love to describe how characters look, the rooms they are in, and other surroundings, and they certainly have a fan base for that style. I would say, ask yourself, does it add to the story? Is it something that the reader should know? Yes, details to get a picture of something are certainly helpful. Rather than describing something as beautiful, how is it beautiful? My opinion of the word will differ from others. A writer may describe a building as big, but how big is it? Specifics can be useful to guide the reader as to what something is like.

But, try not to be so consumed with painting a picture that you forget about the action in the story. I have got completely lost when reading a few manuscripts as to what was going on because of the amount of description in the scene. In the end, I had to go back and re-read it to get back on track. The important elements of the story had got lost in a lot of unnecessary description, making it difficult to follow. In addition, when something is occurring to a character, stay on it.

Imagine, if you will, watching an action scene on television. Let's borrow Black Widow for this (because she’s pretty awesome). She's fighting a group of twenty ninjas, kicking their butts one by one, but then this huge guy comes in and, oh no, she’s out of her depth. Suddenly, the camera pans off and starts to show the room they are fighting in. What the hell? There’s a high ceiling. Lovely, but what is happening to Black Widow? The walls are painted metallic blue. Great, but is she alright? And look, there’s a very expensive-looking crystal chandelier dangling from the middle. As gorgeous as that is, unless she is going to swing from it, then we really want to know if our heroine is okay. Is she lying in a pool of her blood down on the floor, or has she found a way to beat this new opponent?

Perhaps she is being pinned on the floor by her throat, it isn’t good! But she looks at the chandelier and manages to get a throwing star out of her jacket. She throws it at the chandelier, slicing it from the ceiling, which results in it crashing down onto the villain’s head. Victory is hers! In this instance, we needed to know this detail because it fed into the story and what was going to happen next. Remember, if you mention details, it gets filed into the reader's head as an important factor. So if it isn't, don't confuse them with unnecessary details.

I guess you need to go back to the old hat stand situation that I mentioned quite a few blogs back. If it’s sat there in the corner of the room and doesn’t fulfil any purpose, then no one needs to know about it. But if it explains something that we should be aware of, to understand something about a character, or the story, then get it in there.

Remember, it is all about balance. You don’t want to overwhelm the reader with so much showing that their brains are going to crash with all the information, but also you don’t want to tell everything, keeping the picture of the scene to yourself. Make sure your scene-to-summary ratio complements each other as the story unfolds.

Writing exercise time! One for show and one for tell. You ready? Of course you are, let’s do this: -

Showing

1. Choose a passage from a book, or one of your own, that incorporates showing.

2. Reword it into a scene where you can visualise what is happening and how the character is feeling.

Telling

1. Choose a passage from a book, or one of your own, that incorporates telling.

2. I would like you to put it into summary. Explain what is happening but without painting a picture.

This exercise is a useful way to build up a better awareness of how you are using your show and tell whilst writing your narrative. So get stuck in and let me know how you get on.

I’ll see you next week with another blog and a new writing exercise. Bye for now.