Show AND Tell
Therese Walsh on Jun 26 2007 | Filed under: Book Talk, CRAFT
My daughter and I were shopping online for books the other day–one of our very favorite activities–and stumbled upon a book that seemed to want to slide onto her shelf: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo by Obert Skye. We both admired Skye’s opening line, “It was at least forty degrees above warm.” Skye went on to impress us, in the online excerpt, with a sardonic humor (“The few remaining plants in people’s gardens didn’t wilt, they passed out. And the flags that only days before had hung majestically on the top of local flagpoles no longer looked majestic, they looked like multi-colored pieces of cloth that had climbed up and tragically hung themselves.”) and the hook of a darkly curious happening (“Anyone foolish enough to be standing outside would have been able to watch as the lightning moved with calculating accuracy, deliberately touching anything above ground level and quickly setting it ablaze. It moved sideways and upward. The sky became a giant blackboard with heaven scratching out its apocalyptic messages with lightning bolts.”).
We were ready to order, but we read a few reviews anyway. This excerpt, from Publishers Weekly, got me thinking:
Obert Skye’s imagined world of Foo contains many whimsical and delightful elements, such as Humble Pie that apologizes for its own flavor and promises to taste better next time, and candy that temporarily rearranges its chewer’s body parts. At times, the prose does not match the quality of the story. Debut novelist Skye resorts to telling instead of showing, especially with character descriptions; Lev’s guardian, for example, is “a little man with no compassion or concern for others.” Some passages are also oddly overwritten (“He didn’t speak English, he spoke anguish”). However, the story’s pacing is excellent, and the last hundred pages build palpable excitement and suspense. Kids and adults alike will enjoy this charming tale of good and evil, and look forward to the other books in the series.
Obviously, I haven’t read Skye’s book yet, so I don’t have an opinion about his work as a whole or how often he breaks the golden show-don’t-tell rule, but does the description of “a little man with no compassion or concern for others” really hurt him? It helps the reader develop an instantaneous feeling about the character so the story can move forward, after all. Is that always bad? Did Skye need to develop a sequence showing the character acting like an a-hole? What of the other characters Skye is “telling” about? Are they secondary or tertiary? Would stopping to “show” traits slow the pace or be irrelevant to the arc of the scene and overall story?
Chekhov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” But not everything can be shown. It just can’t.
Renni Browne and Dave King, in their book, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, wrote that “…telling your readers about your characters’ emotions is not the best way to get your readers involved. Far better to show why your characters feel the way they do.” But they also say, “Bear in mind that ‘show, don’t tell’ is not a hard-and-fast rule…There are going to be times when telling will create more engagement than showing.”
So what do you guys think? When do you show, and when do you tell? Is there a rule of thumb you use to be sure you’re doing each at the right time? Or do you follow your gut?
Kathleen Bolton
Therese Walsh
Ann Aguirre
Porter Anderson
Brunonia Barry
Carleen Brice
Keith Cronin
Anna Elliott
Jane Friedman
Donald Maass
Juliet Marillier
Sophie Masson
Jael McHenry
Jan O'Hara
Debbie Ohi
Barbara O'Neal
Crystal Patriarche
Ray Rhamey
M.J. Rose
Chuck Sambuchino
John Vorhaus
Yuvi Zalkow
Sharon Bially
Anne Greenwood Brown
Tracy Hahn-Burkett
Suzannah Windsor Freeman
Kristan Hoffman
Jeanne Kisacky
Erika Robuck
Lydia Sharp
tell vs. show is a classic beginning writer’s mistake in terms of craft. but if your ‘show’ affects the pacing of your story, it’s not a value to your story.
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Sometimes, you just gotta tell. Sure, it’s best to show, but sometimes a writer decides character shorthand is the lesser of two evils when it comes to pacing, etc.
It’s not a deal-breaker for me, by far.
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Depends on if you have room for the scene. I find there are generally three types of scenes… (really only two) — ones that advance the plot, and ones that demonstrate a character, and scenes that do both.
Showing is perfect if you have enough room (available scenes) to show off a character doing something that epitomizes their personality or demeanor. If you don’t have time, tell it.
I find more often than not though, I’ve got too few scenes than too many, so it’s not a big deal to make room for ‘showing.’
I recently watched Pan’s Labyrinth and they do some great character-showing scenes for the villain. Some of it isn’t related to the plot at all, they just want to show you how evil he can really be. It works well. They do a great job of making you hate the villain, and most of it is through showing.
I’d say telling is the ‘shortcut’ – for use when you don’t have time or space to accommodate showing.
Oh, these are also sometimes defined as direct and indirect narrative. Direct narrative are the events actually unfolding, indirect is a summary or description of them.
Their use gives a hint as to showing vs. telling. Indirect (telling) narrative is often used for things that happen in between the meat of the story, like a character traveling from one place to another when the traveling itself is insignificant. “He got on the train and went home.” – No elaborate train ride scenes necessary.
So the use is dictated entirely by the needs of the story.
Where I don’t like telling is it’s often used by default because the writer is rambling, lazy, or didn’t realize that making it a scene of its own could have made the story stronger. In other words, it’s often more unconsciously used than consciously. :(
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I was digging through some of my story tricks this morning and this seemed relevant:
“Undeserved Misfortune is when something bad happens to the hero or heroes so that the audience will feel sympathy for them.
It is imperative that the audience see the Undeserved Misfortune take place before its eyes and not happen offscreen.”
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Absolutely go with your gut, for the first draft. Then be merciless in the second. If it survives, leave it.
Levin Thumps is delightful, the kind of book the makes a reader fall in love with words, with the way they taste as they roll of the tongue.
I think the reveiwer would have found most of Lewis Carroll to be overwritten.
In the case of the character above, I think it’s used as a way to quickly introduce him and put him squarely in his place.
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I like the “undeserved misfortune” litmus test, Eric.
I also watched Pan’s Labyrinth the other day, and it’s a great study on when to show and tell. Show how evil the Captain is. Tell in shorthand about Franco’s fascism and WWII.
And I agree with you, PWStrain, about allowing words to overflow sometimes. If it works, it works. Not every novel can or should be stripped ala Hemingway.
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Here’s a post I did on the subject on Flogging the Quill last year that might be of interest.
http://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2006/week6/index.html
Ray
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Some insightful posts here – great examples in your Flogging the Quill post, Ray. It annoys me when editors get too heavy on the ‘show don’t tell’ dictum, as there are many circumstances where telling is more appropriate. It’s a great way to move things on.
I’d look at it in terms of the quality of the storytelling – does showing in this particular scene help you tell the story more effectively, or will it only slow things down?
In historical or fantasy series, there often needs to be significant ‘telling’ to fill in the background for later books in the series. When writers overdo this in the early pages, it’s sometimes described as ‘infodump.’ I’m not quite sure how one avoids this, other than by writing prologues. ‘Previously in the WolfBane Trilogy …’
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Juliet,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incluing
This is the alternative to infodumping. It’s probably up for debate, but I’d say incluing is closer to showing and infodumping is telling.
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