Show, don't tell in fiction

In March 2021, I was invited by ALLi (the Alliance of Independent Authors) to be the guest on its weekly #IndieAuthorChat. The subject was ‘show, don’t tell’. Tim Lewis asked me 6 questions. Here are my answers.

Q1: Why is "Show Don't Tell" a good rule for writers?

A1.1: I prefer to see it as a useful guide rather than a rule! Def a place for both. Show = character experience related through action and sensory info. Tell = exposition; explaining. Show = nudges that allow the reader to do the work. Tell = on a plate!

A1.2: Too much telling can be flat, mundane. Showing can be more evocative and interesting – grounds experience in broader landscape. Eg ➡️ “The foxgloves’ long stems bend almost flat in the wind” shows the strength of the wind. “The wind is strong” tells it.

Q2: How can an author know if they are having the problem of showing too much as opposed to telling?

A2.1: Check whether shown prose does the following:
👉 interrupts action
👉 stops a reader getting to what they’re really interested in
👉 focuses the reader’s gaze on stuff that doesn’t drive story forward.

A2.2: Effective showing should be ⭐relevant⭐, and help readers imagine what’s hard to articulate with telling. But if it can be told well, tell it! Showing should nudge a reader’s imagination, not overwhelm their senses.

A2.3: Eg ➡️ “Two hours to kill before the debrief. She buys a sandwich and chews on stale bread and limp lettuce. The gravelly crust assaults her tongue and …” 🤢 I’ll stop! Unless the quality of lunch is key to the plot, showing is unnecessary and distracting. Ditch it.

Q3: Describe an example where a writer tells where showing would be a better idea.

A3.1: Rather than focusing the reader’s gaze inwards by telling *how* a POV char accesses info (eg saw, noticed, knew), consider recasting without the FILTER WORD so that readers focus outwards and are shown the *what*.

A3.2: Eg ➡️ “She saw an armed man leaping down the stairs two at a time.” > “An armed man leapt down the stairs two at a time.” The latter is more immediate but still immersive.

A3.3: Rather than telling of character INTENTION, showing character action could be more effective. Eg ➡️ “Ayesha reached up *to* switch on the light.” > “Ayesha reached up *and* switched on the light.”

A3.4: Descriptions that read like told SHOPPING LISTS can be boring. Instead, show by weaving into action/experience. Eg ➡️ (To Kill a Mockingbird) “Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning.” (not: “The men wore stiff collars.”)

Q4: Are there any cases where it is better to tell rather than show?

A4.1: CONSIDER SCENE: Eg ➡️ Faster-paced scenes where anything but an explanation would be interruptive. Writers and editors need to ask: Where should the focus be: internal and emotional, or external and explanatory?

A4.2: CONSIDER TIME: If there’s a scene shift and two hours have passed, or you want to tell the reader what time it is, go for it. Eg ➡️ “At one in the morning the call came in.” “Two days passed and he heard nothing.” No need to labour the point.

A4.3: CONSIDER VOICE: An overload of sensory information might mar the narrator’s voice and seem contrived and overly self-aware. ➡️ There’s nothing wrong with “I felt like puking” if that’s how a character would most likely convey that info.

A4.4: TELLING CAN SHOW! Removing it could obliterate hidden magic. Eg ➡️ American Psycho has reams of told prose that exposes the POV character’s obsession with material goods and with himself. The exposition is a back door to his narcissism.

Q5: How is viewpoint relevant to "Show Don't Tell"?

A5.1: With 1P and 3P-limited POVs 👁️, readers can’t access non-POV characters’ internal experiences. Showing is the back door to their emotional states – audible and visual clues that enable the POV character and reader to surmise their interior experience.

A5.2: Here’s an example from Harlan Coben’s WIN (p. 173): ➡️ “She starts fiddling with the ring on her hand.” The “she” is *not* the POV character so Coben shows us her discomfort – that she’s hiding something – rather than telling us. It's a 1P narrative but we get to access the non-POV character's emotions anyway.

Q6: What tools can an author use to help them with decisions regarding showing and telling?

A6.1: ⚙️ RHYTHMIC TOOLS such as anaphora, sentence fragments, asyndeton, polysyndeton help authors convey mood and emotion. Eg ➡️ The omission of commas in polysyndeton might convey drudgery or dizziness. Fragments might convey high alert, tension, despair, fear.

A6.2: ⚙️ PUNCTUATION AND FORMATTING TOOLS can show, eg ➡️ exclamation, volume, pauses, interruptions and emphasis so that the author needn’t also tell of exclaiming, the loudness of speech, hesitation etc.

A6.3: ⚙️ LAYOUT can help too. Eg ➡️ One-line paragraphs can do heavy-lifting when it comes to showing the order of action and its immediacy rather than telling *then* X happened, *then* Y happened. There’s an embedded wallop to a one-liner!

A6.4: ⚙️ STRONG VERBS can be quick fixes. Eg ➡️ “The rumble of traffic” shows the sound. “The sound of traffic” tells it. “Haring” shows the speed of running. “Running fast” tells it.