ESSAY: Show Don't Tell

[Mad Hamlet <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings,

I wrote this essay/rant to settle a few questions ripping around my own list,
BRUTAL C&C. I figured that it might find a few intrested readers herin my
lists of old as well.

If not. Oh well.

Yes it's THAT thing again. 

I've been informed that there's been some questioning going on regarding just
what the @$@(!!! 'Show Don't Tell' means.

Perhaps this will help...and I'm in the mood for a nice rant.

For some reason I'm associated often with this phrase 'Show Don't Tell'; asif
somehow the concept and myself were linked. This is understandable in the one
regard as I am often seen shouting it, metaphorically, from the rooftops. 

What boggles me is that I ALONE have been associated with it and yet any
Creative Writing teacher, hell, any English Literature teacher who knows even
the most elementary basics would also be shouting it out. Yet I alone am
associated with it in the various fanfic communities I am part of. 

This means either two things.

1. Many self-proclaimed students of Writing have very bad teachers.

Or

2. Many self-proclaims students of Writing arn't.

Moreover many times I have pointed out 'Telling' only to receive the reply,
'Well that's my style' or 'There are no rules in writing, only guidelines'.

Stating such as that is similar to stating that there are no rules in life,
merely guidelines. So it's not 'Breaking The Rules' when you murder, rob, mug,
assault, speed it's just suggested you not actually do so.

Right. 

Anyone standing on soap box voicing such ideas would be tackled, wrapped ina
straight jacket and bundled off to a room with a nice view if somewhat
questionable decor. They wouldn't mind so much as long as the medication came
on a regular basis.

Now let me construct the following analogy-

Writers of no mean experience, not only experts but just fanficers with
several years under their belts, years spent not only producing material but
actually learning, are, in this little make believe world, The Normal People.
The equivalent of average citizens you pass by the dozens every day in a
persons lifetime.

Then along comes someone who no one knows of or has ever heard about. This
relatively new, but in no way unwelcome face, whips out a Soapbox, leaps upon
it and begins to bellow and shout about personal styles, guidelines not rules,
writing being a totally creative art not to be limited in any way(Which it is
but that's a different tangent.) 

So when people react to C&C(Or editing, proofreading, Pre-reading,
beta-reading call it what you want) that knocks the work about a bit for
Telling with cries of 'Style this' and 'Creative That' writers who know what's
what have a tendency to wince. Indeed the urge to tackle, straightjacket, and
ship off the soapbox'ed one must be beaten down.

This is not to say that it's ALL about showing. Telling has a large place in a
story as well but it's been said better by others.

> > > > Show, don't tell is easy and yet it is hard. It's hard because sometimes
we simply have to tell -- that is, summarize, explain, provide background
information. Our writing is actually a mixture of telling and showing or
action and narrative. In fact, if we employed only showing in our writing it
would be too fast-paced and flat because it wouldn't include enough reflection
and depth. 

So the trick then is know when to show -- when to bring the reader close and
let them feel the ocean breezes waft and fog against their skin, while
seagulls hover and squawk overhead and sand grits between their toes. When to
wrench them down into the dank cellar or shove them into the gloomy attic.
Showing is immersing, involving. Showing means writing specifics, especially
adding sensory details. Showing employs action or movement, dialogue or
conversation, anecdotes, gestures, light and shadows.[1]


You want an example where telling works? Don't look any farther than any Star
Wars movie. The very beginning of Star Wars is always, always, ALWAYS....

'Long long ago in a galaxy far far away'(But near enough to plaster every
pepsi glass, happy meal, poster and book cover for the last fifteen years)

And then the yellow scrolling text appears. That is telling. And it works.
Why? Because it's giving us a background, a setting. It works well too. When
the first Star Wars movie came out(I'm talking about STAR WARS...not that
crappy episode one) the entire reality, the continuity itself was brand new
and no first time movie goer had a clue as to what the hell was going on.

Start Yellow Text.

Two minutes later most moviegoers were breathless in anticipation of jumping
into this film created world feet first.

But what if something different had happened? What if for the next two hours
it was only scrolling yellow text?

That would be kind of dull wouldn't it?

Now...showing. That's something special. Showing the events pulls a person
into the story, the reader becomes part of the events around. What is thereto
taste, they taste; what is there to see is seen, what's heard is audible to
their mental ear.

Telling a story, sorry, WRITING a story is not about words on a screen, page,
etch-a-sketch whatever. It's about using strange squiggly lines that somehow
get turned into a movie inside a reader's head.

Well that sounds pretty nifty now doesn't it?

What else is it good for?

Again, better than I have said it better.

> > > > Showing, instead of telling, also saves us from another common writing
sin: using abstract concepts and language instead of concrete examples. Some
of the most awkward writing takes place when we struggle to express "big"
issues -- freedom, injustice, fairness, love or loyalty. Ideas such as racism
don't come home until they wear a face, until we see the black teenager
followed as she enters the department store, assumed to shoplift because of
her skin color.[1]

That last bit there, the one about racism is dead bang.

I recently posted the latest part of my ongoing BtVS Femslash story entitled
'Dianna Wears Red-Secundus: Third Test. Within that story we meet 'FatMan'.An
utterly detestable little troll.

Nowhere in the story itself did I say, 'FatMan was a detestable little troll'.
I just wrote his actions. I wrote his dialiouge, I described his mannerisms,
his attitudes, his actions, and thoughts. For pages and pages, paragraph after
paragraph I made FatMan. 

I never told, I showed. And it worked. FatMan thus far has been received with
loathsome hatred by pretty much everybody who has taken the trouble to respond
to the story. 

So it works. If a writer wants to create a monster they should not simply
state.

'It was a monster'

Or 

'It was monstrous.'

Make the damn thing. Put it together in tiny tiny pieces and let my own
creative mind drawn my own conclusion. 

Truth be told FatMan vs 'It was a monster' is a pretty obvious and blatant
example. But there are others. 

Refer again to the lines above by my better.

> > > > Showing, instead of telling, also saves us from another common writing
sin: using abstract concepts and language instead of concrete examples.[1]

Lots of times I've read, 'Looked upon so and so with
love/hate/disgust/boredom/insert adjective here.'

Oh yeah? So...what does that look like? 

A writers interpretations of an emotion in an expression can be totally
different than anybody else's; or a writer's estimate of a pre-conceived
characters emotive expressions can still be totally different from anyone
else's.

IE. In fanficiton the mental picture I get when I imagine Buffy and Willow
exchanging loving glances could be totally different from another writer's
perspective. For all I know another fanficers idea of meaningful exchanges
between these two characters would be them sticking their fingers in each
other's ears and saying 'Nanoo, nanoo!' 

Either way I want to SEE it. Not be told about it.

Telling a story is about making a movie in someone's head.

It has been also espoused that Show Don't Tell is a rule. 

It is.

It's not a guideline, it's not a suggestion, it's not an option. 

It can be set aside for certain situations so long as the writer knows when,
why, and the story justifies as such. But a newly come along writer, fanficcer
or otherwise, attempting to justify getting called on Telling by citing
'Stylistic differences' is at best deluding themselves, at worst, never
getting published.

The urge to 'Tell' is not a style. It's an instinct.

> > > > One possible reason why showing is so difficult is the concept of
'telling' a story. As a beginner, the thought is to 'tell' a good story. If
writing a good story is the goal of every writer, than one assumes to writea
good story is the same as telling one.

That's where the differences arise. Instincts will naturally guide the
'telling' of a good story, but we don't talk the way we write.[2]

It's the whole communication thing. We tell stories every day with the spoken
language; when one is writing a story there are so many more things to be
added. The surroundings, the tones, the expressions, the actions, the
intensity behind those emotion/actions/scenes etc.

Of course now advocates of writing are hit with, particularly from the fanfic
community, 'We're only writing for fun!'

Yeah. Sure that's understandable. Still there is something to be said for
'Good' as well as fun. I have read fanfics that I still read to this day, over
and over and over again simply because the world is so rich and full and
terrible and wondrous. On the other hand I have read fanfics where I couldn't
get past the title, much less the first paragraph.

In addition there is a lot more fun to be had with 'Good'. The honest
adoration of the masses for one, rather than 'Wow' and 'You Rox dood!' which
are mostly received there will be true and terrible feedback. Advocating the
virtues and celebrating the highs. Lastly, for the argument of 'Good' working
well with 'Fun' is how immersed the writer themselves will become. Ideas will
flow from the mind like quicksilver, the muses will sing and writers will find
themselves embracing aspects of the story that are...it's true...better than
sex.(Very, very rarely).

To conclude Show Don't Tell.


I hope this helps, if not that, at least entertains.

I remain, as always,
Mad-Hamlet

[1] Show Don't Tell: Learning to Be Specific by Jessica Page Morrell.
Reprinted without permission. 
http://www.ivillage.com/books/expert/writecoach/articles/0,11872,243586_15638,00.html

[2] Show-Don't Tell by Nicole Givens Kurtz
Reprinted Without Permission. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1319/36693

For further reading...well the easy way would be to simply go to:

www.google.com


Look upon my work ye mighty and...ah skip it.
http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/madhamlet.htm
-Mad Hamlet