If you've taken any creative writing classes or read any fiction writing books, chances are you've come across the number one rule of writing (well, maybe it comes just after "writers write"): "show, don't tell."
But what exactly does "show, don't tell," mean, and more importantly, why does it matter?
What it means
Every novel alternates between two types of writing: scenes, which show you what is happening to the characters in real time, and narrative summary, which summarizes what's happened to the characters, or sums up general character traits. Scenes are cinematic, engaging the reader, putting him or her into the action of the story. Narrative summary gives necessary information to keep the story going. Scenes have dialogue and action where narrative summary is one step removed, telling us what happened without engaging us with the characters (Browne and King, 7).
The following is an example of narrative summary from Browne and King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, using F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a text:
"I heard several different people put forth their theories—all equally probable or preposterous—as to who and what he was" (Browne and King, 5).
Pretty vague, right? It informs us, but it's not exciting. That's telling.
Now, a passage that actually appeared in The Great Gatsby:
"'There's something funny about a fellow that'll do a thing like that,' said the other girl eagerly. 'He doesn't want any trouble with anybody.'
'Who doesn't?' I inquired.
'Gatsby. Somebody told me—'
The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.
'Somebody told me they thought he killed a man'" (Browne and King, 6).
That's showing. It gives the reader information in an exciting way; it places them among the characters and the action.
Why showing is important
1. It's more exciting
Back in the nineteenth century, it was much more common to see telling, rather than showing, dominating in novels. But with the twentieth century came television and films, and the general public grew used to being presented with stories as a series of scenes—action rather than narration. This was much more exciting than simply being told what happened. It put the viewer (or reader) right into the story. It made them forget where they were, and it certainly made them forget the storyteller. They felt as if they were living in the world of the story (Browne and King, 8-9).
2. It's more satisfying to the reader
When an author is constantly explaining the plot or describing characters' traits in a novel, I start to feel a little annoyed. It seems like the author is trying to hold my hand, or that he or she assumes I won't be clever enough to figure things out unless they are explained in detail. Give your reader a little credit! They feel more involved in the story and more satisfied if you give them evidence and let them work out what it means. Constant telling is the author getting in between the story and the reader. Ideally, someone who is reading your story should forget that you are there at all.
For example
I recently read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Purple Hibiscus. The story is narrated by 15-year-old Kambili, who is painfully shy. However, not once during the novel does Kambili tell the reader "I am painfully shy. I never even speak to my classmates at school." At first, we don't realize the extent of her shyness, until a certain key scene. In this scene, we witness how Kambili's classmates react to her, and that tells us more about Kambili's feelings and behavior than Kambili would ever admit herself. One exchange in this scene demonstrates this particularly well:
"'I'm not saying you feel too big [says one of Kambili's classmates], I am saying that is what Chinwe and most of the girls think. Maybe you should try and talk to her. Maybe after school you should stop running off like that and walk with us to the gate. Why do you always run, anyway?'
'I just like running,' I said, and wondered if I would count that as a lie when I made confession next Sunday'" (Adichie, 51).
This example of showing not only puts us into the story with the characters, it also lets us deduce quite a bit about the narrator: that she is always running away after school, that she isn't friends with her classmates, that she is socially awkward, that her classmates perceive her awkwardness as snobbery, that she is ashamed to admit that her father will punish her if she keeps the driver waiting, that she feels guilty for lying, and that she is particularly religious and goes to confession every Sunday. Had all of this been told in narrative summary, the information would still be there, but the distance would not allow the reader to sympathize with Kambili in the same way as being a direct witness to this poignant scene.
Always show, never tell?
Of course, from this advice, a writer might be afraid to ever tell. But telling is important to stories too. As Orson Scott Card points out in Characters and Viewpoint, "A lot of information that is important to the story is still not important enough to be worth a whole scene" (Card, 140-141).
In fact, if the entire novel was showing, without any telling, the reader would be exhausted by the end of it (think of how exhausting 24 is, compared to other television dramas). Interspersing showing with telling helps break up the story, varies the pace, and lets readers step back and breathe. Telling is also useful for repetitive or long, drawn out events, and for lapses of time in which nothing crucial to the plot occurs (Browne and King, 12-13).
"Storytellers constantly have to choose between showing, telling, and ignoring," Card writes (Card, 140). The trick is knowing when to do each of these things. Much of this is instinctual, but a good rule of thumb is that the most significant scenes in a story should always be shown. As such, the opening scene of a novel should be just that—a scene. It should throw the reader right into the middle of the action, showing them the world and characters of the story. Likewise, the climax should also always be shown, not told.
To sum up, I would say that the rule shouldn't necessarily be "show, don't tell," but a far trickier "learn when to show and when to tell." As with everything else, this comes with practice. When in doubt, write a section both ways—once as narrative summary and once as a scene—and choose whichever fits better within the flow of the story.
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Works cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Purple Hibiscus. London: Harper Perennial, 2005.
Browne, Renni, and Dave King. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
Card, Orson Scott. Characters and Viewpoint. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 1988.
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