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Show, Don't Tell
Author: Arline Chandler
Have you yawned while reading a book—and then realized the author was telling you a story? In writer’s workshops, you’ll often hear the phrase, “Show, don’t tell.” It means showing your scenes through action and dialogue. Readers want to “see” something on their pages—something that conjures up a mental picture.
In her book, Wild Words: How to Train Them to Tell Stories, Sandy Asher writes a telling sentence: She was angry.
Then, she creates a showing scene using action:
She kicked open the screen door, letting it slam against the wall as she dashed outside. Down the steps and into the yard she flew. Grabbing the first rock in her path, she hurled it back toward the house. It crashed through the living room window with an explosion of shattered glass.
Not once in that paragraph did Asher use the word anger, but readers had no doubt that the girl was angry. They were "mentally" watching her tantrum. Also notice the concrete, specific words that Asher used: slam, flew, grabbing, hurled, crashed, explosion, and shattered.
Below are some great tips to help you show, not tell.
Use Emotions
For practice, write scenes describing a person who is jealous, sad, excited, and scared without naming the emotions in your scene.Be Positive
Put statements in positive form with definite, specific, concrete language while keeping adjectives to a minimum.Provide Details
Stay away from empty words such as beautiful, excellent, grand, or pretty because they do not give a mental picture. Beautiful, for instance, is different to each person and therefore doesn't give the reader a specific image.Don't Be Vague
Watch out for vague, abstract words like thing or feeling. Feeling, for instance, is not specific. No one knows what kind of feeling you're referring to.Avoid Telling Words
Be aware of words like happy, sad, contented, and peaceful. Instead of using those "telling" words, draw word pictures to show the person’s emotional state.Remove Space Wasters
Watch out for space-gobbling words such as very, really, a little, a lot, rather, somewhat, sure, much. Try removing those words, then read your text aloud. Did you really need them?Be Descriptive
Use words that specifically refer to people—policeman, nurse, bag lady, preacher—and you can save the descriptive words for more meaningful parts of the story.Name Characters
Carefully think about names for your characters.
Nancy Lamb, in her book The Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, notes that a character’s name may reflect who she is. “When readers first approach a story, one of their primary needs is to remember 'which character is which.' With this in mind, make the effort to give your characters names that can be easily distinguished.”
Also, be careful about suddenly switching from a character’s name to the character's nickname as it will confuse reader, making them think a new character has been introduced.Use Dialogue
Dialogue is also used as a tool to show without telling.
I used dialogue in my novel, The Unhuntable Bear, to convey Pa’s irritation with Will, as well as Will’s preoccupation with a book describing a trap he hoped to build to capture the old bear: “Will, to bed with you now!” said Pa. “Why are you reading that book anyhow? You ate like a jaybird at supper. Ma must have fixed up a lot of dinner in that bucket, no more than you put on your plate tonight!”
Practice the technique of show, don’t tell. Think about specific words for people and objects as you go through your day. Your stories will sparkle due to your added effort.
This column first appeared on DM in 2009, but we think you'll agree that it still has some good information!
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