The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: show vs. tell

  • On the Construction of Action Scenes

    Action scenes are a special kind of hell. Even now, writing about action scenes is literally painful. You see, action is not my strength; it’s basically carefully crafted description that paints a moving scene. Add the need for carefully chosen pacing — ugh. It’s a nightmare.

    During a conversation I can count on the dialogue to do most of the heavy lifting. I trust the readers to pick up a lot from dialogue, and let’s face it: a good action scene is all about what’s happening, not what’s being shouted across the battlefield. I feel like a decent action scene very quickly becomes a bad action scene when you throw in a lot of hammy dialogue to remind the reader that its emotional too.

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  • POV Corrupts

    Here’s my new saying: “POV corrupts. Omniscient POV corrupts absolutely.”

    Alright, I’m butchering the popular euphemism about power and corruption, but I think I can use my new quote to make a fair point. Bear with me.

    When writing fiction, I only have a few choices for point of view. I’m going to ignore the bizarre (e.g. second person view, or even weirder, first person plural) and focus upon the most common choices in modern fiction: third person limited, third person omniscient, and first-person.

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  • Show and Tell on a Dark and Stormy Night

    There’s a reason we hear “show, don’t tell” all the way back to elementary school. It’s sound advice. It’s the bedrock of a good story. It’s not just a good idea—it’s the law.

    Despite being repeated forever, the advice isn’t entirely clear, especially to early writers. In fact, the advice is very “telly” and not at all “showy.”

    Let’s see if I can clarify the difference between the two.

     

    Telling:

    It was a dark and stormy night. Mortimer drove his yellow and green Ford pickup truck up the winding road toward the haunted castle. He was dressed in jeans and a red striped shirt with three buttons.

    He saw lightning flash in a jagged spike that hit the topmost turret built of ghostly gray stones. The road was muddy and filled with potholes, making it difficult to drive. A second flash of lightning struck the road in front of him, revealing the pale form of a woman dressed in a white gown with billowing sleeves and a bodice laced up the front. Her golden hair was dry and didn’t flutter in the wind.

    She lifted her arm and pointed at Mortimer. The woman’s face contorted and aged, and she gave a high pitched wail that terrified Mortimer.

    He lost control of the truck and ran off the road into the darkness below.

     

    Showing:

    Mortimer squinted through the windshield, trying to make out the dark road through the rain and sleet speckling the glass. The cracked steering wheel bit at his fingers, but he didn’t dare ease his grip. Twice he’d lost traction in the mud, and the truck had nearly gone over the side of the mountain.

    Lightning hit the turret of the castle up ahead, and Mortimer winced. He dared to take one hand off the wheel long enough to wipe a trickle of sweat from his temple. The fisherman in the village had told him it was haunted, but that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? He wiped away another bead of sweat and doubled his grip on the wheel.

    A second bolt of lightning struck, and the road before him lit up like a flare. Mortimer swallowed a yelp of panic. A woman stood out in the cold and wet. Her hair and white dress were still and dry in the storm. Mortimer rubbed his eyes with a white-knuckled fist. It had to be an illusion.

    As he crept the truck closer, Mortimer’s headlights illuminated the woman. His hair rose from his arms and scalp. The woman lifted her arm and pointed, and her face morphed into a haggish, ugly scowl. She opened her mouth and the scream she let out shot cold fear through his spine.

    Mortimer swerved to avoid coming close to her. The truck’s bald tires slid across the mud and hit a pothole. In panic, Mortimer spun the wheel into the slide, but it did no good. The vehicle jounced against the embankment, slamming Mortimer’s head into the driver’s window, and the truck went over the side into the ravine.

    As he fell, the woman’s wail followed him, drowning out the screams from his own throat.

    So, what’s the difference? One is certainly longer, though that happened by accident. The change has more to do with focusing on the main character. He doesn’t care about the color of his truck. He’s not thinking about that. He doesn’t have reason to think about what he’s wearing, either. And the billowing sleeves and laced bodice of the woman in white aren’t likely to cross his mind unless he happens to be a clothes designer.

    The details are confined to what he sees and what he’s experiencing. It’s not enough to tell us that Mortimer is afraid. Show us the sweat trickling from his hairline. Don’t tell us the road is slick. Show us Mortimer white-knuckling the steering wheel while he fights to keep control of the vehicle.

    There will always be some telling in everything. But where you can, show it.

    Is it clearer, or did I muddy it up even worse?

  • Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you trying to kill me?

    What do you see?
    What's important in your scene? Show, don't tell.

    I’ve already blogged here and elsewhere about my difficulty writing description. My prose tends to be terse and action-oriented, much like the television, movies, and comic books that have influenced my work. I think in pictures, and write only what needs to be shown.

    This was not always the case.

    Back in college, the most baffling comment I ever received from an instructor was to “show, don’t tell.” I had no idea what this meant. I assumed that it meant that I needed more description, but I discovered it was really more than that. It was about setting the scene and putting the reader there with my character.

    It’s one thing to say, “There was someone in my apartment.” That’s telling. It’s quite another thing to show the scene. In order to show the reader what was happening, I had to learn to write on a different level.

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  • Handing Over the Keys

    “All meanings, we know, rely on the key of interpretation.” – George Eliot

    The axiom in writing is always “show, don’t tell.” With due respect to the originator, sometimes in writing, you should tell. In fact, that is one of the advantages of prose over screenwriting. In screenwriting, you are forced to show out of an inability to tell without seeming fake.

    The question becomes, how much do you want to leave open for interpretation? If you want your reader to really get your theme, you can hit them over the head with it. I know a writer that once told me you should never leave anything open to the interpretation of your audience. I disagree. I want the reader to think about what I wrote and what it might mean.

    There are a lot of readers out there who like to work a little bit when they read. They like to think about the message of your story and decode the various metaphors. There are some that would rather you tell them. Generally, however, you can tell them your theme without bludgeoning them with it.

    Character is defined by thought and action. Story is essentially putting characters in a situation and seeing what they do. What they do, and what they think about their situation is how the reader gets to know them.

    These days, everyone wants to see action and dialogue. Readers have been conditioned by film to look for those two things.  Still, we cannot forget that prose writing, is in essence an interior art. We have the ability to hear our POV characters thoughts. We should take advantage of that.

    Humans think about what is happening to them. Characters should do the same when there is time to do so, and when it doesn’t slow down action.  Action and dialogue are generally vague conveyors of message. Thought is more specific. The art is in finding the balance between the two.

    Writing is a very personal art, a conversation between two people, the artist and the reader. Trust your reader and work with them. Know the expectations of readers in your genre and write to them, then defy them. Make them think. Make them feel like they are a part of your art.  Some genres allow more introspection than others, so know what your readers’ expectations are. Some allow more telling, while others only want action.

    As you can see, I will not suggest doing one and not the other. I will not say “never” tell. Never doesn’t exist in writing. There is only what works, and what doesn’t. Whatever you do, if you do it well, that is all that matters.

    Show, tell, allow interpretation, or explain it all. What matters is that you keep writing, and you write the way you love.  Personally, I love handing over the keys to the reader and letting them drive awhile.