If you’ve been writing for some time, or if you’ve studied writing techniques, you’ve probably heard one of the golden rules that are constantly repeated in most writing workshops “Show, don’t tell”. This week, we’ll be talking about the “sowing-not-telling” conundrum, why it is so important; when it can be used; and of course, some tips to put it into practice.
What’s the difference between showing and telling?
Well, basically, those are two different ways to convey information in a story. Telling, or explaining, is when we use exposition, summary, blunt descriptions, or we just add information in a concise way. When you say that a character is “happy”, “short”, or “bad”, you are telling. Showing, on the contrary, is using different means (dialogues, body language, setting, etc.) so that the readers can infer the information by themselves; e.g.: “he couldn’t help smiling”, “she would have to stand on her toes to kiss him”. This creates an image in the readers’ mind.
At the beginning of a movie, we are not told who is the bad or the good guy. You learn that through their actions and other clues. Neither directors use a voice in off to say that it’s sunny or rainy, because you can see the sun yourself or listen to the sound of the rain on a window. The same happens in literature.
We writers count on readers’ ‘mental senses’, so to say. When you show, you are giving your readers the feeling that they are seeing what is happening, as if they were part of your story. Readers don’t expect you to tell them everything. They want to experience it themselves. People read books, mainly, because they want to be transported to other places, they want to live through your characters. And the only way to make that possible is by not telling too much, and showing instead.
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on the broken glass
Anton Chekhov
This doesn’t mean that it’s an inviolable rule. There are cases in which it’s better to tell rather than showing, and we’ll get to that point a couple of subtitles below. Let’s say that 90% of the time you need to show. When you read a compelling and catching novel, and you can’t put the book aside, it’s mainly because the author has done an incredible job showing.
Sometimes it’s difficult to show, especially when you’ve crafted an amazing magical world and you just want to let your readers know everything about it. When we spend hours planning our story, and every detail of your plot, we tend to commit the mistake of attacking our readers with a lot of information that might be unnecessary or just plain boring.
Tips to Show and Don’t Tell
This golden rule is in principle easy to understand, but a bit difficult to put into practice. However, once you’ve got it, you’ll start showing in your writing instinctively. That’s why we’ve brought some examples and tips, so that you can use them as a reference, and start practicing today!
Tip # 1: Use the five Senses
A good way to show is using your characters’ senses. This is describing what they touch, smell, taste, see and hear, in order to guide your readers through a scene. As we said before, showing is mainly about letting your readers know what your character is going through without telling them.
Tip # 2: Avoid Mentioning Feelings
Here are some adjectives that make reference to feelings:
- Excited
- Happy
- Sad
- Bored
- Angry
- Frustrated
- Love
- Depression
I could be writing words like the ones on the list for hours, but I think you get the point. These are words that can be used to describe emotions or how someone feels. Although you can use them in some context, they are boring and weak ways to describe feelings.
Don’t tell your readers how “scared” she was. Show her body tensing up, her shaky and sweaty hands, and her shortness of breath.
A useful exercise to put this into practice is thinking about what people do when they feel in a particular way. Think for instance, how you express your happiness, or what you do when you are sad. Rewrite the sentences where you use any of these names for feelings and use instead physical reactions for feeling that way. Your readers need to see your character’s emotions through their body language, gestures, and actions. Thus, they can picture what your character is feeling.
Are you starting this exciting but demanding journey called writing? Check our best tips for beginners.
Tip # 3: Avoid Filter Words
Have you ever got nervous while the main character was in a tough situation? Have you fallen in love with a character? Or maybe you were able to smell a perfume or a disgusting stink in a particular scene. Well, in those cases the author succeeded at providing an immersive experience to you as a reader.
Something that sometimes makes it difficult for the reader to experience what’s going on in the story is the use of filter words. Filter words are all the words that unnecessarily filter the world in the book to the reader, and therefore affect your narrative.
Let’s analyze these examples:
“I noticed the moon had a different color that night”
You don’t really need to state that the character “noticed” something. Instead, you could just write:
“The moon had a different color that night”
This makes it more direct and allows the reader to picture it in their head, making your writing look more sophisticated and elegant.
Sometimes, we tend to use filter words when we are writing in the first person. But how does this affect our writing? Basically, filter words enlarge the distance between the story, or the character’s experience and the reader. They act as mediators and thus, you won’t create an immersive feeling in your readers. They are the constant reminder that readers are not part of the story. Of course, they can be used sometimes; there’s always an exception for every rule, but use them only when they are critical to the sentence meaning.
Some filter words that you should avoid are:
- See
- Feel
- Hear
- Realize
- Know
- Watch
- Decide
- Look
- Notice
- Seem
- Sound
- Appear
- Touch
- Smell
This doesn’t mean these are the only filter words. The truth is that depending on the context a word might be a filter word or not. But the ones on the list are the most common ones.
Check this article for more tips to improve your writing
Tip # 4: Use Dialogues
Dialogue is one of the simplest ways to go from telling to showing. Dialogues are part of the action and movement of your story. They help us develop our characters, and of course, show them. What’s especially incredible about dialogues is that they have sort of the same effect on readers as real-life conversations. When a dialogue is well written, readers will not only need to pay attention to what the character says but also what they actually mean.
Let’s say that one of your characters says “Yes, I’m looking forward to it”. Perhaps it’s because, in fact, they are excited about what they were talking about… However, if it’s, for example, a woman talking about an awkward meeting with her horrible boss, she would just be being sarcastic. This gap between their words and what they actually mean gives the reader a sense of reality, as if they were part of the conversation.
Tip # 5: Use Strong Verbs
A strong verb is a better and more descriptive version of a basic verb, and therefore, will help you create an image and the vibe of the scene in the mind of your readers. So, in spite of the fact that you can use a basic verb to express the same thing, a strong verb will have a more significant impact on the reader.
But, what is the difference between strong and weak verbs? How can you tell between them? Basically, weak verbs describe basic or broader actions, like “walked”, sit”, or “ran”. While strong verbs make reference to a specific form of an action, like “trip”, “rush”. So, if you find yourself wondering if a verb is weak or strong, just ask yourself how specific it is.
If you are on the process of self-editing (in which case I recommend you to read this article) the weakest verbs you need to replace in first place are to be verbs (is, am, are, being, be, was, were, been), since they make your writing look amateurish. Other weak verbs are say, sit, run and walk.
I always say there is no need to take this literally and start replacing all your weak verbs. There are cases in which using a weak verb is a better choice. However, they affect your writing when you overuse them, instead of using a strong verb that will better show what you are trying to convey.
Tip # 6: Avoid Adverbs
An adverb is the part of speech that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. However, if you take into consideration the previous tip, there’s actually no need to use an adverb.
If you are using an adverb, you have got the verb wrong.
Kingsley Amis
When you use descriptive or vague adverbs you are interfering in the story and distracting the readers, you are telling them, instead of letting your characters show them. So the next time you write an adverb ask yourself if what you want to say might be shown with a different verb instead. For example, “driving fast” is better stated as “speeding”. Check this other example:
Using an adverb: “May I kiss you?” he asked flirtatiously (First of all, it sounds awful; and also tells the reader how he says so instead of showing it).
Using verbs: “May I kiss you?” he asked, biting his lower lip. (It can be improved, but at least, it creates a visual effect, instead of simply telling.)
So, chose the right word, and try to avoid vague adverbs. Most of the time they either express something we already know or intensify the meaning of another word. And 90% of the time, they can be replaced or deleted. And as I always say, use them only intentionally, or if it’s necessary for that sentence and you can’t express the same thing with another word.
When to Tell
We’ve been talking about showing all this time, and although the golden rule says “Show, don’t tell”, this doesn’t mean that showing is always preferable. There are times in which telling will be the best choice.
If what you want to say doesn’t add any value to the plot, the conflict, or the character arc, perhaps what you need to do is telling. Telling is also helpful when you need to make a jump in time. If nothing relevant to the plot happens in that period of time, you can simply summarize the actions and get where you want to. Once you are there, the showing mode is on again.
Summing Up…
A good story starts with an awesome idea, but there’s a lot of work behind that idea to deliver a compelling and believable story. As we could see showing plays an important role there, helping you create an immersive experience for your readers.
Although both of them are important, telling and showing, it’s showing what we writers need to master to improve our narrative. Why then will people continue buying books even though we have movies? Our imagination is more powerful than anything that can be portrayed on cinema. So, start practicing our tips and take advantage of it from now on.
Although we covered some important things, the truth is that there’s still more related to this topic that needs to be covered in the future. I hope you found this post useful and that you start putting our advice into practice. Do you have any other tip? Share it with us!
