show/tell

Writers are commonly exhorted to 'show, don’t tell.'

Here’s what I think about that. 

The last thing writers need is another ‘rule’ for beating our writing into submission.  Rather, we need tools that allow us to extend a kind hand to our work, to lift it up and hold it steady while it develops its own sense of balance and poise. The show/tell paradigm is best used in this way, as a tool not a rule, but this can only happen when we use it holistically.

If you’re getting feedback that’s talking about showing/telling, look at what’s going on in the piece. Have you dumped some exposition into your story, or is something else happening?  Sometimes clunky show/tell issues point to bigger problems – maybe with pacing, flow, or even the reader’s comprehension of the unfolding story. 

But don’t always assume the show/tell is the element that’s not working. 

I received some feedback a while back from a group that was strongly divided over the show/tell balance in a crucial short story scene in which a character dies. They disagreed about what they thought was the specific cause of the character’s death. One party argued strongly that more ‘tell’ was needed, while the other said that adding more explanation would interfere with the mood and pacing.  Individually they made statements that showed that their conclusions about the passage were consistent with the larger arc of the story, and no one had needed to stop and re-read it. And yet, there was disagreement.

This, apparently, is a problem.

To address this, should I insert a more explicit ‘tell’, or should I leave it as it is? 

With the action narrated simply, the reader stands in the room with the protagonist, watching in uncertainty and shock as the crisis unravels. In life, scenes of violence often unfold quickly and without explanation. My protagonist has taken an unpremeditated and uncharacteristic action. Her intent is unclear, and it’s not apparent whether she is in full control of her faculties. The causal link between what she does and the death that occurs is muddied by the unfolding chain of events. It wouldn’t be clear to a bystander, either. 

If I’ve written it well, a question arises in the mind of the reader, who must drop more deeply into the story to get their answer. Mentally, the reader becomes a witness who is standing silently in the room where the still-warm body lies. By ‘showing’ the action instead of explaining it, I build ambiguity into the recount, and the scene is more compelling. (#device)

With all feedback, the writer faces a dilemma: should I be guided by consensus, or should I trust my own intuitive response, supported by a deep understanding of the story? Here, the ambiguity of the character’s actions adds to the ‘punch’ delivered by the final scene, so my instinct is that a light hand (‘show’) is preferable to a heavy spelling-out of the details (‘tell’). I might add one more word of ‘tell’ to support interpretation, but any more than that and my readers won’t be challenged (or rewarded) by the twist in the story that follows. In short, I’m making the reader do some of the work.

But here’s the thing: if you’re going to make your readers work to understand something, you need to give them time to do it. 

If this scene is not working as well as it should, my feeling is it’s because edits are needed elsewhere – either in the set-up, or in the bridge to the next part of the story. I think I have moved the narrative too quickly from the violence to the denouement, without giving either the character or the reader (who is now in the room with her) enough time to survey the aftermath and process its meaning. So that’s the part I’ll be re-writing. And it’s not about the show/tell at all.

The feedback I received in this instance told me something specific, but it missed the point. It was only the process of stripping away the opinions, explanations and conclusions from the feedback that showed the problem’s true form. By paring back the ‘tell’, I was able to view both the feedback and the story from a more lateral, open-minded space, which revealed not only the issue but the solution too. 

And that’s the real reason that writers need to show, not tell. It’s because telling doesn’t permit the connective, insightful, creative part of our thinking to enter the story with us. And if it’s not there, the reader won’t be, either.