[i]How[/i] to Show, and not Tell · 3:59am May 23rd, 2013
If you were anything like I was starting out, you have come across the phrase show, don't tell quite often. If you were to ask what that means, most would not be able to tell you. I, on the other hand, might have figured it out.
I want to start with what is called an editorial*, or a statement used in opinion-editorials (op-eds) to quickly convey information:
"He regretted his decision."
This statement tells in four words what usually takes many more to show. As previously indicated, this is fine for an op-ed or plot summary. If this is narrated, however, it will kill your story. Why? Let me illustrate with a story.
Imagine the class bully getting in trouble. Again. The teacher stands him up to the kid he punched in the face. Again. The teacher asks orders the bully to apologize, and of course, the bully says, "I'm sorry."
Like the teacher in this story, when your narrator editorializes, they are forcing emotion onto the character, making that emotion insincere.
"Now that's all fine and dandy, but how do I fix it?" you ask. To that, I would say you need to use three things to replace this editorial to show instead of tell: Action, Context, and Bias.
First, Action. This is what is or what is not happening. For example, if the bully were truly sorry, he might be looking away from the victim, speak in a softer voice, or some third thing I am regrettably unaware of, which you might be coming up with. But instead, he does nothing notable.
Second, Context. This is basically everything that happened prior to the action. In this example, having the narrator use the fragment "Again." shows that the bully has punched kids before and continues to do so. If he were truly sorry, we would expect him to have stopped.
Third, Bias. (This is a wide category which I am too inexperienced to explore fully, but nevertheless will do my best.) The main topic in this category includes who the narrator is viewing the action from, and more importantly showing what the viewer is feeling. To be more specific, the narrator needs to emote what the viewpoint character, the character which the story is viewed from, is feeling. In order to do this, you must use word choice, sentence length, how objects are described, plus every rule of writing you know and use, know and don't use, don't know and use, don't know and don't use, those that do not yet exist, and everything I am regrettably unaware of, which you might be coming up with. In this example, the narrator is NOT speaking from the prospective of the bully, rather the prospective of an outside viewer who believes the bully is insincere. There are also several things going on, but this paragraph is already too long.
Now that we have analyzed a good (or at least adequate) piece of literature, let's take our little editorial from the beginning and transform it into a full fledged story.
First, Action: "He stood there with his lip quivering. He pounded his hoof on the ground, cracking the wood floor. Then he collapsed and cried." These actions portray some negative emotions and hint at regret, but we cannot be sure until we have been given the context, which brings us to...
Second, Context: "Today his wife left him because she found out about the one-night stand. He stood there with his lip quivering. He pounded his hoof on the ground, cracking the wood floor. Then he collapsed and cried." Since we added the first sentence, now we have a way to interpret the actions.
Now this narration is in the prospective of a viewer trying to be objective. (What this narrator doesn't realize is they are just being apathetic, but that's off topic.) As authors we want to avoid this and take the prospective that is to our advantage, like characters going through a peripety or extreme emotion. For this I will choose the remorseful letcher.
So now we reach the grand finale. Third, Bias:
"Today, his wife left him. She walked out for good this time. She found out about the affair. He stood there, letting his lip quiver like some stupid idiot. That was because he was a stupid idiot.
"She had been the best thing that ever happened to him, she was the only good in his life, she had kept him going for all these years, and he chased her away. And for what? A one-night stand with some home-wrecker that got him because he couldn't keep it under control.
"'Damn it!' He pounded his hoof to the ground. It cracked the wood floor she had chosen. Then, like some foal missing his momma, he collapsed to the floor and cried. The water probably wasn't good for it, but it didn't matter. She would never be back to see the floor ever again."
To review how these three points turned an amateurish, four word editorial into a level ten masterpiece (in my opinion at least), we will need to perform and in-depth analysis.
First, I gave the actions of pounding his hoof, cursing, collapsing to the floor, and crying. Second, I told you what happened in the past, namely the one-night stand. Third, I put the narrator in the letcher's perspective and had the narrator narrate his thoughts ("She was the best thing that ever happened to him..."), used long sentences for thoughtful ideas (again, "She was the best thing... and he chased her away.") and short sentences for powerful actions ("Today, his wife left him."), ended with powerful words ("...idiot"), observed things in his prospective (the recently cracked floor), among other things.
Now lets review. First, we started with an editorial, which could have killed our story. Next, we replaced the editorial with action showing what the editorial wanted to show. Then, we put some context around the action to clarify it. Finally, we added bias and presto change-o, instant story!
Now please, write responsibly.
*From Lisa Cron's Wired for Story, an excellent read for the budding fiction writer.
My mom said this sounded like a text book.
Eventually, I'll be able to get out of the text book prose, but for now, I hope this illuminates what "show, don't tell" really means.
It does sound like a textbook example. I don't see how that is a bad thing, though. 'Tis quite informative as to how one 'shows' and not 'tells.' Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for commenting!
Anyway, I think this ended up in text book prose because I forgot to treat this like a story (i.e., having the narrator undergo some sort of character development, considering pacing of the text, and so on), and I might end up editing it some more.
You know what they say, there is no writing, just rewriting.
Your latest blog entry asked others to describe how they 'show, don't tell'. I'll write mine here as there was no link into that other blog entry (probably because there was no title).
I have a fascination with contexts. Not the contexts known in writing but the ones known in Computer Science. A context in programming is an object that carries the state information about a transpiring event. This way of thinking encompasses all three writing pieces you wrote about - which were spot on in writing terms for this subject matter.
Why a context? I chose this a long time ago because it is something most familiar to me and is most complex in its derivative nature. Conceptual thinking is fine and dandy. However, there has to be a little bit of relatability to my interests in order for me to jump on board. It might sound strange but it helps ambitions and drive.
Here is a further explanation of my thoughts towards 'show, don't tell' and contexts as it applies in computer programming.
1. Action - The behaviors or methods that belong to the object procedurally changing the properties of the object or processing something at that point in time. Keep in mind that the object is the main focus of the writing be it a single character, a couple of characters, or whatever the writing is centered around.
2. Context (object's previous state) - The object's state that was retained and carried over into the next set of event handling. Again, the details of this are indicated in the object's properties.
3. Bias - The single particular instantiation of the object. Every object's allocated space is different and so, in that certain allocated memory, what is it like for that object's existence? Are we going to have some memory leaks? Will the garbage collector and common language runtime discard this object with or without discrimination? How does the object feel about this? Does the object even have feelings?
Ok, fine. I'll give an example of all this:
Warning: Incoming Ambiguity
To be honest, I'm not sure if I ever achieved 'show, don't tell'. it is one of the most ambiguous concepts. Also, it can only be recognized as being achieved given by someone other than the writer who made the effort. In the end, that is a very subjective evaluation. I see it more as a striving concept with an indefinite goal. It is like chasing a pot of gold that drops a few coins making a trail to the end of a rainbow; The coin trail is worthwhile but, at the same, the end of the rainbow is not wholly obtainable. The striving concept (the gold coin) is what truly makes it worth it. But the end of the rainbow is a different story which is why I tell writers not to beat themselves up over flawed writings; they should enjoy the gold coin (no matter how small) they might have received.
That's the end of my rant. Hopefully, that didn't come across as crazy and made a little bit of sense. Somehow, I doubt that.
Here's something highly related and ironic if you want a good laugh after reading my insanity:
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Programmers everywhere will appreciate this explanation.