“Show, Don’t Tell” Is Such Cliché Writing Advice. 8 Tips How to Use This Cliché
If you have been studying how to write fiction for any period of time it won’t be long before you run into the phrase “Show, Don’t Tell.”
This phrase gets thrown around like peanuts at the circus.
People throw it around like it’s the end all be all of all writing knowledge, but in reality, there is a lot to be unpacked in this little phrase.
1. Where did it come from?
It’s thought that Anton Chekhov first coined it, but it is immortalized in Percy Lubbock’s ‘The Craft of Fiction’ from the 1920’s.
So who really knows? I guess it depends on how you think someone owns the words they say or write down.
So if it has stood the test of time (it’s not the Bible, but 100 years seems like a fair amount of time for a written English phrase) it’s probably worth talking about a little.
2. Don’t go overboard.
It seems that one of the biggest mistakes with writing advice like this is to run with it and assume that there is absolutely no place in Storytelling for “telling.”
This would be a mistake.
Telling is a key part of being short about facts or information that needs to be done in a short way.
For example, you would say, “he got up at six that morning, took a shower, made coffee, and read the news for about fifteen minutes, just as he did every weekday.”
In a scenario like this, you don’t need to “show” the reader much of the imagery going on in your character’s regular morning. These are all things that can be filled in with the imagination and this short sentence tells them a lot about your character’s daily habits and disciplines without making it work for them to find out.
Of course, you could throw in things like “On a regular weekday morning you could hear Gerard’s coffee maker click at 5:55, hear him getting a shower, and smell the coffee throughout most of the apartment by 6:05 as he read the news.”
That is more “show” than “tell.
And to take it to the next level you can remove sense verbs to make it even more sensory:
“On a regular weekday morning Gerard’s coffee maker clicked on at 5:55, the pipes creaked as his shower started, and the aroma of coffee filled most of the apartment by 6:05 as he made his way into the kitchen to read the news.”
Of course these examples still need editing but you can get the idea of what you are trying to do.
You could argue which is better but there are many acceptable ways of getting an idea from your head into your reader’s quickly.
You just don’t want to spend a chapter describing information that doesn’t do much to move the story forward.
I think a healthy place is to have both showing and telling in a story.
Too much of one or the other appears to be a mistake and we don’t see successful authors doing that.
3. Who do you want to be?
Finding your writing voice is important.
Decide what type of writer you want to be and how you want to communicate your idea to your reader.
Remember in some paragraphs you’ll be telling them information and in some, you’ll be showing them.
The way in which you do this is part of your writing voice.
4. I saw that in my head.
Showing is making use of your sensory perceptions and your reader’s.
– Sight
– Sound
– Smell
– Touch
– Taste
It’s how we experience our reality and how we share our perceived shared reality.
If I want to tell you how what I ate tasted I could say it tasted sweet and a little salty.
Without you tasting it yourself you could know from your own experiences with sweet and salty things how that might taste.
Do an exercise,
Think about your breakfast and go to your writing spot and try to describe your breakfast in writing only describing it by your senses without writing down what it was.
Now read it a day later or have a friend or family member read it today and see if they understand what you’re trying to describe.
This will help you think in terms of using your five senses to your advantage in writing.
This will help you “show” your reader something you want them to experience.
5. Take your time.
After you have your first draft done, take your time with the editing process.
It’s okay to edit the whole thing 5 times.
An editor or publisher will help immensely by telling you “it’s done,” because sometimes it can be hard for us to see that.
“Show, Don’t Tell” Is Such Cliché Writing Advice. 8 Tips How to Use This Cliché
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6. Choose heavy words.
It’s hard to resist a good dad joke, but we don’t mean physical weight here.
We mostly mean avoiding the use of adverbs, bit always but in most cases, we can find a better way to give our readers something to imagine.
For example,
“Jim poured his coffee scaredly.” Is not the best way to say that our character is troubled and pouring his coffee.
Instead we could say,
“Jim’s hand was trembling as he reached for his coffee pot.”
Again in your editing process look for these heavier word and imagery choices to replace adverbs.
I’m not one to throw out adverbs completely, but probably 99% of the time there’s a better way to replace the adverb.
7. Make use of common idioms.
What’s an idiom?
Idioms are just common phrases that you might not understand unless you already knew what it meant:
– She kicked the bucket: she passed away: she died
– I jumped out of my skin: he jumped in fear
For instance,
“The spider landed right next to his hand and he jumped back in fear”
Or you could give him Dialogue to tell the reader what happened.
“That spider landed right next to my hand and I tell you what, I nearly jumped out of my skin.”
In this way, we are giving the reader description of the scenario and we are giving our character a voice and tone so the reader can get to know them.
8. Tug heartstrings.
We really want our reader to connect emotionally with our characters.
To do this well, we need to bring them into our character’s heart by sharing what our character is feeling with them.
Make our character vulnerable.
One of the characters above was feeling fear as he poured coffee:
“Jim’s hand trembled as he reached out for his coffee pot.
Lisa, who was also in the coffee room noticed, but hesitated to say anything. She didn’t want to embarrass herself or him, but she went with her gut. “Jim are you okay?”
Jim swallowed deeply, choking back tears, “I’m-m fine.” He pushed out and turned away quickly.”
This scenario shows the emotions of two characters interacting. It’s not just telling the reader that Jim is feeling anxious and Lisa is feeling embarrassing and perplexed about what to do, but it is showing the reader the emotions that both are feeling in a conflicted situation.
Making our characters’ emotions transparent (visible) allows or reader to connect with them on an emotional level.
If we can get them to connect with them emotionally we can keep our reader interested in what might happen to them next.
For example, in Jim and Lisa’s case, we would want our reader to be wondering what Jim is so upset about and what will happen to him next, and we want them to wonder if Lisa is going to do anything else about it.
If you can show your reader their emotions and make an emotional connection, you will have done a very powerful thing for your reader and the rest of your story.
I hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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“Show, Don’t Tell” Is Such Cliché Writing Advice. 8 Tips How to Use This Cliché
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