What is Telling?

When a story is telling the action, it sounds like the narrator is telling about something that happened, past tense. It almost sounds like the narrator and reader are on the telephone talking about events that happened. What is Showing? Showing creates a movie in the mind of the reader. This is done by writing a book in such a way that narration and exposition sound like thought when read out loud. The story is written in such a way that it sounds like the narrator is telling the reader what is happening, at the exact moment the events are happening. Showing vs. Telling Sentences Each of these sentences has two versions. One version is too general and therefore lacks the visual clarity that a reader needs to fully understand what the writer is talking about. The other version of the same sentence uses specific details and makes the image the writer is presenting much more vivid and alive. Vague: She went home in a bad mood. [What kind of a bad mood? How did she act or look?] Specific: She stomped home, hands jammed in her pockets, angrily kicking rocks, dogs, small children, and anything else that crossed her path. Vague: My neighbor bought a really nice old desk. [Why nice? How old? What kind of desk?] Specific: My neighbor bought a solid oak, roll-top desk made in 1885 that contains a secret drawer triggered by a hidden spring. Vague: He was an attractive man. [Attractive in what ways - his appearance, personality, or both? Can you picture him from reading this sentence?] Specific: He had Paul Newman's eyes, Robert Redford's smile, Sylvester Stallone's body, and Bill Gates's money. After reading the sentences above, rewrite the vague sentences below using your own specific details. 1. My boyfriend/girlfriend acted like a jerk. 2. She wears really strange outfits. 3. The scenery in the mountains was beautiful. 4. My roommate is very (in)considerate. IMPORTANT: Finally, if you've written a draft, go back through your paper looking for sentences where you use good, specific detail. Then, find the sentences that are general and add details that make those sentences come alive.

Part 2 Writing is emotionally powerful when it engages the reader. Rather than classify and list all the emotions that you felt, use specific details that give the reader a reason to feel the emotions you want to express. I'll never forget how I felt after Fido died. I was miserable. Simply naming the feelings that you experienced (telling your reader what you felt) is not enough to create interest in the reader. You need to find a way to generate, in your reader, the same feelings that you experiended. If I live for a thousand years, I'll never forget how utterly and terribly alone I felt after Fido died. I was so miserable that I thought I would die. Months and months went by, and it seemed that every little thing reminded me of him and made me wish things could be different. I don't know whether I am ever going to get over his death. While the author has added details, those details merely assist the telling -- they don't actually give the reader a reason to love Fido, and to suffer along with the writer. Whenever puppies in the pet store window distracted me from the serious business of taking him for his walk, Fido snarled fiercely and pulled mightily at his leash yet he always forgave me instantly. Over the past few years he lost his hearing and his sight, but when he felt the leash click on his collar and smelled fresh air, he still tried to caper. He's been dead for three months now. This morning I filled his water bowl all the way to the top --just the way he likes it -- before I remembered. The author does not need to tell the reader "I loved Fido and I still haven't come to terms with his death," because the paragraph contains specific details that show the depths of the relationship.

PART 3 Mostly Telling: From the way she behaved in the crowded restaurant, you could tell Sally was attracted to the cute stranger in the black shirt. She tried a few things to get his attention, and eventually she thought she succeeded. (The author provides the information, but the story is very thin... nothing interesting seems to be happening.) Mostly Showing: Bored by the conversation, Sally tossed her hair and laughed. That stranger had been scanning the room, and he noticed her this time. Wait -- was that a half smile? Had he just put his hand on his heart? Or was he just brushing something off of his shirt? Sally smiled. That shirt looked soft. "He's kind of cute," her roommate giggled. Sally casually looked away. "Oh, I don't know," she said, twirling a curl. She let her eyes rest on the artwork, the flowers, a random face in the crowd, and found another excuse to laugh. Carefully turning her profile, she crossed her legs the way she and her girlfriends had practiced in middle school. That ought to do it, she thought. (The reader is left to figure out what's going on... more engaging for a story -- there is tension, and even a bit of character development.)

If the author connects all the dots and then announces the conclusion for the benefit of the reader, the writing is less engaging for the reader. Or, to put it another way, show smoke, and let the reader infer fire. I was so thrilled that I beat the football captain in a chess game that I made a fool of myself. I'll never live that down. This is straight telling -- we know that the protagonist makes a fool of himself, but we don't feel embarrassed for him, because we don't see any of this foolish behavior ourselves. My heart was pounding and my adrenaline was pumping. When I finally beat that big bully of a football captain in a chess game, I jumped around like an idiot, taunting him and laughing at him in front of the whole school. Arrogance and geekiness are not a combination that leads to social success. While the author has added details, those details merely assist the telling -- they don't actually show anything important. We still don't get the chance to see the behavior and judge for ourselves whether it is foolish. "Your bulging muscles are useless against my superior intellect!" I laughed, as the vanquished football captain and the whole cafeteria stared. "I have captured your queen, and in three moves, I shall utterly destroy your king's little white plastic ass! Bwaaa ha ha hah!" The completely over-the-top content of the quoted speech communicates the protagonist's emotional state as well as his arrogance; the author does not have to come out and tell us that this behavior is idiotic, because there are enough details that we can come to that conclusion ourselves.

"Telling" communicates facts; "Showing" invites understanding Telling All the kids knew that Miranda was the meanest kid in the third grade. She was prissy and cute; she wore bows in her hair and shiny black shoes, and she thought that meant she could get away with anything. She never exactly scared me -- but for some reason she would always go out of her way to torment me. I wasn't one of the "cool" kids, and the few kids I knew were just the guys I played chess with during recess -they weren't really friends. Plus, I was clumsy. So I was a good target. I was so miserable and lonely, I could hardly face going to class each day. That little girl made my life a living hell. Showing When she saw me, she stopped; her ponytail bobbed threateningly, and her eyes tracked me across the cafeteria. When the recess bell rang, I clutched my chess set and dashed to freedom, eager to win the daily tournament of outcasts. Of course, I tripped in front of the whole class. Tennis shoes and sandals stepped around me and over me as I scrambled after pawns and bishops. And there was Miranda, waiting for me to notice her; she smiled, lifted her shiny patent-leather shoe, and slowly, carefully ground my white queen into the pavement.

Important Note "Showing" involves more than a long list of adjectives. Sometimes students misinterpret what I mean by "showing." They put all kinds of adjectives in their writing, describing everything from the color of the wallpaper to the shape of their own legs, regardless of whether such details actually advance the story. The point of "showing" is not to drown the reader in a sea of details. Instead, you should pick out only those details that matter. Does the detail help establish or intensify the mood? Does it define a character? Clarify an action?

Part 4 Teachers frequently say "Show don't tell." Here are some more examples of the difference between telling and showing. Telling Each morning I ride the bus to school. I wait along with the other people who ride my bus. Sometimes the bus is late and we get angry. Some guys start fights and stuff just to have something to do. I'm always glad when the bus finally comes. Showing The bus arrived. It discharged its passengers, closed its doors with a hiss and disappeared over the crest of a hill. Not one of the people waiting at the bus stop had attempted to board. One woman wore a sweater that was too mall, a long skirt, white sweater, socks, and house slippers. One man was in his undershirt. Another man wore shoes with the toes cut out, a soiled blue serge jacket and brown pants. There was something wrong with these people. They made faces. A mouth smiled at nothing and unsmiled, smiled and unsmiled. A head shook in vehement denial. Most of them carried brown paper bags rolled tight against their stomachs.

Telling
I slowly sucked the stick and felt a warm sensation fill my chest. A chill ran down my spine as I smiled and exhaled.

Showing
I slowly lifted my cigarette until it touched my lips. I sucked the stick and a cloud of warm smoke filled my chest. Suddenly, I felt nauseated and my chest felt like a time bomb ready to explode. I spit the smoke out and coughed. My eyes began to water, but I managed to show a grin.

Telling
Sitting on the sofa, she looked exhausted.

Showing
Her eyes told of her pain; deep, set-back, reaching inside of herself. Dark caves formed where her cheeks were. Her mouth was a hardened straight line, down at the corners.

"Telling" Example: Patrick and Elizabeth hid behind a large oak tree. They didn't want Charles to find them; he was bigger and meaner than the other kids on the block. Unfortunately, they didn't realise that the tree was hardly large enough to disguise their presence. "Showing" Example: Patrick's ball cap and Elizabeth's skirt stuck out from behind the large oak. Charles the Bully, who had been looking for a couple of young kids to harass, noticed immediately and quickly headed toward the tree with a sneer. The second example brings the reader into the scene rather than simply telling the story. Though both examples basically contain the same facts (two kids hiding from another one), the latter invites the reader to become more emotionally involved. As in the two paragraphs above, "showing" often involves the use of imagery (as in the cap and skirt peeking out from behind the tree.) The audience is expected to participate in the experience, not simply read about it. Readers must also sometimes interpret scenarios when they are shown rather than told what's occurring (as in the case of the second paragraph, where it's not explicitly noted that Patrick and Elizabeth are hiding from Charles.) The bottom line is that when the narration is in first person the narrator is telling the story. "I feel this." "Jim said that to me." "We went somewhere." It's the narrator's story, so it would be weird if she launched into some creepy detailed description of her reflection or something. As I pulled on my blue shirt, I caught my own hazel-green eye in the mirror. Something was different about me. It wasn't my fifty-two facial freckles because they were the same as usual, nor was it my shock of wild, curly brown hair that I had pulled into an expert French twist only moments before pulling on the blue shirt. Ahh, that's what it was: Moments ago, I wasn't wearing a blue shirt. HOWEVER, and yes, that's a big however, there are times where showing in first person is really, really necessary to avoid underwriting. Let's say your narrator sees a friend who's sad. I rounded the corner and there was Janet. She looked really sad. Uh-huh, and? In real life, you determine how someone's feeling based on cues from their body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc. Your narrator did the same thing, but if you just tell us that the character "looked really sad," we don't have any evidence of what the narrator saw to tell us whether that's an accurate assessment. I rounded the corner and there was Janet, sitting with her back to the wall and her knees pulled to her chest. When she saw me, she quickly wiped the tears off her cheeks and put on the fakest smile I've ever seen, but it was clear that she'd been crying. Her red eyes and ragged breath were a dead giveaway. "What's wrong?" I asked. Her face crumpled immediately, and she hugged her knees even tighter as the tears started up again. In the second example, we not only know that Janet is sad, but we also know how the narrator can tell that she's sad, and now we know we can believe him.

Writing Exercise: Take an example of your writing. Look for non-descript words, such as nice, beautiful and wonderful. List these words, and write a description of what they are describing. A nice suit. Nice means as many things as there are people. Does nice mean the suit looked good on that person, or it was a fashionable outfit? They ate almost all the cake. What does this mean? Was there one piece left or ten? Did they eat the top and leave the bottom. "No!" He screamed. Rewrite the above lines before taking a look at the corrections below. 1. What is it about exclamation marks that fascinate fiction writers? 2. What does screaming the word no mean? Does it mean the speaker is angry or in his death throws, making one last grasp for life. 3. Many writers in my classes start explaining what the exclamation mark means until I stop them and ask them if they will phone every reader's home and give them the same explanation. Non-descript words rob a story of emotional impact. Corrections The red suit made her look like a model. Now we know why the suit looked nice. It looked nice on the character. Using the word model allows each writer the opportunity of creating their own image of beautiful. The boys ate two thirds of the cake. Now we knew who ate the cake, and how much remained. We can even become more descriptive. The boys dove into the cake, leaving nothing but a pile of crumbs. The boys ate the cake off the platter, leaving nothing but dry crumbs. Do not write in a vocabulary that you wouldn't use in daily life. The boys attacked the cake, reducing it to a mass of broken crumbs. The ravenous boys devoured the cake, leaving only a smattering of crumbs on the platter. "No," he screamed, barely containing his anger. "No." His arms rose to ward off the blow Both of these examples make it easier to understand what the speaking character means when they scream "no." However, the sentence makes it more descriptive. The dog scared me. The rotweiller's low growl exploded into a heart-stopping bark. I jumped backward, knocking the chair over on my way toward the door. As useless as my defense was, I kept my right foot poised for the kick. (See? Don't TELL people the dog scared you... SHOW them. Never in the second example do I actually SAY I'm scared of the dog, but you sure get the idea, along with a picture and a feeling.) She yelled at Timmy, upsetting him. "Shut the hell up, you freakin' little wimp!" Timmy looked up at his mother, tears taking less than a second to form and roll down his dirty face in streams that tracked both disbelief and desolation. Mike was a mean man. Mike walked with the rest of us, but always two steps ahead, ensuring "first kicking rights" to any stray dogs coming up to us hoping for a scrap of food. Sometimes he teased them before laying a steel-toed boot to them; this bothered me the most, seeing that small spark of hope in the eyes of the starving mongrels... then hearing the yelp.