A beginner’s guide to show, don’t tell

Let's start off by reminding ourselves that there are no rules in writing. There's nothing you have to do but there are techniques we can use to make our writing more effective and enjoyable for our readers.

There are times where showing is more effective and there are times where telling is more effective. At the end of the day, you can show or tell whenever you want in your novel. I won't stop you! But as an editor, I will tell you when there's a more effective way to express what you're trying to say through your writing.

What is show, don’t tell?

Show, don’t tell means showing how your character experiences something rather than telling your reader what that something is.

Think of it like that "tell me you're a writer without telling me you're a writer" meme. This meme is asking you to show me how you are a writer, rather than just telling me what you are.

The meme wants you to explain how you stared at a computer for 10 hours without writing a single word but then told your friends you had a "productive day writing", that your search history alone probably got you put on some FBI watchlist, how you wrote 2000 words in an hour then spent the next five hours struggling to edit a single sentence and how you based a villain off someone who spited you twenty years ago. Some of these will be relatable to all writers, yet others will be unique to you and your experience as a writer.

That’s what makes show, don’t tell a powerful writing tool: it embraces the unique perspectives of you and your characters.

A telling example

A basic example of telling is: He was sad.

Here, I've given you, the reader, the outcome this person is experiencing: they are sad. You can imagine what sad looks like, but you don't know what this person is doing at this exact moment when I say they’re sad.

What if we applied "tell me you're sad without telling me you're sad" to this example?

Let's think about how people experience sadness. Some people cry, some people go silent while others will only offer subtle signs through their body language, such as hunching their shoulders or looking at the ground. For our example, let's use crying.

A basic example of showing is: Tears streamed down his face.

But wait! You're "telling" me what those tears are doing! And those could be tears of happiness!

Now, I can already hear someone arguing that I'm telling you that the tears are running down his face so this isn't showing, or perhaps we should try “tell me there’s tears streaming down your face without telling me there’s tears streaming down your face”. It's true that "tears streamed down his face" could be considered showing in one situation but telling in another, and that tears can indicate a range of emotions.

Why showing is important, yet so hard to get right

Showing isn't meant to exist in a vacuum. It's a piece of a puzzle that you give your readers to guide them through your book. The completed puzzle proudly announces "he is sad" but there's no joy in being given a complete puzzle. The fun of puzzles is the journey of putting the pieces together yourself, and the same applies to your reader. Your reader wants to go on the journey of discovering what your character is experiencing, rather than being told what they are experiencing.

Our readers only have the information, or puzzle pieces, that we give them. When we say "he was sad", our reader doesn't know what sad looks like for this character because we all experience sadness differently and they don't have the background to understand this person's history. That's why show, don’t tell is hailed as one of the golden writing techniques and why it is so hard to get right in our novels.

A final example of show, don’t tell

If I tell my brother our mother was angry last night, he knows exactly what means because he's seen her angry many times before. He knows how she subtly ignores you then she whips out her phone so she can text her friends on WhatsApp to complain about what happened.

Yet if my brother tells me his wife was angry last night, I can use my imagination to figure out what that situation looked like, but I've never seen her angry before. In other words, I don't know how she experiences the emotion of anger.

On the other hand, if my brother tells me his wife yelled at him and stormed out the front door, that gives me a much better understanding of what happened and the emotions both parties experienced. I also feel more connected to this situation and I'm much more likely to ask my brother what happened than if he told me she was angry. Your reader will feel the same and will be more likely to turn the page to find out what happens next.

Conclusion

Show, don't tell is asking you to take your reader on the journey of discovery with your characters, rather than telling them what the outcomes are. This will help your reader engage with your story.

Yet showing isn’t always the best way to present information to your reader and there are times when telling is much more effective. There are so many ways to show and tell in writing, and we could spend hours exploring the different components of this writing tool.

Let's look at how we as writers can effectively show and tell, and how this presents in different situations, in my next blog post in this new show, don’t tell series.