SHOW, DON'T TELL

SHOW, DON'T TELL—almost a cliché

You've heard it over and over. Yeah, yeah, I know, and here it is again. Why? It's important. SHOWING is dramatic and makes readers feel in the moment with the character and the action.

TELLING is perfectly acceptable, useful for exposition, a way to cover ground as a narrator, and a way to offer information. TELLING, however, is hearing something secondhand. It describes the situation rather than the story. Readers become observers rather than participants.

On the other hand, SHOWING makes the story come alive and brings readers into a scene. Specific details, action verbs, good dialogue and active voice can dramatically improve your work-in-progress.

Anton Chekov's well-known quote says it all: "Don't tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."

SHOWING is accomplished through specific and sensory details—the smells and sounds and tastes, the way something feels and how something looks. Readers want to smell the burning wood in the fireplace, hear the wind outside the window, feel the lake water, see the orange sunset on the horizon and taste that bite of fresh broiled salmon.

CONCRETE nouns and ACTION verbs also contribute to showing. Change "tree' to "oak" or "elm" or "pine" and readers will have a clearer sense of the scene. By analyzing verbs during revision, you might discover way too many passive verbs. Perhaps more active verbs will heighten the physical and emotional story action. Instead of "he walked into the house" something like "he sauntered into the house" or "he raced into the house" might fit that story moment better.

DIALOGUE is a good way to show and move the story forward because dialogue is action. Characters are speaking and interacting. Authors, however, must make dialogue count. Readers don't want meaningless dialogue. None of that "How are you?" sort of talk.  Dialogue can reveal much about the characters—the way they hesitate or avoid an issue, the way they change the subject or gossip.

John Gardner says, "It's by being convincing in the reality and detail of how we evoke our imagined world— by what the characters do and say—that we persuade the reader to read the story we're telling as if it really happened, even though we all know it didn't."