My Own “Show; Don’t Tell” Philosophy
I initially wrote this as a stream-of-consciousness ramble in my writing Discord server. (Email me at selrisitai@eatel.net if you want to join.) I’ve edited it for clarity and punch, which I’d like to say I’m good at, being a writer, but there’s a difference between essay writing and novel writing, and frankly I don’t think I’ve become exceptional at either.
Anyway, here it is.
So I've come to a new personal understanding of "show; don't tell," and it has to do with making the most of your details. Before we get into it, I want to establish what, precisely, “showing” and “telling” are, because there is some confusion about it in many amateur writing communities. Some people say it’s physical actions that demonstrate emotions or skills, while some say it’s any form of implication standing in for explication. So one guy says that it’s when a character does something to demonstrate that he’s a quick thinker, like if he were working in a bakery and ran out of a particular item because of his own carelessness, he might tell the customer that they sold out sooner than expected because people were so in love with the item, and that more is being made now. The whole sequence would be a “showing” moment that he is quick thinking and willing to lie to cover his own tail.
That, however, is wholly different from “showing” that your character is angry by having him clench his fists, which is the typical “show; don’t tell” example that’s given.
So which of these is the “true” showing and telling? Well, the honest truth is that I have no clue. I think they’re both correct, and frankly I don’t care because I think the whole thing is completely bunk and idiocy! I’ve read dozens of books in which the narrator simply says,
“John was angry,”
or,
“John was getting angry,”
or just skips the outright and makes it a passive mention in a dialogue tag:
”Are you kidding me?” John said angrily.
And what’s more, within the context of the stories, these worked tremendously, and it generally had to do with the storytelling. John has a lot of power and a violent temper, so when you see “angry” you get worried.
For instance, let's say it's pouring raining outside and a guy has just come into the house.
A "tell" would be, "It was raining outside." I don't know if you can get away with not telling this detail to some degree.
A "show" would be his clothes dripping water or him shaking his umbrella out before coming inside, rather than, I dunno, saying "he was soaking wet" or, "He had brought an umbrella with him."
So far I wouldn't consider the "show; don't tell" or even "show and tell" to be particularly useful in these instances in which both showing and telling are used. There's nothing intrinsically necessary about specifically showing or telling or not telling in this instance. There's a lot of writer's instincts and skill that goes into know what to do and when to do it, and trying to boil it down to "show; don't tell" is frankly both naive and incorrect.
That said, the more important aspect of this, I think, would be how to show (or tell.) For instance, same scenario, a guy comes into the house and it's pouring raining, right?
You want to convey to the reader
1. The dark skies.
2. The heavy rain itself.
3. The temperature of the rain perhaps.
4. How heavily it's raining.
5. How the main character feels about the rain.
6. Whether he's dressed to weather the weather or whether he's not.
7. How his clothes drip once he's inside the house.
8. The idea of the house being a refuge.
9. Whether the house is warm or cold, or makes his entrance into it feel like a good or a bad idea.
Among all of these reasonable details, you have what? A story that needs to be told. This stuff's all just window dressing, incidental, an atmospheric pretense. It's not the story, it's just the present setting, and whether it's particularly important to the story won't change the fact that it will need to be gotten through in a timely manner so that the plot can
proceed.
So the real question we need answered is, "How do I manage all of these details within the context of a story?"
I think once you start doing that is when your writing will have a sense of polish and steady, interesting progression. Among the million other things of course. (Oh, we writers are such workhorses!)
Actually, this might just be a personal problem, or maybe an issue only some writers have, but I know that I will oftentimes find myself—not putting in too many details, per se, but rather struggling to fit the details into the story.
In fact, in the story I'm writing now, I didn't get around to describing the characters until something like 1,500 words in, because it just didn't seem relevant, but me I like to describe the characters. I like to have them described to me. I like to know what I'm workin' with, whether reading or writing.
So to answer this question, at least in part, I think there are a couple elements that must absolutely be considered:
First, your narrative voice. If your narrator himself is a certain type of person (and he might not be any kind of personality at all, or at least close to it) then he'll probably have things he wants to focus on.
Peradventure, for instance, a narrator who speaks like a normal guy. I think the narrator from Fight Club sounds like an idealized version of a self-loathing young adult. Lots of swear words, rough around the edges, be eloquent because he wants to sell his book so he has to be at least that, but in any case, if your narrator is like that, then there will likely only be specific moments where he describes what someone looks like, and even then he'll describe it with his own personality. A portly, stout gentleman with a cane might just be "the lard-ass with enough money to be the sinner we all want to be," or some such drivel, defined only in terms of the main character's narcissism or disinterest or whatever it is. So he's not likely going to start a story with a detailed description of someone, but if he does it's, again, going to be filtered through his personalized brand of esoteric justice. (A cookie for anyone who gets the reference.)
So narrator voice is the first thing to consider. "What would this narrator say? Why would he say it and how would he say it?"
Secondly is. . . actually, that narrator bit, uh, I got so caught up in it that I forgot what the second solution is.
So the second one, which was actually the one I had in mind when I started writing this whole essay, is the "show" bit of "show and tell."
The most natural way we always show a character's appearance, the way we just naturally understand, is to talk about someone's appearance through another character's perceptions, and this is most often done through a romantic perception: John is infatuated with Mary, and thus she is important to him, and thus her appearance matters to him, and therefore it matters to us, so we can write a full paragraph about her golden blonde hair and rosy cheeks and it tends to keep the viewer interested because we know that John is head-over-heels and we'll allow it, so long as he's serious about the relationship and not just stringing us, or poor Mary, along.
But this concept extends to everything. The reason the description works is not just because it's being filtered through another character's opinion, perceptions or interest, but because it's just a natural progression. John likes Mary, John has very positive opinions about her appearance, and indeed, how he perceives her will inform how he acts, which will give context to the reader for John's interactions with her, or whatever.
So now let's go back to the "man just coming in from the rain" analogy.
There are some aspects that will almost be necessary to describe: Shaking his umbrella out before coming in. If he puts the umbrella in one of those thin umbrella holder baskets, then mentioning that will probably be needed.
What about him being wet? Well, a good way to bring that up would be to link it to the fact that he must go through the house. It's necessary. His shoes are wet, so he has to take them off, and his socks are soaked—a soaker is a horrible thing, so naturally that'll be mentioned after the shoes—and the main story, what's that about? He's got to get to his computer to check something about, I dunno, saving the greater parish from zombie attacks, so that's why he needs to get through the house. Oh, but he's in a rush, so now we have reason for him to be rushing, which gives us more details: Rainwater sluicing from soaked hair as he shuffles toward the bedroom; his concern about his good suit, so we know what he's wearing now; he sits down to the computer, shivering—it's cold outside and the rain wasn't helping—and because he's shivering, his fingers are shaky and he's struggling to type, having to backspace every few characters, and on we go, adding details as we progress him toward his destination and goals.
The "showing" doesn't come in mentioning details, but in slipping the details into the progression of the plot. You don't want to take snap-shots that the reader is meant to stare at; instead, you create for him link upon link, so that through them all he gets a sense of the atmosphere while the story never ceases to progress.
Of course, there are times when you'll info-dump, more or less, and I love a good information dump, personally. I don't know about the rest of you tubes, but I'm a big truck. (Reference? Reference anyone? Validate meeee)
O.K., I'm done.
Edit: Upon editing this I realized that “you tubes” sounds like I’m making some kind of Youtube joke. I’m actually referencing the whole, “The internet is not a big truck you can just dump things on; it’s a series of tubes!” thing that was popular several years back.
