The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Showing vs Telling

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure plenty of you have gotten this talk before. Has it gotten tedious by now? Probably. But here's the thing.

Showing and telling can make all the difference when you're writing your story. It can be the difference between boring your reader and making them click out of/put down your book, or captivating them and make them keep reading it.

When you were a little kid, you probably had a show-and-tell day at your school. You know, the usual. Bring an object to your school and tell your peers about it.  I'm sure they were very fascinated with your Barney doll, guys.

How does show-and-tell day tie into writing? Well, when you're presented when a character, situation, or setting, simply stating facts about them will make your readers yawn. That's why it's called show and tell. You don't just talk about your Barney doll, you bring him to school.

Obviously, it's impossible to avoid some telling in your stories. You can't leave your readers completely in the dark about what the hell is happening to your character.

Some tips?

1) Avoid the info dump. I swear sometimes I get so much information on the first page of a story that it makes my head spin.

Example?

"Cassandra was 5'3 and 100 pounds. She wore a blue sweater. Her mother is a pediatrition and her dad is a computer engineer. She has always lived in Fresno, but recently moved to Swallow Falls. She's a drawer and a painter. She has an older brother and is often very depressed and doesn't like eating cheerios. Her alarm clock is pink and her room is painted blue. She has a big backpack and goes to Swallow Falls High School. It is there that she meets Jack, and they fall in love. Then she finds out that Jack suffers from coulrophobia..."

See what I mean?

2) Use the five senses. Don't just describe a scene. Describe a scene. What does it smell like? What does your character see? Hear? Touch? Taste?

If you were telling your reader about a character's room, you might say something like this:

"Sophie's room was painted bright red and her carpet had crumbs in it. Her cell phone was on her desk and her window was open. The lights were on, but they were kind of dim."

If you were showing your reader what Sophie's room looked like, it might go more like this:

"Sophie's room was painted a red so bright that it gave her headaches looking at it for too long. It also smelled faintly of waffles. Her carpet had so many crumbs in it that Sophie could feel them under her feet as she walked on it. The lights were on, but they were dim and Sophie had to squint to see her cell phone, which lay on the mahogany desk in the corner of the room."

Honestly, I don't know what the hell kind of room this is. What kind of creepy kid enjoys walking around in a dirty, bright red room that smells like breakfast?

Oh yeah, me.

3) Make your readers read between the lines. Don't always give away things about your character, especially their personality.

For example, let's say we have a character named Bob. (Yes, I purposely used a generic name)

Telling:  Bob, for some reason, could never get children to like him. It was probably because he was tall, intimidating, and sometimes rude without knowing it.

Showing: Bob smiled at the woman standing next to him in line and looked down at the girl holding her hand.

"What a big girl you are!" Bob said, kneeling so that he was eye-to-eye with the small child. He looked her up and down. "Very big. A little chubby, in fact." The child frowned and moved behind her mother's leg.

What happens here is that instead of simply telling readers about a character's personality and character, you can show it in their actions and how they treat other people.

For example, if a woman is very stubborn, instead of just describing her as stubborn, you can show how she doesn't like to lose arguments or ever admit that she's wrong. 

And there we are. I hope those of you that weren't aware have learned something about showing and telling when you're writing your stories.

(Isn't Bob such a jerk? Well, maybe not. He wasn't trying to be rude)

Another way to avoid info-dumping is to have these little facts about your characters slowly revealed in a story, instead of having them all put in one paragraph at the beginning. For example, does Cassandra really like blue? Have her wear blue clothing at least once every few chapters. Is her mother rich? Make this information known by having another character point it out. 

And of course, too much of something is never good. While info-dumping in a story is never really a good idea, you also don't need to be overly descriptive in everything that you write. For instance, you don't need to be that descriptive when writing about a character's room if it's not relevant to the story. I was just using that as an example.

Showing and telling mostly applies to things that are important. For example, if a character finds out her mother is dying. Sometimes it's better to be descriptive about how she's feeling than state it outright and saying "she was sad." Did she cry? Did she scream? Did she punch things? Describing these actions will have more of an effect on your reader. In some cases, actions mean more than words.