RisingRants: Show AND Tell. · 2:27am Jan 29th, 2013
Well ladies and gentleman, looks like it’s time for another one of my (nowhere near) world famous RisingRants! This time I will be talking about the literary concept “Show, don’t Tell.” Rather, I’ll be going in depth into just what it means, and as you may have guessed from the title, why it isn’t entirely accurate.
Oh, dear lord, what have I gotten myself into?
No! None of that, me! This is gonna happen, just roll with it!
Anyways, onto the actual meat of this rant (or, the reason you’re reading this). As you may already know, “Show, don’t Tell” is referring to the way your story is written. Telling is when you simply say what happened, without really describing it.
John held onto the rope as Rainbow Dash lowered him down. She lowered him into into the cave, and he let go at the bottom..
Like that. Showing is when you actually describe what happened.
John grasped the rope, and looked at Rainbow Dash.
“Why am I doing this again?” He gave her a disgruntled look.
“Because your idiot idea nearly broke my wing, otherwise I would just fly down there!” She returned his expression.
“Fine,” He grumbled as she lowered him into the cavern.
There wasn’t much to see on the way down, just the moist rocky walls of the tunnel. John was unimpressed, to say the least.
He felt his feet touch the bottom, and he tugged the rope twice as the agreed upon signal.
See? Much more descriptive, and you get a better idea of what happened. They give you the same information, but one tells you so much more about the situation. Now that you know what each is, I’ll have to go deeper. (Why did I make that reference? I haven’t even seen that movie...)
Anyways, by now you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about “Show, don’t Tell,” when the title says “Show AND Tell.” The reason is simple, really. “Show, don’t Tell,” is okay advice, but it doesn’t quite cover the subject fully. You see, there is a time to show, and there is a time to tell. To understand this idea, you have to know just what you’re doing when you are showing or telling.
When showing, you are describing in detail to the reader what happened. This doesn’t mean you should go crazy with the adjectives, only that you should do your best to give your reader an idea of what is happening. But when you show a scene, you also place emphasis on it. This scene is going to stick out in the reader’s memory, because they spent time imagining it. So, when do you want to show? Whenever the scene you are writing is important to the story. Great examples are scenes of character development, plot development, or scenery development. Yeah, as you probably realized, showing is used primarily for some sort of development. What actually happens during these development scenes is entirely up to you, however.
Now, telling has a different purpose. Telling moves the story much faster than showing, and that is about the extent of its use. For example, if one character is explaining something to another that the reader already knows, then you can just say:
John told Rainbow Dash what had happened.
Rather than having the reader sit through a whole conversation that provides them with no new information. The same goes for what amount to scene transitions. If your character is walking from point A to point B, and nothing actually happens, there is no point in showing this scene. Now, if they met someone important, or spent the time contemplating various matters of great importance, (“Hmmm, what toppings should I get on my pizza?”) then you could show the scene. Otherwise, just say:
John walked from the library to Sugarcube Corner, whistling a jaunty tune along the way.
Note that I did add a tidbit of description. Short lines like that don’t bog down the
reader with unnecessary information, and can in fact serve to develop the character. From that one sentence, we can guess that John is probably in a good mood, or enjoys whistling melodies of a lively nature.
Now, to summarize. Show when you want the scene to stick out in the reader’s memory, or if it is important to the story. Tell when the scene is unimportant to the development of the story, or when one character is explaining information to another that the reader already knows.
Looks like I’m just about done here. I can only hope that you have a better understanding of the ideas of Showing and Telling now, because that’s pretty much all I’ve got. So, if you have some other points you want to add, some sort of counter argument, or even just a “Cool story, bro,” I’d greatly appreciate if you left me a comment!
-RisingOne
Cool story bro...
Actually very in-depth, even if it was TL;DR.
I read half.
I would've said 'agreed upon signal'
820958
I suppose that does sound less awkward. Thanks for the catch!
Thanks for the rant. I got here from the link you left in the comment section of Paradise.
Could anyone help me with locating this ongoing faq series for authors? It's written by this guy who tells about how to write a story in a sort of ongoing guide wherein he holds mock conversations with imaginary amateur others. He brings in quotes from guys who have written rather famous stories. He's covered topics like submitting to Equestria Daily, taking criticism, choosing genre, Mary Sue, and so on.
822256
Here you go.
822302
Thank you.