Show, Don’t Tell: How to Use This Rule Effectively

By Jodi Clark

If you’ve been a writer for any length of time, you’ve probably come across this phrase:

“Show, don’t tell.”

And maybe you’ve scratched your head and wondered, “what does that even mean?” To further your confusion, maybe your readers have told you that you need to show instead of tell, or maybe you’ve read your own writing and wondered, “why doesn’t this feel impactful enough?"

If something feels off in your writing for an unclear reason, you may have discovered an opportunity to develop your knowledge of and skill at practicing proper “showing” and “telling.” Showing and telling both describe things--they just describe things differently. You need to learn which situations to use either telling or showing in, so that your writing is the most impactful it can be.

I’m here today to help you understand and apply the “show, don’t tell” rule in your writing, so that your writing can become even more compelling and immersive.

Use Telling to Describe the Facts

Telling is pretty much what it sounds like. Essentially, it happens when you tell the audience something about the facts of the character or setting in a straightforward way, almost like you’re writing what happened or what something looked like in a textbook or a news report.

Here is an example of telling from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors” (Tolkien 3).

As you can see, Tolkien spares nothing in his description of the hobbit hole. He directly tells you what the hobbit hole is not (nasty, dirty, wet, or dry, bare, and sandy) and he directly tells you what the hobbit hole is (comfortable, without smoke, with nice floors and walls). Tolkien tells you what you can assume from the multitude of pegs for hats and coats: that the hobbit is fond of visitors. He doesn’t leave much to the imagination, so the reader won’t have a hard time picturing the place. They also won’t have a hard time imagining what sort of creature could live in this hobbit hole.

Source: Giphy

Telling leaves little to the imagination. In a direct, straightforward way, it sums up everything that you need to know. In The Hobbit example, telling what the scene looked like was useful, since the reader needs to know what the hobbit hole looks like. Being vague and only hinting at its appearance, leaving most of it to the imagination, would not have painted such a vivid, specific scene. 

Additionally, telling usually helps a great deal when you are trying to describe something external, like the setting or a character’s appearance, or when you are trying to quickly summarize what happened during a travel or training sequence.

When characters are describing things in dialogue is another great place to use telling, since in real life, we just tell each other about things when we are trying to describe them. Understanding when to use telling and doing it the proper way can greatly help the pacing of your novel.

When you are trying to think whether or not you need to tell in a scene, think of these three questions:

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should probably use telling in your descriptions for the scene you are preparing to write.

Use Showing to Describe Emotion

Telling can also become a hindrance to you when you are trying to portray emotion in an impactful way. If you just wrote something like, “Sarah was angry,” the audience likely won’t connect with her sadness in a very deep way because of how brief and almost dismissive this description is. That’s where the importance of showing comes in. If you wanted to show how Sarah was angry, you might write something like this: “Sarah’s hands balled into fists. As her face contorted into a scowl, she spun to face him with a shout.”

So, you can probably see how showing is wordier than telling. But do you notice how with showing, you can get across to the reader that Sarah is angry without saying the word “angry”?

Here’s a longer example of showing from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, right after Anne has just discovered that there has been a mistake and that Marilla does not want to adopt her:

“During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands…Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging her arms out upon it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily” (Montgomery 33).

Source: Tenor

Now, another thing you might notice about showing is that it can be vague. While you were reading this paragraph, you may not have guessed immediately that the emotion Anne was feeling was sadness. That’s because reading scenes with showing is like watching a movie, where unless there is a voiceover telling you what’s going on inside a character’s head, it is up to the actor’s or animator’s skill at portraying emotions to help you understand what emotion the character is feeling.

Here’s a trailer for a short, silent black-and-white film from Disney called Paperman. Take a look at it and see if you can guess what the characters are feeling just from observing their facial expressions and body language (bonus points if you watch it without sound, so you don’t get extra help deciphering the characters’ emotions from the music):

 A great resource for the writer who is struggling to find ways to show emotion in facial expression and body language is The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. This book gives you lists of body language cues that hint at emotions like anger, sadness, love, etc. I keep it by my desk when I’m writing just in case I need some inspiration for a scene that requires the use of showing when I’m writing.

You can show the setting, as well, but since showing is wordy, it is best to only show in moments of high emotion, or when you are using the description of the setting to set the emotional tone of a scene. This quote from Anton Chekhov is a well-known line used to describe showing instead of telling for setting:

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

When you are trying to think whether or not you need to show in a scene, think of these two questions:

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should probably use showing in your descriptions for the scene you are preparing to write.

Use Showing AND Telling for Engaging Descriptions

Showing and telling are both important for a great story. Without telling, a story would feel bloated with too many flowery and vague descriptions. Without showing, a story would feel heartless, without opportunities for the reader to connect with the characters and setting on an emotional level. Balancing both showing and telling in your story is the way to write a masterful tale with excellent pacing that will keep your reader entertained.

Remember, telling is useful for descriptions that need to be specific and detailed without much emotion. Telling gives you an explicit (detailed) report of what is happening, what the setting looks like, and what the characters are feeling.

Showing is useful for descriptions that can be longer, but less specific when it comes to mentioning the exact emotion a character is feeling, or the exact way something is happening in a setting. Showing implicitly (indirectly) hints at what is happening in a scene without directly saying it.

You can always come back and edit your story after you finish the first draft, so if you need to work on the showing or telling in your story, don’t worry! Editing is a great place to worry about that kind of thing after you’ve told the story in the first draft.

What stories have you read where there was excessive showing or telling? What stories have you read where showing and telling was done well?

Let me know your thoughts on the “show, don’t tell” rule in the comments!