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Hey, everybody!
I just got back from the Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. In one of the sessions I went to, an author (Tim Shoemaker) was talking about how to write fiction. He said that when you’re writing fiction, you need to show the story, not just tell the story. Let me give you an example of what I mean.Telling the story:
Jim was cold as he waited for the bus.
Showing the story:
Jim rubbed his hands together and jumped up and down. When would the bus get here? If he had known the bus would take so long, he’d have brought a jacket.See the difference? In the second example, the reader can figure out that Jim is cold without the word “cold” being said. The second example also gives the reader a picture in his/her mind, whereas the first example doesn’t at all.
Any thoughts?
I also thought it would be fun on this topic to make a game of “showing the story.” For example, one person writes a “telling” sentence, such as “Christine was angry.” Then the next person has to turn the sentence into a “showing” sentence.
Make sense?
@gretald
Here’s one: Oliver had an exam coming up; he was nervous.A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
Totally! Showing, not telling is a really basic principle of good writing.
Like, “Timmy was amused” becomes, “Timmy tightened his mouth, trying to hold in his smile, but a small snicker still escaped.”
Something like that. 😉- Rank: Wise Jester
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@gretald
yes! here’s something on the subject that i found a while ago, using for an example stephen king’s book called IT (or something like that)Insightful ways to ‘Show’ rather than ‘Tell’.
1. Never underestimate the use of smell.
“He could smell the cheery aroma of midway sawdust. And yet… And yet under it all was the smell of flood, decomposing leaves and dark storm drain shadows. That smell was ret and rotten. The cellar smell.”
Throughout the novel, this scent of death and decay is always associated with the arrival of IT. In the first chapter of the novel, cute little Georgie Denbrough found a clown in stormdrain. Odd, but not alarming. It’s the smell that tells the reader to be afraid, that this clown is evil, death and decay incarnate. This smell has raised the stakes. Georgie is in extreme danger and now we know it.
2. Names are powerful—an absence of names is even more so.
“The writer’s woman was now with It, alive yet not alive—her mind had been utterly destroyed by her first sight of It as It really was, with all of Its little masks and glamours thrown aside—and all of the glamours were only mirrors, of course, throwing back at the terrified viewer the worst thing in his or her own mind…”
Names equal identity. In stories, someone named is important and solid. “The writer’s woman”, Audrey, is wife to our hero, Bill Denbrough. IT is never named; Pennywise the Clown is just one of IT’s many identities. When IT takes Audrey, IT strips her of her identity, just like IT has no identity. If you introduce your reader to a character named Bob, but then he suddenly decides to start going by John, you’re signaling a radical identity shift. A complete lack of identity, like we see with IT, makes a character distant and totally separate from reality. The longer you make the reader wait for a name, the more mysterious and sinister your character becomes.
3. Consistent images are a reader’s best friend.
“The bird’s tongue was silver, its surfaces as crazy-cracked as the surface of a volcanic land which has first baked and then slagged off.
And on this tongue, like weird tumbleweeds that had taken temporary root there, were a number of orange puffs.”
This image of an orange tuft appears in every manifestation that IT takes. Pennywise will have orange tufts of hair or orange pompoms on his outfit, for example. Because IT changes faces so many times, this visual keeps the reader on track. Without it, it’s easy to assume we’re dealing with multiple villains. The image keeps IT and all of IT’s manifestations solidified. Consistent images are extremely useful when the risk of distraction is high and you want to keep your readers on track.@zoe-wingfeather, Hmm, those are some interesting points. I’ve never really thought about using smell like that before. And names! Am I the only one who spends 30 hours looking at baby name lists just trying to find the perfect name for the MC? XD Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Chloe!
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@gretald sure! 🙂 and no, you’re not the only one. XD
I enjoyed Tim Shoemaker’s detective series (which I received as a Christmas gift.)
Showing vs. telling is powerful. Not only in describing a setting, but also in the emotions of a character ex.
Oliver sat at his desk in his dorm and stared at the little squiggly lines that made up his exam. He played a discordant solo with his number two pencil and the desk’s polished, wood surface. What if he failed? Would he lose his scholarship? His stomach started to chase its tail like Spot back home. Oliver stopped his concert piece midway through its third movement, and poised his pencil above the paper.
His overflowing waste basket a couple steps away caught his eye. Funny. Somehow he had forgotten to empty it last Saturday. He put his pencil aside. He’d have plenty of time to finish the exam before it was due on Friday.
That may have been a little over the top, but it more interesting than “Oliver had an exam coming up; he was nervous”. And it allows us to see a facet of Oliver’s character, he’s a procrastinator.
@dbhgodreigns, Yes, I see what you’re saying. I completely agree about Tim Shoemaker’s books; they’re awesome!
We need to get @kate-flournoy and @daeus’s thoughts on this topic. 😉
Awesome topic, people! Love it— everything said here thus far I completely agree with; in fact, you guys got most of it already. 😉
Another thing I’ll just add, though, is watch out for ‘telling’ in POV, even. Let me give you an example.
Trevor blinked, frozen in his seat, his heart thumping furiously in his ears. This was the chance of a lifetime— he had been waiting for this for years. All his life he had worked towards this one goal… and now here it was. Staring him in the face. Beckoning. Completely right… completely there… all he had to do was reach out and take it. Accept. Say yes.
So why was he suddenly hesitant? What was to stop him? Surely not the memory of Kara’s pleading face; her voice, her shining eyes as she confided her innocent, girlish dreams to him in complete confidence. Surely not… Kara would rejoice for him.
Trevor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Wouldn’t she?Now there’s nothing particularly wrong with that paragraph— but do you realize how much I just told you that you should already know just from reading the rest of the story? If that was a full novel, I would have just been repeating myself since you should already know Trevor’s dreams, and you should already have realized what a big ‘get’ whatever he’s undecided about is for him.
Never underestimate the power of the human imagination. It is more than capable of filling in ‘gaps’.
And never be afraid to cut ‘POV explanations’. They are often just another means of telling, and repetitive telling at that.Lovely topic, @gretald! 😀
Yes @kate-flournoy! No no POV telling! Bad.
A big part of showing is setting a strong tone. This is never done with statements. It is done with symbols, senses, and subtext. In fact, those should be the main emphasis of any story: symbols, senses, and subtext with senses probably taking the priority.
Smell is very important, but so are sight, hearing, taste, and touch. They make everything come alive.
I’ll admit, I’m not the best at this, especially in first drafts, but it’s fairly easy to identify once you learn to notice it. Then you just have to think, “Ok, what am I seeing, feeling, smelling – what am I thinking – what of all this am I forgetting to relate to the reader and how can I fill in the gaps?”
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@kate-flournoy, Lovely thoughts! 😉
@daeus, Oh, yeah. I struggle with showing and not telling when I’m writing. A lot. @ingridrd and I were looking through some of our novel chapters after the convention, and we found soooo much telling…Thank God for rough drafts!@dbhgodreigns
Yeah, that’s definitely better!!! I like the part about the “discordant solo.” Very creative. 🙂 🙂 🙂A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
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