Quick Edits is a short feature where I give quick editing advice on how to handle common problems in fiction writing.
Show Don’t Tell
In my capacity as an editor, I’ve written “This is telling. I want to experience this with the character, not be told about it,” countless times. And the soundbite is “Show, don’t tell.” We’ve all heard it.
But the problem with soundbites is they’re meant to be short, so if we embrace them as rules, rather than guidelines, we lose the nuance.
“Never use adverbs.”
“Don’t use passive verbs.”
“Don’t use exclamation points.”
All of those items that are verboten by soundbites are valid, useful parts of speech. The issue the soundbite is trying to address is that they’re all overused, so the general guideline is not to use them at all. The guideline is really to keep us from overusing them (or using them wrongly, which is usually the case with adverbs) and to make us think about the instances when we do choose to use them.
“Show don’t tell,” is similar. Authors should mostly show. But it doesn’t mean authors should never tell. The “show don’t tell” soundbite drops all the nuance and all the reasoning of why authors should show, rather than tell. And because of this skipped nuance, many authors, particularly novices, adhere to the soundbite as if it is set in stone.
It isn’t.
Below is a list of instances where telling could be appropriate, where you can and sometimes should violate “show don’t tell.” Note that you don’t always have to tell in these instances, and sometimes shouldn’t. As writers improve, they learn when each is appropriate. Generally guideline is still: if you’re unsure, go with showing.
When to Tell
- when transitioning from one scene to another – often Telling can happen at the beginning of a chapter or a scene when setting up for the action to come
- when the action doesn’t matter – if your character is traveling from one place to another and nothing happens during the travel, the reader doesn’t need to know every turn and stop the character makes
- when there is repetition – if a character has to tell another character about something the reader has already heard or experienced, Telling the reader that the character conveys the story is better than rehashing everything the reader already knows (an exception to this is if the character is misrepresenting or misunderstood what happened; that can be important for the reader to know)
- when time passes – similar to above, if time is passing and nothing important happens, you don’t need to Show us that
- in short stories – because short stories have a word limit, Telling is often necessary to summarize events that may not be as important to the plot as others.
There are also some instances in which you should rarely Tell. Obviously things that are the opposite of the list above. For example, any time the action does matter, it should be Shown and not Told. Another instance is action scenes. Action scenes should always be shown.
So there you go! A quick guide on when not to use Show Don’t Tell. Can you think of other times when you should Tell rather than Show?
Are there any editing issues you run into that you’d like covered in the Quick Edits series? Drop a comment below!
Keep writing,
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