Show, Don't Tell~ oh no, another TL;DR essay. D:
"Show, don't tell". I heard this advice several times when I started writing, but I have never had any writing classes, and I'm not a native English speaker. So it took a long time to parse. "Yeah, that's... er. Nice, I guess. I suppose so... But HOW?"
Show, don't tell. You're writing; you're telling a story. How can you convey anything if you don't tell it? That's what I thought, the first time I heard that advice. I really didn't get it.
"Mary's apartment was dark and cramped, with many useless pieces of varnished furniture covered in doilies and little knickknacks. There was an old couch in a corner. She took off her shoes and sat down on it; she was tired. She was also very angry. Her boss had been awful today. She worked as an office clerk, and really hated her job."
It's not horrible; nothing is misspelled (thanks Microsoft Word), and unless I messed up, it's grammatically correct. There are no cumbersome repetitions in the structure of the sentences. What's wrong with it?
It's got a hint of the laundry list syndrome in the first sentence; the second sentence is empty, as it brings no action or emotion, and isn't even pretty; the third and fourth suddenly spring her feelings on us in a neat pre-packaged little box. "Tired". "Angry". We don't know if she's exhausted or just a little tired; we don't know how she expresses her anger, if it's a quiet, simmering anger or a "kick down a door" anger. We can't see it, we can't feel it, but now, we know. There's absolutely no wiggle room for the reader's interpretation; it makes them passive, and as such, likely to disengage from the story.
Next we get the Helpful Flashback, complete with explicative notice -- same problem. What kind of awful is her boss? Does he give her impossible tasks? Does he feel her up in the break room? Does he criticize her fashion sense? Not a clue.
The scene is totally generic, the settings vague and amorphous; there's absolutely no personality behind this woman, no depth to her history. She could be anyone; as a result, she's no one. (dude, do I like hearing myself talk or what. XD)
Now compare with that:
(strikethoughts are optional)
"Mary didn't bother turning on the lights when she got home. She could have navigated the tortuous path across her living room with her eyes closed; and in fact, she did. It was easier than wondering why the simple, energetic Art Deco apartment she had always envisioned had materialized as a dumpster for faux-Louis XIV and grandmotherly frills.
She toed off her high heels and kicked them clear across the room, narrowly missing a vase. It didn't fall; she stood for a few seconds, shoulders slumping wearily, and then she threw herself on the couch, fingernails digging into the aging leather. How she wished it were her boss' face under her nails.
If only there wasn't such a dearth of office jobs; she would storm out and never come back rather than submitting herself to the man's repugnant opinions a second longer.
It's not perfect, of course. But it's already a lot more alive than the first.
What I did strike through was the kind of thing that's more "Asuka-style babble" than strictly necessary to the exercise; but as a writer, you'll develop a specific style. If your style is simple, or more convoluted, it's your choice to decide what to add on top; but the basics of "show, don't tell" stay about the same.
I have found that to mix the décor and the mood with the action helps me a lot. Don't concentrate too hard on one thing at the time; "She does this. She feels that. The décor stands there, looking like X". Instead, make her mood interact with her actions, make her actions interact with her décor. She's tired + she walks = she drags her feet -- and you don't need to tell me either "she's going somewhere" or "she's tired/reluctant" -- that will come just fine from the context. She's annoyed + she's undressing + the décor is there = she throws her jacket on the coffee table. Add adjectives as needed, and voilà.
It's not an absolute rule either. Not every sentence needs to be a mix of two or three; sometimes you do need to list only actions (which can give a pretty clear mental picture on their own, or be about, say, OMG FIGHT SCENE NO TIME TO THINK, JUST FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT; and then you don't need the emotional register anymore), or only emotions.
Sometimes you're writing deep POV, or introspection, and you can't show everything. But infodumps that drone on and on are bad, even and especially when they're about someone's deep ponderings. To carry a "thoughts-and-feelings-only" narrative, you're going to need a strong voice and engaging prose so as to compensate. If the tone of the writing is engaging, quirky, shiny in some way or other -- whatever; if the prose is interesting, people will read even if it's someone thinking about a groceries list.
As long as 1) it's short, or 2) something eventually happens.
...Or 3) your story demands it.
Nothing is an absolute rule in writing. In fact, there are no rules to writing. There are strong guidelines; and everyone should know where they are; but once you know where they are, then go overboard as much as you want, as long as it gives the effect you wanted. The end justifies the means.
If it doesn't work, then you're just a hack. XD
A side note about adjectives:
"Don't abuse the thesaurus!" they tell us. Alright, but what if you're painting someone's shock at being faced with an absolutely magnificent sight? You'll need more words than "blue" and "pretty". (But! Random piece of advice. When describing something, don't just describe the pieces -- not everyone will put them together right. Tell us about the effect it's supposed to give. "the house had a greenhouse up north, and the roof was made of large, rounded gray tiles, and the bricks were varying degrees of ochre and there was a quaint white fence blahblah..." can mean "it was a charming little seaside cottage; the effect was purely ravishing" just as well as "it was a medieval castle that X had renovated and modernized; the results were about as fitting as a businessman with a peg leg and a green wig.")
If you mean "emerald", then say "emerald". If you mean "aquamarine", then say "aquamarine". Don't be afraid of the specialized word. An author doesn't hesitate to use a word if that word is the word he means to use. (oops, wait, that mangled quote was about repetitions. IT STILL APPLIES. ;p)
If there's a simpler word that means exactly the same thing, or the nuance of meaning isn't important to the narration... In other words, if you mean "green, but a super-special green that's GOT to be special because, er, because it sounds pretty and is almost impossible to spell and I want my readers to go AHHH that's pretty but I have never heard it before, wow, the author sure is smart"... then it's green. Just green. Or maybe dark green, or faded green, or yellow green, or green with speckles of crimson.
For the record, I have no earthly clue what viridian looks like.
And this one was actually my first "good" example but I went overboard with the Asuka style, I sunk into her POV instead of staying outside, started babbling away, and as a result the mechanics are a lot harder to see underneath. XD;; The bare bones are still there, but I embellished a lot.
"Mary was already three steps inside her apartment when she remembered that the ceiling light bulb had imploded that morning. She felt around for the desk-lamp switch; something small teetered briefly at the edge of the varnished chest of drawers, tumbled down and landed on her foot. She turned on the lamp and glared stonily at the cheerful porcelain shepherdess which was beaming at her from the carpet.
Mary lost her seventh staring contest of the day, and decided to let the shepherdess lay there a little while longer as revenge. If there was one thing she didn't feel like doing even one more time today, it was bending over. Absently, she righted the doily on which the rest of the wholesome porcelain family dwelled, and trudged her way through the zigzag course her apartment had become.
Ahh, her couch; the only thing that hadn't been foisted off on her by elderly family members; the first big thing she'd bought with her first real salary. She kicked off her high heels and slumped on it, and then twitched when a spring poked her.
She didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or buy a voodoo doll of her much beloved boss, since she was pretty sure that her sudden need to sob her heart out wasn't actually due to the couch stabbing her in the back. Ass. Whatever.
The son of a bitch. The utter son of a bitch. Jerking her around until she didn't know which way was up, nagging and nagging, and then dressing her down in the middle of the office because she hadn't figured out how to duplicate herself yet! And then laughing and whispering about 'tapping that ass' at the coffee machine like it radiated its own soundproof force-field. She couldn't wait until her uncle finished setting up his new company; she would leave the office so fast she would leave the ugly carpet ablaze in her wake, and then they'd see how not-easy it was to keep their nightmare of a records room straight.
Well, sure, it's a little longer. But that way you have quality AND quantity. Or something.
...Shush.
So there you have it. Show, don't tell, as translated into Asuka-babble-fu: it's always more effective to say "she was shaking with the need to wring his sorry neck" than "she was very, very angry," always more effective to say "her hands trembled as she touched her brother's cheek, and when she met his eyes, her breath hitched," than "she was deeply moved by the fact that her brother had awakened from his coma."
Show, don't tell. You're writing; you're telling a story. How can you convey anything if you don't tell it? That's what I thought, the first time I heard that advice. I really didn't get it.
"Mary's apartment was dark and cramped, with many useless pieces of varnished furniture covered in doilies and little knickknacks. There was an old couch in a corner. She took off her shoes and sat down on it; she was tired. She was also very angry. Her boss had been awful today. She worked as an office clerk, and really hated her job."
It's not horrible; nothing is misspelled (thanks Microsoft Word), and unless I messed up, it's grammatically correct. There are no cumbersome repetitions in the structure of the sentences. What's wrong with it?
It's got a hint of the laundry list syndrome in the first sentence; the second sentence is empty, as it brings no action or emotion, and isn't even pretty; the third and fourth suddenly spring her feelings on us in a neat pre-packaged little box. "Tired". "Angry". We don't know if she's exhausted or just a little tired; we don't know how she expresses her anger, if it's a quiet, simmering anger or a "kick down a door" anger. We can't see it, we can't feel it, but now, we know. There's absolutely no wiggle room for the reader's interpretation; it makes them passive, and as such, likely to disengage from the story.
Next we get the Helpful Flashback, complete with explicative notice -- same problem. What kind of awful is her boss? Does he give her impossible tasks? Does he feel her up in the break room? Does he criticize her fashion sense? Not a clue.
The scene is totally generic, the settings vague and amorphous; there's absolutely no personality behind this woman, no depth to her history. She could be anyone; as a result, she's no one. (dude, do I like hearing myself talk or what. XD)
Now compare with that:
(strikethoughts are optional)
"Mary didn't bother turning on the lights when she got home. She could have navigated the tortuous path across her living room with her eyes closed; and in fact, she did. It was easier than wondering why the simple, energetic Art Deco apartment she had always envisioned had materialized as a dumpster for faux-Louis XIV and grandmotherly frills.
She toed off her high heels and kicked them clear across the room, narrowly missing a vase. It didn't fall; she stood for a few seconds, shoulders slumping wearily, and then she threw herself on the couch, fingernails digging into the aging leather. How she wished it were her boss' face under her nails.
If only there wasn't such a dearth of office jobs; she would storm out and never come back rather than submitting herself to the man's repugnant opinions a second longer.
It's not perfect, of course. But it's already a lot more alive than the first.
What I did strike through was the kind of thing that's more "Asuka-style babble" than strictly necessary to the exercise; but as a writer, you'll develop a specific style. If your style is simple, or more convoluted, it's your choice to decide what to add on top; but the basics of "show, don't tell" stay about the same.
I have found that to mix the décor and the mood with the action helps me a lot. Don't concentrate too hard on one thing at the time; "She does this. She feels that. The décor stands there, looking like X". Instead, make her mood interact with her actions, make her actions interact with her décor. She's tired + she walks = she drags her feet -- and you don't need to tell me either "she's going somewhere" or "she's tired/reluctant" -- that will come just fine from the context. She's annoyed + she's undressing + the décor is there = she throws her jacket on the coffee table. Add adjectives as needed, and voilà.
It's not an absolute rule either. Not every sentence needs to be a mix of two or three; sometimes you do need to list only actions (which can give a pretty clear mental picture on their own, or be about, say, OMG FIGHT SCENE NO TIME TO THINK, JUST FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT; and then you don't need the emotional register anymore), or only emotions.
Sometimes you're writing deep POV, or introspection, and you can't show everything. But infodumps that drone on and on are bad, even and especially when they're about someone's deep ponderings. To carry a "thoughts-and-feelings-only" narrative, you're going to need a strong voice and engaging prose so as to compensate. If the tone of the writing is engaging, quirky, shiny in some way or other -- whatever; if the prose is interesting, people will read even if it's someone thinking about a groceries list.
As long as 1) it's short, or 2) something eventually happens.
...Or 3) your story demands it.
Nothing is an absolute rule in writing. In fact, there are no rules to writing. There are strong guidelines; and everyone should know where they are; but once you know where they are, then go overboard as much as you want, as long as it gives the effect you wanted. The end justifies the means.
If it doesn't work, then you're just a hack. XD
A side note about adjectives:
"Don't abuse the thesaurus!" they tell us. Alright, but what if you're painting someone's shock at being faced with an absolutely magnificent sight? You'll need more words than "blue" and "pretty". (But! Random piece of advice. When describing something, don't just describe the pieces -- not everyone will put them together right. Tell us about the effect it's supposed to give. "the house had a greenhouse up north, and the roof was made of large, rounded gray tiles, and the bricks were varying degrees of ochre and there was a quaint white fence blahblah..." can mean "it was a charming little seaside cottage; the effect was purely ravishing" just as well as "it was a medieval castle that X had renovated and modernized; the results were about as fitting as a businessman with a peg leg and a green wig.")
If you mean "emerald", then say "emerald". If you mean "aquamarine", then say "aquamarine". Don't be afraid of the specialized word. An author doesn't hesitate to use a word if that word is the word he means to use. (oops, wait, that mangled quote was about repetitions. IT STILL APPLIES. ;p)
If there's a simpler word that means exactly the same thing, or the nuance of meaning isn't important to the narration... In other words, if you mean "green, but a super-special green that's GOT to be special because, er, because it sounds pretty and is almost impossible to spell and I want my readers to go AHHH that's pretty but I have never heard it before, wow, the author sure is smart"... then it's green. Just green. Or maybe dark green, or faded green, or yellow green, or green with speckles of crimson.
For the record, I have no earthly clue what viridian looks like.
And this one was actually my first "good" example but I went overboard with the Asuka style, I sunk into her POV instead of staying outside, started babbling away, and as a result the mechanics are a lot harder to see underneath. XD;; The bare bones are still there, but I embellished a lot.
"Mary was already three steps inside her apartment when she remembered that the ceiling light bulb had imploded that morning. She felt around for the desk-lamp switch; something small teetered briefly at the edge of the varnished chest of drawers, tumbled down and landed on her foot. She turned on the lamp and glared stonily at the cheerful porcelain shepherdess which was beaming at her from the carpet.
Mary lost her seventh staring contest of the day, and decided to let the shepherdess lay there a little while longer as revenge. If there was one thing she didn't feel like doing even one more time today, it was bending over. Absently, she righted the doily on which the rest of the wholesome porcelain family dwelled, and trudged her way through the zigzag course her apartment had become.
Ahh, her couch; the only thing that hadn't been foisted off on her by elderly family members; the first big thing she'd bought with her first real salary. She kicked off her high heels and slumped on it, and then twitched when a spring poked her.
She didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or buy a voodoo doll of her much beloved boss, since she was pretty sure that her sudden need to sob her heart out wasn't actually due to the couch stabbing her in the back. Ass. Whatever.
The son of a bitch. The utter son of a bitch. Jerking her around until she didn't know which way was up, nagging and nagging, and then dressing her down in the middle of the office because she hadn't figured out how to duplicate herself yet! And then laughing and whispering about 'tapping that ass' at the coffee machine like it radiated its own soundproof force-field. She couldn't wait until her uncle finished setting up his new company; she would leave the office so fast she would leave the ugly carpet ablaze in her wake, and then they'd see how not-easy it was to keep their nightmare of a records room straight.
Well, sure, it's a little longer. But that way you have quality AND quantity. Or something.
...Shush.
So there you have it. Show, don't tell, as translated into Asuka-babble-fu: it's always more effective to say "she was shaking with the need to wring his sorry neck" than "she was very, very angry," always more effective to say "her hands trembled as she touched her brother's cheek, and when she met his eyes, her breath hitched," than "she was deeply moved by the fact that her brother had awakened from his coma."