Telling over Showing
Show don’t tell they said. Who said? Everyone! Everyone? Well, perhaps not everyone... Because sometimes as a writer it’s better to tell.
Here’s when and why it's good to be a tattle-tell author.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Show don’t tell they said. Who said? Everyone! Everyone? Well, perhaps not everyone... Because sometimes as a writer it’s better to tell.
Telling can work alongside or in place of showing.
Here’s when and why it's good to be a tattle-tell author.
First Draft & Plotting
Telling will help you reach the hallowed ground of writing The End. Don’t waste time refining a scene showing the first kiss between your MC (main character) and love interest in the first draft. Instead, write They finally kiss, head butt and he gets a bleeding nose. It’s a disaster. She loves it. and move on.
NB: This scene must not remain told, however. Redraft it later with showing as it’s a pivotal, highly emotional scene.
Redrafting
Telling to Condense
• Cutting word count (editors aren't likely to buy a 100k word MG (8-12yrs readers)).
• Speeding up dragging, boring sections (beta readers will flag these).
• Time travel: you need to move the story forward in time, hours, days, a year…
• Pace variation: you want to vary pace, ebbing and flowing from short-to-the-point telling sentences and longer detailed showing paragraphs.
Telling for Focus
• Contrast helps the reader focus on what's important. By showing important events in the story and in turn telling the less important details, the spotlight is cast appropriately.
• Important characters' (not just your MC's) emotions can also be shown and again less important characters' can be told. That way the reader is clear on who to pay attention to.
Telling for Clarity of Meaning
A clear, telling statement can bring all your readers up to speed, even the unobservant ones who haven't noticed your brilliantly subtle clues thus far. And your bright, detective readers will enjoy the positive affirmation that they're on the right track.
Telling for Directional Shift
Pivoting focus. To take the story in an unexpected direction you can use telling as a device to pivot the path of events and in turn the reader's focus. Yes, someone dying in a car accident, your MC discovering their best friend has kissed their boyfriend (apparently I'm kissing obsessed) or they've failed their exams … are all HUGELY pivotal events. So you'd presume they must be shown. But not if the focus of the story is on how the characters go on to deal with the fall-out. In this case you might tell the reader what happened and focus on showing life after the pivotal moment.
Unreliable telling
Telling can be helpful if you have an unreliable narrator (writing in 1st person).
Have your protagonist tell the reader how things are and allow the surrounding characters and their interactions to show/reveal that the narrator may not be telling the truth.
Telling out of Necessity
Sometimes the dreaded background exposition must be told – keep it to a simple line or two from the narrator. Don't shoehorn that info into dialogue.
Championing the dark side of telling!
Yes, showing adds vibrancy, emotion and reader investment in your writing but for something to shine bright you need contrasting shadows. Telling along with showing creates depth and texture. This is equal-opportunities writing, where telling is just as important as showing.
I originally wrote a version of this piece for the Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators’ (SCBWI’s) online magazine WORDS AND PICTURES as part of their KNOWHOW series. Check it out here. As a proud member of SCBWI, I recommend you join if you’re a children’s author or illustrator (or aspiring).