Show, Don't (Just) Tell
Don't just tell me your brother is funny... show me what he says and does, and let me decide whether I want to laugh. To convince your readers, show, don't just tell them what you want them to know.
There. I've just told you something. Pretty lame, huh? Now, let me show you.
Writing is emotionally powerful when it engages the reader. Rather than classify and list all the emotions that you felt, use specific details that give the reader a reason to feel the emotions you want to express.
EXAMPLE #1:
/ I'll never forget how I felt after Fido died. I was miserable.Simply naming the feelings that you experienced (telling your reader what you felt) is not enough to create interest in the reader. You need to find a way to generate, in your reader, the same feelings that you experienced.
/ If I live for a thousand years, I'll never forget how utterly and terribly alone I felt after Fido died. I was so miserable that I thought I would die. Months and months went by, and it seemed that every little thing reminded me of him and made me wish things could be different. I don't know whether I am ever going to get over his death.
While the author has added details, those details merely assist the telling -- they don't actually give the reader a reason to love Fido, and to suffer along with the writer.
/ Whenever puppies in the pet store window distracted me from the serious business of taking him for his walk, Fido growled, his little earsflattened against his scruffy head. Yet he always forgave me. Even after his hearing and sight faded, when he felt the leash click on his collar and smelled fresh air, he still tried to caper. He's been dead for three months now. This morning I filled his water bowl all the way to the top --just the way he likes it -- before I remembered.
The author does not need to tell the reader "I loved Fido and I still haven't come to terms with his death," because the paragraph contains specific details that show the depths of the relationship.
EXAMPLE #2:
/ I was so thrilled that I beat the football captain in a chess game that I made a fool of myself. I'll never live that down.This is straight telling -- we know that the protagonist makes a fool of himself, but we don't feel embarrassed for him, because we don't see any of this foolish behavior ourselves.
/ My heart was pounding and my adrenaline was pumping. When I finally beat that big bully of a football captain in a chess game, I jumped around like an idiot, taunting him and laughing at him in front of the whole school. Arrogance and geekiness are not a combination that leads to social success.
While the author has added details, those details merely assist the telling -- they don't actually show anything important. We still don't get the chance to see the behavior and judge for ourselves whether it is foolish.
/ "Your bulging muscles are useless against my superior intellect!" I laughed, as the vanquished football captain and the whole cafeteria stared. "I have captured your queen, and in three moves, I shall utterly destroy your king!”
The completely over-the-top content of the quoted speech communicates the protagonist's emotional state as well as his arrogance; the author does not have to come out and tell us that this behavior is idioticbecause there are enough details that we can come to that conclusion ourselves.
EXAMPLE #3:
"Telling" communicates facts; "Showing" invites understanding
All the kids knew that Lucinda was the meanest kid in the third grade. She was prissy and cute; she wore bows in her hair and shiny black shoes, and she thought that meant she could get away with anything. She never exactly scared me -- but for some reason she would always go out of her way to torment me. I wasn't one of the "cool" kids, and the few kids I knew were just the guys I played chess with during recess -- they weren't really friends. Plus, I was clumsy. So I was a good target. I was so miserable and lonely, I could hardly face going to class each day. That little girl made my life a living hell. / When she saw me, she stopped; her ponytail bobbed threateningly, and her eyes tracked me across the cafeteria. When the recess bell rang, I clutched my chess set and dashed to freedom, eager to win the daily tournament of outcasts. Of course, I tripped in front of the whole class.Tennis shoes and sandals stepped around me and over me as I scrambled after pawns and bishops. And there was Lucinda, waiting for me to notice her; she smiled, lifted her shiny patent-leather shoe, and slowly, carefully ground my white queen into the pavement.
Both passages make the same point -- Lucinda is mean. In the first passage, the author just expects us to believe him: "Lucinda was the meanest kid in the third grade." In the second passage, we read a detailed account of Lucinda's behavior (she has a habit of going "after" the narrator; she waits until she has the narrator's attention before crushing his queen), and we can judge for ourselves.
The first passage offers a list of details about what usually or often happens. We learn about what Lucinda looks like, and about the narrator's nerdiness from details in both passages, but once we've finished reading the paragraph on the left, there's nothing left for us to do. There it is... the reader asks, so what's the big deal?
The second passage focuses in detail on one specific event. Instead of simply calling himself clumsy, the author shows us one specific occasion when he trips, and brings us down to the ground with him, so that we see what he sees and feel what he feels. The second passage never comes out and says "I didn't have any friends," but the fact that nobody stops to help the narrator makes us gather that the guy is an unpopular loser.The comment about winning the daily tournament of outcasts is kind of humorous and kind of sad at the same time. We learn quite a bit about the author in just that one sentence.
Ultimately, there is no need to call Lucinda mean in the second passage, because that concept is conveyed effectively by the surprising detail of the shiny patent-leather shoe crushing the queen. We actually learn something about Lucinda -- she is not just being mean, she wants the narrator's attention, too. Notice that she attacked the queen, of all pieces. Does she consider the chess set to be her competition?
Important Note"Showing" involves more than a long list of adjectives.
The point of "showing" is not to drown the reader in a sea of details. Instead, you should pick out only those details that matter.
Ask yourself: Does the detail help establish or intensify the mood? Does it define a character? Clarify an action?
08 May 2000; by Dennis G. Jerz (