SHOW, DON’T TELL
by Linda Gillard
What is good writing? It’s hard to define and perhaps a matter of taste, but we might agree what makes for effective writing. With effective writing the reader feels what the characters feel, sees what characters see.
Fiction is not the transmission of information. It should be the transmissionof feeling.
This is done by describing what people do and what they look and sound like when they’re doing it. It’s not achieved by telling the reader how characters feel or by telling the reader what to feel. (Nobody feels something because they’re told to feel it. When someone says, “I was devastated!” you don’t feel devastated.)
Sometimes you do want to transmit information. It’s appropriate in dialogue. For example, a WPC describing the condition of an assault victim to her superior officer is transmitting information. She’s not trying to elicit sympathy or make her superior feel as if he has been assaulted.
But if you want to transmit feeling, then describe actions. Tell the reader what someone did and how they did it, not what they felt when they did it. Don’t be vague. Use concrete detail and use all your senses.
Here’s an example from my novel, EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY:
He turns and heads for the kitchen. I follow.
“Will you tell me what happened, Calum. Please.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Maybe I don’t - but I think you need to tell.”
He bangs his empty glass down on the draining board and stands hunched over the sink, his shoulders tensed. I wonder if he is going to be sick. “If I tell you, Rose, it’s on the understanding that we never mention it again. I don’t talk about it.”
Notice that I don’t tell you what the hero is feeling, but even without knowing the context, you can tell he’s in an emotional state. How, when I haven’t used any words that describe emotion? You have a good idea about Calum’s state of mind because I’ve described what he did and how he did it. The heroine also speculates about what he might do. (“I wonder if he is going to be sick.”)
Described action will convey what your characters are feeling. It will also convey mood. If you provide the stimulus, your reader will supply the feeling, becoming co-creator, not just the passive recipient of information. Make your reader work!
Of course this kind of writing doesn’t appeal to all. Some readers do like the transmission of information. They read mainly for story - a police procedural, a “boys’ toys” thriller. That sort of reader wants to be intellectually, rather than emotionally engaged.
But if you want readers to laugh and cry with your characters, feel their fear or passion, you’re going to have to make your reader see, hear and feel the story and that means showing, not telling. To do that you must develop your powers of description rather than narration.
Linda Gillard