Listen to the Experts: Show, don't tell

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. As you know, it’s the last week of April. And also the first partial week of May… so we’ll be finishing up our series on editing, this week! And I have two things to talk to you about. Two sides of a coin, as it were, because both sides deserve some merit, if you ask me.

I sincerely hope that you’ve had as much fun as I have this month, and that you’ve learned something or maybe even found a way to connect with writing or editing as a whole, as we’ve explored everything this month. If there’s anything you’d like me to go into more detail with, be sure to drop a comment and let me know! For now, let’s get into the good stuff.

Listen to the Experts: Telling, not showing

It’s one of the first things you hear when you start writing and ask any writer for advice. How do I do this and do it well? They’ll all say, “Show, don’t tell.” And they’re right. The vast majority of the time, readers would much rather be shown a story than told a story.

What’s the difference?

I can tell you a story fairly simply, like so:

Jack went to fetch a bucket of water. When he reached the well, it was dry. He came down very sad, and very thirsty, but he learned to never trust that water will always be at the bottom of a well.

Showing it, on the other hand, takes much more finesse:

Parched of thirst, Jack stumbled over the rough, cracked ground toward the old water well. The sun beat hard upon his back, parching him evermore by the time he reached the shade of the dilapidated well. He cast the bucket, rusted and burning with heat, down into its depths, but only silence greeted him from the bottom. He’d thought certain he would find water here. Where could he go now, with the well gone dry? Quiet sobs tore through his heart as he collapsed against the failing bricks, all hope now lost.

See the difference?

Well, that’s what you need to look for in your manuscript, while you’re editing. You need to look for moments in time that are important, that are necessary to move the story forward, to connect your readers to your characters, to add emotion or tension to pivotal scenes, and make sure that you’re showing and not telling.

It happens to the best of us, that we skip over the showing and start telling when we have something more interesting on the horizon, but it’s your duty as a writer (now wearing your editor hat, of course) to make sure those moments are few and far between. You owe it to your readers, to show them a story, to allow them to be a part of this story. Don’t just tell them a fairytale, don’t just try to give them a moral lesson in as few words as possible. And train your eye to find the moments where you’re telling, so you can make sure you show instead.

[love]

{Rani Divine}