Ignore the Rules: Showing, not telling

Hi, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you’re here. It’s been a really fun month, spending time editing and relaying to you some of the more important things to look out for while you’re editing. In fact, if you want a little more of this sort of thing, I’ll be doing a very similar series in the blog at RAD Writing over the month of May, and I’d be very happy for you to stop by and show some love!

For this, the last of the month’s blogs, I want to break the mold, just a little bit. Like I said on Tuesday, this time I want to talk about the other side of the coin—primarily because it’s something not a lot of people are willing to talk about, because in the long run, it’s much harder to quantify.

Ignore the Rules: Showing, not telling

Tuesday, we talked about making sure that you’re showing and not telling, in the majority of your manuscript—but if you were paying attention, you’ll’ve noticed that I said the majority of your manuscript (i.e. there are times when you should, in fact, be telling and not showing).

*gasp*

I know, it’s shocking, isn’t it? Everyone always says that the entire story should be shown and not told, that we need to focus all our skills on making sure we’re always telling and never showing, that we’re allowing our readers to experience everything within the story, without skipping over any little thing.

But that’s the problem.

See, sometimes, readers want us to skip over those details. There are moments in story where we don’t need to be sharing so much, where we don’t need to be showing every little thing. There are times when our characters are exhausted and we can show that more clearly by telling instead of showing, by having them climb in bed, roll over, and flick off the light, instead of the overly wordy alternative.

Point is, it’s okay to tell, sometimes. Really, it is. I promise.

So in this, the last blog post in the series, I wanted to tell you something that most writers and editors will never tell you. It’s important, especially as you move forward in your writing career, that you train yourself to know what sentences should be shown and what sentences should be told. There’s a delicate balance, between the two. If you read enough from your favorite authors, you’ll start to notice it, too. No one ever fully shows a story. There’s always some telling going on, and it’s important that we recognize it.

Go ahead then. Tell me a story. Just don’t tell the whole thing. Make sure you show the important parts. Really, make sure you show the story, just go ahead and tell some parts, to skip over the pieces that aren’t really important but are still kinda necessary. You know what ones I mean. ;-)

[love]

{Rani Divine}