Skip to main content

Show versus Tell, example thirteen

(Don't forget to comment on my online class idea.)

From contest entries and critiques that I’ve done, I’ve noticed that often people don’t quite understand what exactly is “showing” and what exactly is “telling.” So, I’m doing this series to give numerous examples so that you can see for yourself the various kinds of “telling” that can occur in your own manuscript, and suggestions for fixing it.

Adelaide found the housekeeper, Mrs. Long, in the kitchen. Adelaide was able to relax around her because Mrs. Long knew she was the mistress’s niece, and she had assured Adelaide she wouldn’t tell a soul.


The boldface is all telling.

There are two types of telling here:

(1) When you write the deep point of view of a character, she wouldn’t think to herself, “I’ll go find the housekeeper, Mrs. Long.” She’d either look for “the housekeeper” or look for “Mrs. Long.” The additional modifiers are purely for the reader’s info, which is telling.

This is an easy fix. Use “the housekeeper” and “Mrs. Long” in the same paragraph, to make it obvious to the reader that the housekeeper is Mrs. Long. Your reader can figure out things better than you think. You don’t need extra modifiers to make sure the reader knows some piece of information.

(2) The second sentence in boldface is telling the reader information about Adelaide and Mrs. Long. It’s also recapping an event that happened earlier.

The essential aspects of the information can be more dynamically shown in dialogue instead:

Adelaide found the housekeeper in the kitchen. “Do you need help, Mrs. Long?”

The woman jumped, and a fountain of peas erupted from the colander. “Mercy, you scared me, Miss Adelaide.”

“Just Adelaide. No one else knows.” She playfully nudged Mrs. Long aside, picked up a pea pod, and began to shuck.

Mrs. Long turned back to grumble at her peas, “’Tain’t right for you to help me.”

“Maids are supposed to help the housekeeper.”

“Maids aren’t supposed to be nieces to the mistress.”


This dialogue is just more fun to read than a paragraph of narrative. It also shows the relationship between the two women with more color and vibrancy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing Fight Scenes

I love martial arts movies and action flicks. So naturally I'd write action scenes. I discovered that it takes a slightly different writing style. These are some of the things I learned, although this list isn't exhaustive by any means. Action-Reaction A fight scene is always Action-Reaction. He punches, she staggers back. She kicks, he blocks and swings a fist at her. Watch out for putting your reaction before your action: She staggered back when he slammed his fist into her shoulder. The rule of thumb is to have each action-reaction have its own paragraph, although that’s not always possible. Sometimes the sentences are too short for their own paragraphs and can be combined. It’s up to the writer how to format it: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. versus: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. Short sentences = fast reading flow Use short sentences and phrases to make re...

How to write a kiss

There was a question on the writer’s Discord server that I’m on where someone asked how to write a kiss. They weren’t specifically asking me, but I was able to give a short answer for how I write kisses. I write and read traditional romances, so my kiss scenes tend to be heavily influenced by the genre and by how my editors critiqued my manuscripts. You basically want to focus on the emotion of the kiss and how the kiss makes the point of view character feel, as opposed to going deep into physical detail. Ideally, the description will show that the kiss is something special and not just them macking. For example the kiss made her feel ___. Or the kiss was ___ which made it seem that he felt ___ for her. “The kiss made her feel as if she were incredibly precious to him.” “His lips were gentle and almost tentative, as if he were afraid of frightening her.” “The kiss surprised her and yet felt as familiar as if they’d kissed a thousand times before. The kiss felt like home.” I...

The 50-word elevator pitch

The 50-word elevator pitch: Basic story elements and a two-sentence novel summary Writing a 50-word summary is good to help you condense your thoughts and themes for your novel. This summary can be used when you pitch to editors or agents, and it can also be used in a query letter to an editor or agent. Swain gives this excellent method to come up with a 2-sentence (or 50-word) summary of your novel. This can be done before you write it or afterward, whichever works best for your writing style. This is similar to steps 1 and 2 of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake method : https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/ Each novel typically has five basic story elements: Character --Your protagonist or focal character. You can sometimes have two protagonists, but even then, often the story of one character is slightly more dominant than the other. Situation --The troubling situation your character is stuck in that forces him to act. Objective --What y...