When to “Tell”

The answer isn’t “never.” Whether to “show” or “tell” is situation-specific. Although definitions of “telling” are vague and varied, many novelists still fear this “writing crime.” Yet view “telling” as frustrating your readers, and you can differentiate “bad telling” from “good.” After all, “telling” makes up half the word for sharing a story.

Storytelling unites “showing” and “telling.” Readers want the juicy parts in scene—without commentary from the narrator. As Anton Chekhov put it, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” So in certain instances you really shouldn’t “tell”:

~ Judgments.

Rather than “telling” readers that the dog is “ugly,” describe the skinny, flea-covered mongrel that’s lost most of his hair. Let readers decide what’s “ugly.”

~ Belaboring what’s obvious or repeating what you already “showed.”

            Is the character panting? Don’t add that she’s also “breathing heavily.”

~ Summarizing the fun parts.

If we’ve waited for three hundred pages to see if they’ll go to bed, please don’t say, “She turned off the light, and they both had the time of their lives.” “Show” us their pleasure with a voyeuristic but tasteful peek inside the bedroom.

~ Oversimplifying emotions.

Avoid abstractions like “angry,” “sad,” or “ecstatic.” Use body language. Use metaphor. Reflect the complex, inconsistent, and fleeting nature of feelings.

But in other instances, readers want “good telling”:

* For worldbuilding.

Whether fantasy, sci fi, or bankrupt Detroit, describe the setting where the action occurs. Sometimes it takes too many words to imply a social structure, moral code, time period, or atmosphere. If so, just explain.

* For transition

Svelte, sophistication transitions are simply lovely. But every so often you need to be clear and causal. Because readers need to understand.

* For voice.

Terror of “telling” would eliminate sentences like this one:  “Her correspondence had been like the pumping of a heart into a severed artery, wild and incessant at first, then slowing down with a kind of muscular reluctance to a stream that became a trickle and finally ceased; the heart had stopped.” -- Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Tip: Storytelling boils down to knowing when to “show” and “when” to “tell.”

How else can you deliver the whole story at the fastest pace with the most fun possible?

Revision and the “Real” Questions

Novelists often face the question, “How’s your writing going?” It often feels like the subtext is “How long will it take to finish/seek an agent/make money/prove your worth/quit fiddling around?” So however sincere, the query frequently disheartens. But perhaps it disheartens less than the questions writers ask ourselves.

As you revise, do you “object” when your own questions “lead the witness”? Maybe you should. Sometimes these pseudo-questions arrive in the form of rationalization. “Isn’t this passage pretty much good enough?” or “Surely tension on every page is an exaggeration?”

Then there are the attacks, either direct or insidious. “What makes you think you’re a writer?” “Do you seriously believe you’ll ever publish?” And finally, “Why bother?”

These mimic questions, but they’re really not. The real questions are ones where you don’t know the answers in advance: a genuine question seeks new information. Fake questions demoralize. Worse, they impede asking—and answering—the real ones.

Without the right questions, how can you work on the right things? Serious novelists face two crucial questions: “Who is my audience?” and “How can I read my words as if someone else wrote them?”

The question of audience has a subset of questions beneath it. These can get you started:

~ Is this audience most entranced by plot? Voice? Originality? Romance? Insight?

~ How much inference would your audience prefer?

~ What can you glean from technique in novels intended for a similar audience?

~ Do you push the edge of the conventions and expectations for this genre?

~ Are you at peace with whether this audience makes your book hard or easy to sell?

Questions can also help you trick yourself into reading your words as a stranger would.  Try some of these:

~ Do you offer enough drama to advance the plot—on every page?

~ Do you have a reasonable amount of dialogue, and does it all contribute?

~ Do you add fact, detail, or politics for their own sake rather than the story’s?

~ Do you “tell” what you could “show”?

~ Do you try to “show” what you’re better off just explaining?

~ Do you rationalize about how good the sentence, paragraph, or scene really is?

~ Do you waste energy defending what you did instead of trying to do it better?

Marge Piercy said that “The real writer is one who really writes.” It’s equally true that the real writer is one who grapples with what’s really at stake—within the plot and outside it.

Tip: Want real results? Ask real questions.

Look at Me!!!!!!

A friend asked me to look over her realtor’s listing of her house. The EXCITING copy I read offered exclamation point after exclamation point! New listing! Priced to sell! Cute! Quaint! Comfy! Just what you’re looking for!

Perhaps. But I’d rather be shown the reasons why it’s just what I’m looking for. Specify that, and you can omit all the in-your-face manipulation, which won’t convince me, anyhow. Exclamation points, caps, and even some instances of italics are like SHOUTING IN THE READER’S FACE! And, as the always understated F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” How funny can that be?

Exclamation points are symptomatic of a larger problem. How much do you trust your reader? How much do you trust your own words? If you mistakenly believe you feel that trust, or hope that grinding your teeth hard enough will make it so, all is lost! You’ll state. You’ll tell. You’ll bludgeon. You’ll smear your scenes with abstractions.

Don’t reduce emotion to vague abstractions like “anguish,” “terror,” or “ardor.”

Don’t tell us what to think. You won’t convince us, just annoy us.

Don’t think that describing character emotions helps readers feel them. That’s just another way of saying “Quaint! Comfy! Just what you’re looking for!”

Do imply. The best clues are the ones readers just barely absorb.

Do offer imagery. If we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch it, that’s when readers experience the scene right along with the characters.

Do understate. The more tragic and dramatic the emotion, then the more quietly you should whisper when conveying it.

If you don’t trust your readers and your novel, the best way to address that is to revise until you feel good about what you’ve written. Real evidence on the page helps you relinquish control to offer readers the inference they prefer. Yes, this involves the risk that they might miss something you long to share.  But it’s always better not to make your point than to pummel readers with it.

Tip: Unless there’s a fire (!) or someone needs help (!), not a bad idea to pretend that exclamation points and other intrusive gimmicks don’t even exist.