A lot of authors hear the phrase, “You need to show not tell.” But what does that mean? I still struggle with this and wonder if I got it right. Without any fancy degrees in writing, I question my ability. What am I missing?
I think I know what it means. You can’t just tell what’s happening. You have to add sensory perceptions which show the reader what’s happening. In the best writing you can taste the pancakes, fear the shadows, feel remorse, feel the pain, see the colors, hear the cry, and more.
Think of your senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, and all the other things that are not so obvious like perception, balance, hunger, thirst, fear, happiness, awareness, etc. Add one or more of these things to your writing. But be careful how you do it. Don’t just add words to your “tell” sentence. Put your reader into the scene.
But it's a fine line. Sometimes we need to "tell" information to get it all out of the way. As author's we need to balance show and tell. In the following examples, which way would you write it?
Example 1:
Tell: He walked to the barn.
Tell with a little extra description: He walked to the barn on a cold morning.
Show: He shuffled his feet on the pebble lined path, the cool morning air reminding him that summer still waited in the distance. He heard the whinnies of the horses in their stalls and picked up his pace. "Stop your belly aching, I'm coming."
Example 2:
Tell: Susie ate her favorite breakfast.
Tell with a little extra description: Susie ate a yummy, ripe banana for breakfast.
Show: Susie ripped the only ripe banana from the bunch wondering how some could be green while others, in the same bunch, were a soft yellow with brown spots. She peeled back the skin then dipped a knife into the peanut butter and spread it over the exposed banana. Closing her eyes, she let the mix of sweet, mushy banana and salty, crunchy peanut butter, melt in her mouth.
Using metaphors in show and tell.
Tell: He was scared. (We all know what scared is, but this does not give us any information as to how scared he was, or how he’s feeling.)
Tell: He was as scared as a mouse.
Tell? Show? : He felt like a mouse being cornered by a cat.
Show : He couldn’t control the shaking of his fingers or the quivering in his breath. He felt like a mouse stuck in a trap while a hungry cat drooled above it.
Tell: It tasted good. (Everyone has different degrees of taste, “how” good did it taste?
Tell? Show? : It tasted like warm sunshine.
Show: The minute it hit his tongue, he could feel explosions of gooeyness, a burst of light that sent his eyes fluttering and his throat humming, “mmmmmmmmm!”
After pondering my examples, and editing them for the fourth time, I realized two things. When you "show," you add words. Not adverbs, but actions and adjectives. One clear way to find out if you are telling or showing is the use of helping verbs, especially (I know I used an adverb here) the word, "is," and all it's conjugations and tenses.
I was suddenly sleepy.
Fatigue hit me like a lightning bolt.
He is a good student.
He completes his assigned tasks on time and always helps in the classroom.
The information I gathered in this article came from reading tons of stories about show and tell. But I still feel there is more. Help me learn. What are your thoughts?