The Art of Showing vs. Telling in Fiction.

Understanding the Basics: What Does "Showing" Mean?

"Showing" refers to illustrating a scene or emotion through imagery, actions, and sensory details. Instead of simply stating emotions ("He was angry"), showing invites readers to immerse themselves in them, to be on the inside of them rather than the outside looking in.

instead of saying, "She was sad," a writer might choose: "Her shoulders slumped as she stared at the ground, the corners of her mouth drooping like wilted flowers." This method allows readers to feel the character's particular sadness rather than just acknowledge that she is sad. How is it experienced, how does it affect the mind and body. What is its flavour?

The Power of "Telling"

"Telling," in contrast, is a straightforward approach where the writer directly states a character's feelings or the situation. "She was sad. He was angry."

Telling has its place, for example as a short cut if the a scene needs to move quickly: "He was angry and rushed outside" (although the "rushed outside" is already showing..).

There are other instances in which what is revealing is the very mode of telling. The telling is fast paced, or incoherent, or choppy.. The way that the narrator tells something shows something about him or her - but that's for another post!

Showing: What is it like??

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes, "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars." Rather than telling us, for example, "It was beautiful but transient, and people were scarcely able to control themselves (any more than a moth can control its attraction to the flame), Fitzgerald allows us to arrive at those same thoughts ourselves through the description. This alerts us to two key things about showing: a) it allows the reader the space to infer; and b) it addresses what something is like.

Again, Anton Chekhov advised, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

"The moon is shining" is a statement. But what interests Chekhov, is what it was like, what its particular tone and flavour was. And of course, "the glint of light on the broken glass" is doing more than showing you the moon is shining, though it's certainly doing that too. It's hinting at fragility, and the beauty that's inseparable from it.

Chekhov could have said that, "beauty can be inseparable from fragility", but the image of moonlight on broken glass, constituted in the mind of the reader, embodies the insight directly.

Its apparent, then, that the importance of showing over telling is not just to do with making the writing more vivid, tangible, imaginatively present, nor even in conveying what something was like. It is also, crucially, about allowing space for the reader - to infer, to fill in, to experience, to create.

More on this in another post. And if you would like a tutorial or series of tutorials on this, looking at concrete examples, please email me or book directly:

(bowles.mark@gmail.com)

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