Q

How to show not tell? I keep getting told this, but I don’t know how to use it in my writing.

A

Telling is what you do when you inform your friends of something that happened to you (I went here and did that. Then something happened, and I felt a certain way about it). You’re sharing the knowledge of the experience without letting your friends experience it through your retelling.

One of the points of reading is escapism. We read to explore different worlds, know different people, and live different lives. By showing, you’re letting your readers become a part of the narrative. 

Telling: Harry was cold.

Showing: Harry’s breath fogged the air in front of him. He hunched his shoulders against the wind and buried his nose in the folds of his scarf.

Telling is quick and dirty. It gets the point across, but it isn’t immersive. Showing is less straightforward. It leaves out information that your readers have to guess, which makes the story more interesting.

There is such a thing as overdoing it with the ‘show, don’t tell’ technique. If you add too much description, especially overly embellished details, your story will become clogged and difficult to read. 

Readers don’t want you to show them mundane actions that aren’t relevant to the plot, so focus on showing what’s important (to the plot, settings, or characters) and try to vary which sensory input you use.

When you know what to look for, telling is easy to spot, but here’s a cheat sheet to get you started:

1) THE CONJUGATED “TO BE” VERB.

“Hermione is bossy”, “Ron is being stubborn”, “Hagrid was so excited” are simple examples of information that is told instead of shown. 

For the first two examples, write scenes that show these traits in action and let your readers deduce them from your writing. In His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman never says that Lyra is a compulsive liar; instead, he shows it by having scenes in which Lyra lies or in which she has to remind herself not to lie.

For the third example, describe Hagrid in his excitement by showing your readers his body language, actions, and dialogue and let them figure out what he’s feeling from there. Remember that not everyone reacts to every emotion in the same way. To make your characters feel real, personalise every physical cue.

2) THE CONJUGATED ‘TO HAVE’ VERB.

“Harry has green eyes.” The statement is true but bland. Spice it up by showing ‘have’ elements within character actions:

Harry lifted his brows, green eyes flashing in the near darkness.

Or by inserting them into a more interesting description:

Purple bruises underscored Harry’s green eyes.

3) THOUGHT/OPINION VERBS.

Harry thought that Hermione was mad at him.

Thought verbs include think, know, realise, believe, understand, want, remember, imagine, wonder, and so on, while opinion verbs are things like love, hate, like, enjoy.

As with all ‘telling’, thought verbs are shortcuts that steal from the readers’ experience.

Instead of saying what Harry thinks, show your readers what gives him the impression of Hermione being mad at him. Let them reach the conclusion on their own through the characters’ actions and dialogue.

Writers often rely on thought verbs when there’s nothing else going on, so don’t leave your POV character alone and immobile for too long. We’ve come a long way since Gustave Flaubert. Nowadays, readers prefer action over introspection, so fill your story with things that are tangible. 

Which of these two examples is more immersive?

• Percy waited outside the Leaky Cauldron for the Ministry cars to arrive and started to worry about how long the trip to King’s Cross would take.
• The train left at 11. The Ministry had said that the cars would be here by 10:30. Percy’s watch read 10:27. Charing Cross Road stretched in a straight line in front of him with no sign of the Ministry’s old-fashioned vehicles. No doubt, the drivers had parked outside one of London’s many pubs to take a nap—or worse, to have a drink. They would show up late and drunk, and Percy would have to smile and thank them before dying in a fiery traffic accident.

The second example is more interesting to read than the first one and gives a better idea of how Percy feels and thinks without using either of those words.

4) THE USE OF ADVERBS.

Option A: Harry walked away from Rita Skeeter.

→ The action is conveyed, but it lacks emotion. An inexperienced writer will add an adverb because they think that it will make the writing more descriptive.

Option B: Harry walked angrily away from Rita Skeeter. (bad)

→ It’s a simple fix but also a lazy one that clutters your writing. The problem here is with the verb. It’s too weak to convey any emotion.

Option C: Harry stormed away from Rita Skeeter. (good)

→ Using the right verb conveys both action and emotion, but some writers don’t trust themselves or their readers.

Option D: Harry stormed angrily away from Rita Skeeter. (bad)

→ When the verb is good, the adverb becomes redundant. Don’t worry about your readers not understanding what you meant to say. They’re smart people; they’ll figure it out.

Sometimes the problem isn’t just with the verb.

Option A: “Listen to me,” she said angrily. (bad)

Option B: “Listen to me,” she shouted. (meh)

Option C: She slammed her hands on the table. “Listen to me.” (good)

Some emotions require more than just a stronger verb to radiate from the page or screen.

5) AN ABUNDANCE OF ADJECTIVES AND THE USE OF “VERY” AND “REALLY”.

“Very” and “really” serve the same purpose for adjectives as adverbs do for verbs, so either find a stronger adjective or a better way of describing it.

Not all adjectives should be ‘killed’—as Mark Twain used to say. Harry’s green eyes can still flash in the dark because there’s no other way of conveying his eye colour than by stating it. When it comes to the adjectives used in point 1 of this cheat sheet, though, there is always a better way.

Option A: She was very pretty. (bad)

Option B: She was beautiful. (meh)

Option C: Jaws dropped when she entered the room. (good)

6) PRACTISE.

Read your writing. Highlight every thought verb, adverb, adjective, ‘to be’, and ‘to have’ and find a way to eliminate them. Remember that the aim is for readers to reach their own conclusion through the characters’ actions and dialogue.

How would you rewrite these sentences: 

• Draco was jealous of Harry’s new broom.
• Hermione had bushy hair.
• Harry wondered why his friends hadn’t written to him.
• Luna was odd.
• Neville swayed nervously on the dance floor.
• Hagrid was a very big man.

Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers: Please will you do the job for me.

C.S. LEWIS