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| Photo credit: World Bank Collection Photos |
However, something that writers do not speak as often and really should say is when you should instead show. . Because evil as is sometimes said, it is important to know when you do not have to show everything
Some good times to tell instead of show include:
- When showing the passage of time. Sometimes the books take place over several weeks or months or even years and in these scenarios, readers should generally know what happens every day. This can also be used to accelerate thanks to hours or even minutes to get to the meat of the story.
- When times jumping unimportant / uneventful life of your characters. Nobody has a life so interesting that every moment of every day must be detailed. There is a reason professional publishing often say they do not want to read about your characters brushing teeth. J. K. Rowling same sums up Harry's summers with the Dursleys.
- When transporting or frame of the story. Of course, there are times when history or backstory is best conveyed by showing, but it is a case by case basis. In most situations, you'll want to gradually reveal pieces of history and backstory, and you often be done through pieces revealing.
Sometimes you definitely should not say
- When writing emotion. This is so huge for me. Whenever I see in my own handwriting or someone else is a named emotion (ergo: He was sad, she had excitedly) I mark immediately with a big fat red SHOW DO NOT TELL. When it comes to emotion, showing is almost always more effective than telling, whatever the POV or emotion which you describe. (This is yet another reason The Emotion Thesaurus is my best friend).
- When writing sensory descriptions. If you write sensory descriptions, you're already well on your way to show the wonderful details, but it is still possible to fall into the trap of telling. sensory descriptions are there to help the player's picture what happens when "He felt the garbage in the air" is not as powerful as "The night stank of rotting bananas and spoiled milk."
- In your opening. This is not set in stone by any means, and I'm sure there are exceptions where it might work, but every time I look openings, something that almost always shows me grabs effective while almost always something that makes me close the book tells the outset. The opening is supposed to suck the reader into the story and make them forget they read, if you start your book with a summary (which is, essentially, what is revealing), you immediately move out your reader something very dangerous in your opening.
These are not complete lists by all means, so I want to hear from you: what other situations can you think of where you should or certainly should not say?
Twitter-sized bites:
They say, "show do not tell," but when should you tell (Click to tweet)?
The writers often say, "show do not tell," but here are some examples where the developer may be preferable. (Click to tweet)
