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Writing in scene keeps the story moving and produces an emotional experience for readers. Rather than telling readers what to think, you present the scene to them and allow them to draw their own conclusions.
For example, here is a statement of telling, rather than showing: “Tyler was the worst behaved child I had ever seen and his mother had no idea how to deal with him.”
What could we do to show this instead?
First of all, we’d want to choose a ripe setting for that scene: a restaurant, perhaps.
What might Tyler be doing? Throwing food, having a tantrum. How might we show that his mother is not coping well? Perhaps she’s on her cell phone or is engaged in a conversation with a third person at the table, pointedly ignoring her son.
What might Tyler be doing? Throwing food, having a tantrum. How might we show that his mother is not coping well? Perhaps she’s on her cell phone or is engaged in a conversation with a third person at the table, pointedly ignoring her son.
Do we ever have to say, “Tyler was the worst behaved child I had ever seen and his mother had no idea how to deal with him”? No. That sentence can be cut. We have illustrated it, and by doing this we have allowed readers to draw that conclusion on their own. In this way, readers participate in the story, which is so much more powerful than the writer telling them about this character.
Too much telling can manifest in many ways:
• too much backstory/flashback
• too much interior monologue
• too much hooptedoodle (Elmore Leonard’s term for writing that sounds like writing)
• the desire to send a message.
How do you know if you’re showing, and not telling? Your scene should be able to be set on stage. What this means is:
• A character sitting alone on his bed, thinking about his life, is not a scene. This is not what is meant by showing.
• A character telling you her life story (think of the worst seatmate you can imagine on a long bus ride) is not a scene.
• too much hooptedoodle (Elmore Leonard’s term for writing that sounds like writing)
• the desire to send a message.
How do you know if you’re showing, and not telling? Your scene should be able to be set on stage. What this means is:
• A character sitting alone on his bed, thinking about his life, is not a scene. This is not what is meant by showing.
• A character telling you her life story (think of the worst seatmate you can imagine on a long bus ride) is not a scene.
Now, if your seatmate on that long bus ride happens to be a skilled raconteur—in other words, if your narrator has a particularly engaging voice—you might be able to get away with more telling than usual. But sooner or later, your readers will be looking for the story to start. They might not express it in those terms—those are editorial terms. That’s me scribbling in the margin of your manuscript, hey, where’s the scene? This is all telling. Your readers will experience it as a realization that they’ve read the same paragraph four times, and guess what? Netflix is looking pretty good right about now.However, there is such thing as too much showing. You don’t need to show every little thing. Common sense should dictate what needs to be dramatized and what can be left to the imagination. Detail is a way of signalling to your reader what’s going to be important in the story. We only need the details of your character’s breakfast if, for example, they end up in a car accident that morning and need emergency surgery and the anaesthesiologist says, Did you have breakfast? And the character, woozy from the accident, says no—while you, the reader, remember very clearly that English muffin with a slice of smoked ham. In that case, breakfast is important. Otherwise—it’s just breakfast.
