Writing Clichés, Part 2: Show, Don’t Tell

Everyone has heard it. If you’ve been to a writer’s

conference or participate in a writer’s group,

you’ve heard it multiple times. The utterance is, to writers, as strongly held a truth as the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, the Buddhist belief that Gautama Siddhartha became the Enlightened One, or the Muslim belief that Mohammad is God’s Prophet. Show, Don’t Tell. Even as I type out these words, this adage is being spoken somewhere in the world where writes gather. It is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere—at least everywhere writers congregate.

Like most advice that becomes proverbial, it is founded on good, solid practice. Young writers are taught not to say, “She was a very beautiful woman,” or “He was an extremely handsome man.” This is telling. Rather, they are to describe the people:  what color eyes and hair do they have, what can you say about their faces, their posture and bodies, their overall appearance. What is it that makes either one of the characters handsome or beautiful?

The same would be true of action-related scenes. “The wood was dangerous.” Again, this is telling—making a statement of fact. Better to say, “Wolves roamed the woods as well as bears and predatory cats. The uneven ground could cause one to slip, turn an ankle, and be immobilized; in which case, the predators would move in. Deep pits one could hardly see dotted the floor of the place. Poisonous snakes and spiders, rabid bats, disease-carrying insects abounded there.”

Showing is much better than telling. But like many principles in the writing world, it starts out as a helpful tool and then ends up being at best an annoying formula and at worst a misleading info-bit that closes down writing rather than opening it up. 

A few months ago in my writer’s group I read a story containing dialogue. It went something like this:

                        “Did you know about it before it happened?”

                        “I didn’t.”

                        “What do you think he will do next?”

                        I said I didn’t know.

Immediately came the perfunctory comment: “I said I didn’t know” was telling, not showing. After all, it’s always better to show, not tell. I had put that particular line in for stylistic reasons. Dialogue, like anything else, can get tiresome and needs to be broken up. Why not throw in a little telling now and then to do that? I think it works and didn’t change the lines. Sometimes you tell, sometimes you show.

A couple of the best opening lines I know are telling lines. George Orwell begins his novel 1984 with

Winston Smith and Big Brother

the line, “It was bright, cold day in April, and all the clocks were striking thirteen.” It would have been much less effective for Orwell to describe the clocks going off, the raw April weather, and the sunlight giving no warmth. Telling was just right for setting the mood. The beginning of Moby Dick by Herman Melville reads, “Call me Ishmael.”  It is imperative, of course, but it is a kind of telling, not a description. Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale begins with what I think is one of the wittiest and most clever sentences in English novel writing:  “I have noticed that when someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you out, leaves a message begging you to call him up the moment you come in, as it’s important, the matter is more often important to him than to you.” Brilliant. And it sets the tone of the whole novel. But it is all telling, not showing.

All three of the above authors were masters at description and character development. They knew how to show. But they also knew how to tell—how to give vital information, use information, and know when things needed to be directly communicated rather than got at by use of description, dialogue, or interaction of character.

My second favorite novel (after Wuthering Heights) is John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The first postmodern novel written in English, it is a gripping, vivid story of a man and woman who transgress Victorian standards of sexuality and class to engage in love. And it is almost entirely telling.

Fowles’ narrator assumes a Victorian voice and speaks directly to the reader. There are marvelous descriptive scenes (the scene in The Undercliff, if you’ve read the book, is unequaled as description).

There is fabulous dialogue. Yet much of the time the narrator lectures the readers and waxes eloquent about all things Victorian. The novel has been a perpetual best-seller since it was first published in 1969. It is reprinted ever year and considered a work of great literary value. Telling, if done correctly, can accomplish a great deal.

Certainly young writers must be taught not to make the error of Bulwer-Lytton and begin a book by saying, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Describe the wind blowing, the clouds rolling through the sky, black and bare trees swaying, and torrents of water falling on cobblestones. But telling can be used strategically. As we grow in our abilities as writers, we should not leave the possibility of something well told out of our writing.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and responses on these ideas. Please

leave a reply. What do you think about showing and telling?

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