Writing Treatise : VII. Showing over telling
VII. Showing over telling:
Simply, a la priori thing,
ranted by all us writing kind, but it was requested by several people. More
tricks? Techniques? Ranting?
I mean if anything, this
is what developing writers should know first.
Well, first thing use the right tense for the job. With no frame 90% should be staying from present tense; especially in third person. However, I have already ranted this to death. It leads to stories being told instead of free flowing.
Also stay away from the “you,” without a frame. Not only does it lead to
telling; it creates 4th wall rhetoric issues.
Now that is out of the way how do we as writers show over tell?
We show through imagery
and sensory. An audience needs to see
how things look like and feel like mainly. Taste, smell, and auditory can also
go a long way to show too. Characters are not in a void so having them interact
and react to things go a long way. Scenes themselves do not sit there; they are
living things. Imagery with scene helps too. It is a rule of physics with every
action there is a reaction. The
reactions helps create effect and happening in the tale. The audience expects
reactions. So thinking on real actions can go a long way.
So for things happening and showing that depends on two things together: The
adjective and the verb.
So a character is doing something. The adjectives and the verb create the
happening.
Lindsey picked up the box and got a paper cut.
“Ouch,” Lindsey shrieked dropping the box, startled. It slammed to the floor with
a loud thud spilling its contents of pens sprawling across the floor. She
looked at the blood trickle for a while before sticking the wounded finger into
her mouth. Her face squished, contorting with the iron taste.
Working on description like this can also build up page length and numbers.
Remember ABT tale formula: That too can be away to help shift your scenes and
action into showing.
There are four areas of description:
Character Description: How characters and what they are doing looks like.
*Note:* When writing anthropomorphic characters always remember to use your
anthropomorphic descriptions. Pretty much you need to provide the animal to the
audience.
Environment Description: what the scene, environment, and world looks like and
what is happening looks like.
Action Description: What do actions look like, feel like, and flow. Often when
I say someone needs to show through action they tend to get confused that I
mean action as in conflict. No, what this means is simply movement, animation,
the tiny things that build up the whole.
*Note:* We perceive sound first over sight. So always start with sound than the
reaction.
Emotional Description: How emotions are described and feel.
So keep these descriptions all in mind. They chain and connect and help build
scene.
In anthropology there is something called “thick description.” It is recording
and observing of everything as best as we can to replicate the scene observed;
“again everything connecting.”
Many young writers tell me they are scared of description because they don’t
want to gunk up a work with details.
There is a difference between detail and description. Details are the tiny
things that may or may not be important for the work. Description is a living
thing.
Details: Height, color, weight, age, weather facts, useless trivioloids, etc.
These things sit and add up. They could be adjectives, but if used they do not
contribute to scene.
Describing something with action aides building scene: Back to the verbs with
those adjectives and taking the small things and combining them to make sense.
So verb + adjective = short controlled bursts. Shorter sentences add together
to create scene better than longer ones.
So details need a purpose for the scene. If not they are not needed.
So bad habits places where details bog things
down:
Introducing and describing characters:
Developing writers often have a
bad habit of large paragraphs of many details describing their characters in
minute details. Not only does this gunk up flow by telling us useless things it
builds a habit of forgetting that for later as character description needs kept
up. It is better to introduce character through action instead of through
detail.
How to avoid: 1. Quick controlled bursts: A few short sentences with some small
descriptions to introduce the character is a great place to start. 2. Couple
with action to keep flow moving. 3. Bring up other important traits coupled
with action at a later date. Great places to aide this is doing an action and
as a dialogue tag.
Introducing scene:
Usually done in the first
paragraph: Much like the ladder environment
is described and forgotten about. Keep environments living with characters interacting.
Again, break it down and think of what is important for the audience to know,
see, and feel.
As transitions:
Yeah bad habits be bad habits.
With transitions: Think of action or
time. How are we connecting one scene to another? It’s easy to simply want to tell us.
It had been five days since Insmouth, Henry and his party now walked the snow
covered ground of New York City.
Henry let out a massive sigh. It had been five days since Insmouth. He
shuddered as the cold wind bit through his fur coat. The constant slurch of his
companion’s feet in the sludgy snow weakening with every step. Yet, there they
stood, the skyscrapers of New York City twinkling in Henry’s gold, wolf eyes.
His pace began to pick up; they were almost there.
As lists: Listing can be fine to
quickly set scene, but an audience expects a reaction or else the list really
does not do much by itself.
Children played, market stall merchants hawked their fruit, and there were
fresh pies available.
Henry dodged a horde of playing children which rushed past him in whatever tale
of make believe world they were stuck in. His stomach growled then at the
market stalls and the smoking wafting pies the baker had just sat on the window
sill.
Pretty much here is a dead list of words versus a living scene with character
interaction.
Conflict:
Conflict is a bad place
where telling gets over showing. It is a weird notion to write. Technically
combat happens fast in real life. It is
mess where it is easy to not know what is going on. Yet, the opposite needs to happen in writing.
Action needs very thick description so audience can clearly follow what is
happening, who is doing what to who or what? What is sustaining damage? How are
people feeling emotionally and mentally? Back to action and reaction. Weapons
and people doing things have consequences.
Objects and bodies taking weapon hits have reactions. The bullet and the
explosive make a mess of things. So you need to slow down time and provide this
weight. Back to the concept of life is not cheap. Doing some research can also
go a long way here. Now, that realness described can do well; especially in a
frame story, but it is a balancing act of needing to provide sense to audience.
It is common to say character blanks in this regard and that is it. Sara shot
five barbarians. They fell down dead. Henry was attacked by 5 men; he swung his
sword and killed two. This is just poor writing of combat and telling over
showing.
Technodetelll:
You have a tech or magical
thing. So what do you do in the work? A. creates a chunk of a paragraph
interrupting flow to tell us how it works or B. Show it working and break it
down with a few short words of dialogue? If the tech working is important have
a scene as such. Don’t create a dialogue flow issues by telling us all this
stuff free floating. The same goes for history, myth, politics, and the world.
If it is important then show it don’t tell it in weird disembodied paragraphs.
This is especially true for the history and myth if nobody is here to tell us
these things then why are we being told it. Again, these two topics usually
show up as a beginning and poor beginnings they are.
The simile:
Similes themselves are
fine. However, there is a weird habit in America called the “American Simile”
where they are just thrown out and simply don’t do much. In this sense, they
are usually thrown out to aide emotions. Make sure that the simile makes sense
and is worth it and that some naturally occurring description is not better.
Else you break flow to just tell us something simple and usually redundant. You
want to learn how to use similes check out some Russian writers and the Russian
simile. They know how to make those things count.
When is it ok to tell?
In three situations.
1. You have a frame or narrator to tell us things as the frame is set up to do
so.
2. Comedy: Characters are breaking the 4th wall.
3.
You have characters in dialogue telling another character something.
So if you can show over telling show as it is always more powerful.