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Dennis (Bruno) Phillips

How to Show and not Tell

Dennis Phillips, a.k.a Bruno, commutes from his home in Toronto, Canada to his job in Mexico City. He is currently working on a mystery novel set in those two locales. Although his published efforts so far have been limited to newsletters, letters to the editor, and in-house manuals, he dreams of publishing the Great Canadian Novel. He credits WVU more than any other factor for giving that dream a base in reality.

Tell the Fire: Show the Heat

If you get feedback asking you to show more, or if you're not sure when you're telling, then take Eliza Doolittle's advice.

Ms. Doolittle gave this advice to her failing suitor, Freddie, in Lerner and Loewe's "My Fair Lady." Freddie failed to reach intimacy with Eliza because he talked of his fire, but never showed Eliza the heat of his emotion. We should learn to be intimate with our readers by following Eliza's advice and showing that heat. Perhaps we can succeed where Freddie failed.

Show, don't tell.

Telling has its uses. One can summarize data quickly but simply telling it. But imagine your best friend is showing you pictures of her summer holiday and telling you about her experience. "This is Charlie and me in Ocho Rios. It was really nice there." She points to the blue Caribbean and you notice the white sandy beach has coconut palms that go down to the sea. Not too exciting. Now imagine the same conversation, but she doesn't show you the pictures. Is there a word beyond dull that could describe such an experience? And this is your best friend! Suppose it were an unknown writer who didn't show you the pictures.

Telling a picture-less story results in flat, lifeless prose that bores readers. It makes our writing sound like a lecture. Much better that we show the significant details so the readers can paint a picture in their minds. Draw readers in by showing events as they unfold and characters as they develop. Readers will experience our fictitious world not as abstract concepts but as physical details.

How can we spot telling in our stories? And once spotted, how can we convert telling into showing?

How To Spot Telling

Telling involves concepts rather than reactions, generalities rather than details, zooming out rather than zooming in. It's possible to recognize the indicators of telling because telling involves abstraction.

Consider:

1. An abstraction has virtually no pictorial representation. The word "beautiful" is an abstraction because it gives no pictorial representation. We give the reader no specific characteristics to support our contention that something is "beautiful". The reader cannot picture a "beautiful" sunset unless we give her some picture words so she can sense the colour, the luminosity, the touch of the wind, the smell of the air.

2. An abstraction is factually insufficient. "The town was quiet most of the time." That sentence doesn't tell us how quiet or for how long a time. If the reader has no significant details, the reader is left with vague impressions. Vague writing will lose your reader's interest.

3. An abstraction expresses a quality apart from an object. The word "poem" is concrete. It is a piece of structured writing that uses terse wording and sometimes rhyming to evoke an emotion. "Poetry" on the other hand, is an abstract concept when it describes the qualities evoked by eloquent poems. One writes a poem (concrete) and hopes it becomes poetry (quality).

4. Opinions or conclusions can be "telling" if the writer forces the reader to accept that opinion or conclusion without providing any supporting evidence. Readers prefer to be shown the evidence and drawn their own conclusions. If, as writers, we describe someone as pompous, we are presenting our own opinions and conclusions. It is much better if we describe the actual conduct of the character that led us to conclude the character was pompous. The reader may well reach the same conclusion, but we have forced the reader to become involved in the incident in order to render their own verdict. Reader involvement should be our watchword.

Telling can be converted to showing by using three tools.

• The Tools of Showing
• Quoted Conversation
• Quoting direct speech or internal thoughts allows the reader to form her own conclusion rather than accept the author's.

The Significant Detail

Find the significant detail that conveys the meaning you wish to convey. The reader will fill in the rest of the picture from her own experience, making your story into hers. Details anchor your story in concrete reality and convince your readers you know what you're talking about. Significant details can be found in gestures or body language, in the action you choose to show the reader, or in the setting.

Grady (from the Colin R. Onstad Room) has kindly provided me with an excellent example of moving from telling, to showing by finding and using the significant detail.

Omaha [Georgia] was a quiet place most of the time. [Telling] The jail over at the courthouse was empty year round, and the parking meters gave you 30 minutes for a penny, not that it mattered. No one in Omaha was issued a parking ticket in 25 years. [Showing through significant detail]

Sensory Appeal

What we know of the world comes through our senses. Provide your reader with access to your fictitious world through a direct appeal to your reader's senses.

It was a dark and stormy night. How dark? How stormy? Try and recall the storm. Could you smell the ozone from the lightning? How did the air taste? Did your tongue feel thicker? Was your skin itchy from the change in atmospheric pressure? Did colours change? Which colours changed most? Present the reader with those sensory details.

Try sensing your world from the perspective of a baby or of an alien visitor so you can see it anew. Allow yourself to break free of mediocrity. Find the twist on the ordinary that converts it into your own original vision. Then convey that vision to your reader.

Examples

It's always easier to examine a process through an example. Let's look at three short sentences to see if we can get to the bottom of the show-and-tell mystery and maybe even figure out a shortcut way to discover if we are telling, not showing.

Example 1
The little bear was upset when he discovered someone had not only tasted his porridge, but had eaten the whole thing up.

Example 2
"Somebody's been tasting my porridge," said Baby Bear. He sniffled and added, "They must have been hungry because they ate it up."

Example 3
"I'm gonna take the dude who ate my porridge, dip him in honey, and hang him in front of Pooh Bear's house," said the Baby Bear, and clicked open his switchblade.

Example 1 tells us what's happening. How do we know that? Because it leaves no room for interpretation or doubt. It tells us precisely what to think. The bear was upset. We have to believe the author because the author hasn't shown us the actual events. We don't have any facts upon which to draw our own conclusions. One result of being force-fed the conclusion is that the reader remains aloof from the piece. Like Eliza with Freddie.

Example 2 contains the same number of words as example 1, but this time the author has shown us the evidence and left us to draw our own conclusions. By quoting the direct speech, the author has allowed the reader to pick up on a number of subtle signals. Now we know the bear was upset, but maybe more because he was hungry than angry. This nuance in interpretation comes from showing, from giving the reader the first-hand evidence so that the reader can draw her own conclusions.

Example 3 reports on the same incident as example 1, but what a different bear from the one in example 2. It still fits the reported facts of example 1, but because the author has given us the first-hand evidence, the actual words the bear spoke, we know this bear isn't just hungry - he's angry and mean.

Shortcut Method to Recognizing Telling

Let's use the above examples to develop a tool for recognizing telling.

The "telling" word in example 1 is "upset." "Upset" gives us no pictorial representation - no sniffling or knife-playing bear. It's insufficiently factual - we have no indicator of the degree of upset. It expresses a quality apart from an object, and it is an opinion without supporting facts. No significant details. No direct conversation. No sensory appeal.

Is there a way to wrap up all those telltale characteristics into one easy tool?

Suppose we ask ourselves how we came to know the bear was upset. If we need to go into a deeper level of detail to answer that question, then we ought to be presenting the reader with that deeper level of detail. The bear was sniffling or the bear was playing with a knife. Let's present the reader with that deeper level of detail and let the reader draw her own conclusions about whether the bear was upset.

So asking yourself "How do we know that?" can be the litmus test for telling. If you can apply the question to a phrase and come up with a more detailed answer, it's likely the phrase isn't giving enough concrete details.

There is a limit to this questioning tool. If the answer to how do we know that requires a scientific or legal explanation - for example, how do we know an apple is "red" - then we've probably reached a sufficiently useful level of detail and needn't go any deeper. It's not particularly helpful to tell the reader that the apple is reflecting a particular wavelength in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.

A caution: don't concern yourself with telling vs. showing during the creative flow of a first draft. But when you are ready to edit your work, engage your internal Hostile Attorney (HA) or Belligerent Barrister and have them interrogate you with the question "How do we know that."

Writer: That mutant bear is dangerous.
HA: How do we know that?
Writer: He is carrying a knife.
HA: I carry a knife. How do we know the bear's intentions were hostile?
Writer: He kept flicking the blade in and out.
HA: Maybe he was nervous. How do we know he was hostile?
Writer: Because the blade was flicking in and out of my front tire.

Giving evidence doesn't mean it has to be courtroom-sterile. Readers expect writers to help guide them toward an interpretation. The sky needn't be just blue. It can be the comfortable washed-out blue of an old pair of blue jeans. Or it can be the unblinking blue of a disinterested lover's eyes.

Another Shortcut Device

If you aren't comfortable using an internal Hostile Attorney, try a different device. How about thinking of the reader as someone you wish to put into a trance, the trance of believing your story. How would a hypnotist put a subject into a trance? With suggestions. "Imagine you are walking by a quiet stream on a warm day. The scent from apple blossoms drifts on the light breeze that caresses your hair. You hear the splash of a small fish jumping in the water." Use the same tools as the hypnotist. The more concrete the details, the more likely the subject will be drawn into accepting our hypnotic suggestions.

Exercises

1. Go to a familiar place and describe it afresh by looking for a significant detail that indicates the feelings the place evokes in you. Then do the same in an unfamiliar place.

2. Write down a word that describes a strong emotion (e.g. fear, anger, lust, etc.). This is your trigger word. Now write a 250-word conversation between two people in which you demonstrate that emotion. Do not use the trigger word in the conversation.

The Final Word

We should never be afraid to be intimate with our readers. It's the anticipation of that intimacy that causes readers to fork over $10.95 for a paperback. Besides, until the book-signing, we're not likely to meet any of them personally.

Eliza wanted the intimacy of Freddie's arms around her. Let's give our readers that same intimacy through supportive detail. Perhaps we'll convince them to fall in love with our work.

Dennis (Bruno) Phillips