Show and Tell

Every writer has been told by a writing teacher or editor to SHOW rather than TELL.

A simple way to understand this precept is to use synonyms. To “tell” something is to summarize  it. To “show” something is to illustrate it. In both fiction and nonfiction, if you want the reader to feel an emotional impact, show the reader what is going on. This is harder than simply summarizing, but always well worth the effort.

Here is an example of the difference between telling and showing from my first novel, Pandora’s Genes. The first passage is a summary of a short but crucial scene about halfway through the book. The second passage is the scene as it appeared in the published book.

Passage A:

Zach was sent away as his wife, Leya went into labor. He knew that she was in danger of dying and was very upset. To take his mind off his anxiety and sorrow he chopped wood.

Passage B

    It was a cloudy summer day, not really hot, but so humid with an impending rainstorm that the least exertion left him sweating and feeling tired. He positioned a log on the chopping block, brought the axe up above and behind his head, then swung it, thunk. He did this again and again, the movements easy from long years of practice. Wood chips flew around him, stinging his bare chest and arms. Cut wood piled up around him, and his breathing grew heavy as his arms began to tremble with the effort. He did not dare to stop, afraid to lose the comforting sound of the axe blade biting into the wood.

   After a time, his muscles stopped responding, and he was forced to rest for a moment. The sounds of the woods became deafening. He heard birds calling their territorial limits to one another; insects scuttling in the leaves; the warm breeze before the storm, pushing the branches of trees. He shivered as the wind took the sweat covering his skin. Sighing, he sat on a log and examined the axe minutely. He had made it himself from an old pre-Change axe blade, and a stout piece of hardwood he had carved himself, carefully fitting it to hold the metal, and binding the two pieces together with strong new-vine ropes. The ancient blade was as shiny as it must have been when it was new: he took care to keep it clean with fish-oil, and sharp on his whetstones. There were nicks and scores in the metal, but it was probably, he thought, in nearly as good condition as when it had been made, untold years ago. He ran his fingers over the blade and looked for signs of wear on the handle. This was the fourth handle he had made for the blade, carefully carving and polishing during long nights in the cabin while Leya read or worked on her projects from the Garden.

   He stood, already feeling stiff, and began to gather the wood he had cut into bundles of seven to ten each, tying them carefully with new-vine, and placing them to the side of his work area, in a small shelter he had constructed. A squirrel suddenly clambered down from a tree behind him. He turned, startled, to see the little animal poised on its hind legs, its nose vibrating with its breath, every nerve in its body stretched as it tried to sense possible danger. It looked at him, its black eyes as shiny as the axe blade, then just as abruptly it ran up the tree and disappeared along a leafy limb.

   Zach picked up the axe and began again to swing it, cutting the wood as if he could cut out everything else that was happening. Never had he worked so long and so hard. Soon there would be enough wood cut to last the Garden through the entire winter. And there was already more than enough for him and Leya. He became aware of another sound and realized that it was his own breath, rasping, wet, and too rapid. Still he did not stop, not even when the raindrops finally began to fall, washing away the dirt and sweat, then soaking him as a summer cloudburst developed. He could scarcely see what he was doing through the falling water, but still he swung the axe back and up, then down, splitting each precisely placed log as he did so, stopping only to move more wood into position.

   "Zach!"

   He turned, the axe half-raised, poised to split another log. Her head and shoulders covered with a dark shawl, the old woman stood looking at him. Her face was composed and without expression, and as soon as he saw it he knew the worst had happened.

*****

When you have finished writing a story or novel, go over it for places where you can change summaries into illustrations. For example, if you have a character “crying hysterically,” think how you might show that. (Jodie’s chin began to tremble and her mouth turned white as she bit down on her lower lip. But the trembling spread, from her face to her throat, and then to her lungs as she began to gasp, tears now spilling down her cheeks and onto her hands.) 

One of the greatest compliments I've received about my writing was in a review by Eoghann Irving of my short, gritty novella, The Ptorrigan Lode, which begins: 

If you want a great example of showing and not telling, then this is it.

As a short story it doesn't have much space in which to both create a futuristic world and set up a plot and yet the author Kathryn Lance makes it looks easy.

It wasn't easy, of course, but I'm glad it worked. 

For more on the difference between showing and telling, see #2 in my five-point revision checklist.

25. Conflict and emotion: the heart and soul of fiction.

I think that writers and actors have a lot in common. I believe many of us are very private, even introverted, souls who must nevertheless put something very personal on display in our work. Back when I was writing soap operas , I once took a beginning acting class to see if it would give me any insights into the actors I was writing for.

                                                      

The class turned out to be valuable, but more for what it taught me about ME. In presenting a scene, I was downgraded because I was unable to put myself into it 100%—I simply could not overcome my self-consciousness. I believe that kind of self-consciousness often holds writers back as well. As a writer colleague once put it, it’s so hard to do emotional scenes "so the effect hits the reader, rather than paralyzing the writer."

Here are some ways I’ve found to handle strong emotion and conflict in fiction.

1. Put yourself in the character’s shoes. Here is where the acting lessons helped. . My acting teacher had told me to imagine a similar situation in the past to the situation I was trying to portray in front of the acting class. Although I was unable to project strong emotion on the stage, it turned out I could do it on the page

In my Pandora's novels, I have violent and even deadly arguments and fights among alpha males and between alpha men and women.  I know from reader feedback that the scenes were for the most part, successful.  How did I do it?

For many of these scenes, I imagined myself as the point of view character, imagined that I was in that scene, and imagined what would happen, based on something similar in my own life.  For example, in the big confrontation scene in Pandora's Genes at the end of the book, where Will learns that Zach has betrayed him, I imagined how I would have felt if my beloved sister had returned from the dead and I found that she had betrayed me.  I was able to use the resulting churning and painful emotions, filtered through Will's already established personality, to depict his reaction.

2. Go with your discomfort.  If you are reluctant to approach an emotional scene, examine the reasons for your reluctance.  For example, many writers are uncomfortable about writing sex scenes.  A good way to handle that is to examine the feelings the sex scene arouses in you and put those feelings in the head of the point of view character.  If what you are feeling is aversion, let us see the aversion.

I used this technique when writing The Ptorrigan Lode, which has several scenes of graphic physical and mental torture. In real life, I am a person who will not see a movie with any hint of violence, yet here I was orchestrating the worst kind of brutality. It made me intensely uncomfortable, yet somehow that discomfort, once I recognized it for what it was, helped me to make the scenes realistic for readers without (I hope) sending them screaming into the next room.

3. Seek help.  In the fight scenes in the Pandora’s books, I asked a couple of friends who had been in combat how to handle various physical situations, such as carrying an inert body through a smoke-filled room. I asked these same friends how they felt at such times, and used their answers. The one I remember most vividly was the scene in Pandora’s Children in which Zach singlehandedly attacks several armed Traders. My friend told me that Zach must make himself BELIEVE he is stronger and a better fighter than his foes, and to begin the attack with the loudest scream he can manage, putting his whole body and soul into it. I put myself into Zach’s head, tried it, and it worked!

Tomorrow: less is more

Technorati Tags: fiction writing,writing techniques,emotion in fiction