Showing Vs. Telling Writing: How To Level Up Your Craft
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
There’s nothing quite like diving into the topic of showing vs telling writing to help writers level up their craft. So many writers have heard the advice to “show not tell” that they are absolutely terrified to approach anything that remotely seems like telling. But I’m about to throw this age-old wisdom on its ear. Sometimes, in the discussion of showing vs telling writing, you actually want to tell. When might you use telling instead? Read on to find out.
Showing Vs Telling Writing
Most writers have been told (ha!) many times to avoid telling in writing. Putting dry information on the page is not very engaging for readers. But this also creates a little-discussed problem. Writers will go so far out of their way to avoid telling when they want to convey something, that they perform a lot of overly elaborate, overdone maneuvers (e.g. body language in writing to avoid talking about feelings, etc.)
It turns out that sometimes, it’s actually preferable to tell, not show, in the battle of showing vs telling writing. Why? Telling is sometimes easier and more expedient. Sometimes you need to introduce information and context, and telling is the easiest and cleanest way to do just that.
Sometimes, writing benefits from a strong topic sentence. These can be mixed in with more descriptive passages or action passages, which will involve a lot of showing. You can actually balance showing vs telling writing like this.
Say you want to show that Mabel, a character, is generally down on her luck. You might want to include a topic sentence like “Mabel enjoyed the best morning she’d had in a long time” and then move on to specifics. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. It sets the tone, it plunges readers in, and even though it’s bland, it's quickly followed by a couple of sentences which paint a picture of Mabel’s luck turning and her enjoying a day, for once, where she feels like she’s on a roll. This sets us up for all kinds of showing, as long as we have that initial telling to kick things off. Without that opening sentence, the details wouldn't have nearly the same impact.
Sometimes, readers need to be guided through a narrative by plain, straightforward direction rather than drawn in by descriptive passages. And sometimes, there are things we must learn via telling that we can’t learn any other way, like character objective, character need and backstory.
Using Showing Vs Telling Writing
Telling sentences can stitch your narrative together. You can use them to convey a dramatic change in time or place, or a subtle change in atmosphere or subject.
When you start to pay attention to how showing vs telling writing is actually used in novels, you will start to notice more and more telling. It weaves its way through the narrative, imparting emotional beats to the reader, and supporting the story's transitions. Where action and dialogue can effectively advance the story, you should allow them to do so. But if the scene or moment calls for a transition or a reset or a bit of context or information, you can absolutely use telling.
Ideally, your goal with showing vs telling writing of any kind is to take readers on a journey. Telling can be an instrumental part of what makes this journey come alive: through dialogue and straightforward phrases. It often kicks off a beat and also has a knack of wrapping up a pivotal moment if you use it to anchor a reaction beat.
If you’re merely showing a plethora of actions, you might be moving too quickly to have any of your moments “land” with readers. Telling can help act as reinforcement. I love the advice of “show, don’t tell” because it gets writers more into showing than telling, but it also has done a lot of people a big disservice. They think that the novel craft is a battle between showing vs telling writing, but in fact, the two disciplines can actually work in concert.
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