When you have to "tell" instead of "show"

In all my years of writing as a hobby, it becomes more and more obvious to me that the "show don't tell" mantra can't always be applicable. Novels/short stories/etc do not have the benefit that TV shows, movies, video games, and comics do, where they literally can show events. But I'm constantly realizing that there are events in some of my stories that don't need to be shown at all, and it results in the narrator (whether it's omniscient or it's a 1st person PoV protagonist) having to "tell" something that happened to the reader...but usually it's done in passing. Or if there is a literal lecture/class being attended and character and reader are understandably being told about something. I do try to have these "tell" moments - exposition moments - to be done in an organic way, but there will always be those small moments where there is no choice.

What is everyone's thoughts on this when it comes to fiction? I honestly do not have any issue with being told something in a novel; I enjoy expository bits. The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire's info dumps made me eager to eat up more rather than turning off my enjoyment. Am I odd for that, since "show don't tell" is taken as gospel, especially for amateur writers?

 

Taking "show don't tell' as an absolute rule is a mistake. It's at best some well-worn advice for new writers (that should be qualified so new writers don't learn the wrong thing from it), and at worst a throw-away phrase used without analysis by people who don't know what else to say in a critique. Of course you have to 'tell' at times. How much you tell and how much you show is a stylistic choice, and as such will vary from author to author.

 

Really you only show at certain times, when you want to really draw the reader in and make the story feel vivid and immersive. You can have more telling than showing, as long as you're using them in the right pales. Think of the showing as raisins in the connective bread of the telling. They make it a lot sweeter, and are the parts people will remember, but you wouldn't have just a wad of raisins stuck together.

 

Show don't tell. There's nothing original anymore. Just write. Use all five senses for descriptions. Give all characters weaknesses.

These are some of the vague "writing advices" people tend to throw about that aren't much useful.

As for "show don't tell", it can create unnecessary bloat. Especially so if a writer is pushed into the false belief that one character telling another about something is against the "show, don't tell" rule. That's the belief that tends to bloat a work with a dozen flashback scenes.

As @Steerpike mentioned, it really isn't a "tell or show" question, but a "to what degree are you telling" one. There, each scene and information has the ideal degree. Strike the balance and you master the art of dumping info without making it feel like it's an infodump.

 

But I love wads of raisins stuck together.

 

The POV you select may affect the ratio of showing and telling. Third person objective forces me to show a great deal. In this POV I could never write something, "He got angry," because the narrator does not interpret emotions. I do tell often when transitioning to the next scene unless the transition is critical.

In first person, I could lean one way or the other. What matters, I suppose, is that the reader is engaged and working with the author in telling the story. I mean the reader fills in the missing bits and interprets what is shown.

 

But that's not a story, that's dessert. A decent story is more like a 4 course meal.

 

I recently rewrote a sentence from showing to telling, because I thought the showing was a distraction.

It was where a character is having suicidal thoughts. I *showed* the thoughts both in action, the character pantomiming suicidal actions, and direct thoughts of what she would leave behind.


For her physical reaction, I initially wrote “Her stomach churned, another bout of reflux eating away at her esophagus as she choked back bile, grimacing at the foul taste”.

I wasn’t happy because I wanted the emphasis to be on her mental state and not the physical state. I thought the above sentence distracted from her mental state, so I changed it to *telling* “She felt physically sick at the demented thoughts.”

So yeah, I think “show, don’t tell” is advice to be used judiciously, and dispensed sparingly and only with specificity.

 

Particularly in short stories, it's sometimes unavoidable. You simply don't have the word count to show everything.

I emphasise "sometimes".

 

On behalf of everyone who ever got a box of raisins in their halloween candy, no.

 

Please, I don't believe that there's anything that can't be done in a short story. Typically, short stories are between 3k and 5k words, that's 25-30 pages. Many are longer. Stories should be as long as they need to be. So it's not that you have to try and cram a story in under a certain word count. It's that you're writing a story that can be told fully in that amount of space. It seems to me that you're looking at it backwards.

 

I liked like first example. It's good. I don't see why you can't still use it. It's only one sentence. Her mental health can still be the focus, but this really lets readers know she being hit double if she's dealing with both mental and physical anguish. It didn't distract. It pulled me in too what was feeling. And I imagine from this sentence the rest of your prose could be quite engaging. If you have the ability to write well, I'm pretty sure you're not losing anything from keeping this sentence. I felt nothing from your second example. It was just boring. I suggest changing it back. Just me thoughts. Good luck with it.

 

I think when something stands out as telling is when something is wrong with the prose and would pull readers out of the story. More likely than not, it is an issue with the language just as easily the material. Too much telling means you're not telling the story the right way. My opinion, of course.

 

I disagree. Sometimes it is simply more efficient and moves the story along better to tell rather than show.

 

The 'show don't tell rule' is foisted upon beginner writers to encourage them to learn the skill of description. Amateur writers swallow down this gastric bile which the body then repeatedly regurgitates, thinking it natural, all the while causing their fellow artists to ask "are you sure that's right?"

In truth, showing and telling both have their merits, and a good writer knows when to show, or put the reader in the scene, and tell, when the readers needs information quickly to keep the story moving.

 

I just finished reading The Legend of Huma (part of the Dragonlance series), partly out of nostalgia (it was the first fantasy book I read, I was probably 10ish?). (side note, not that great a book, don't put it on your reading list).

Anyways, that book is basically 95% tell and 5% show.

 

I appreciate the kind words. I hope to follow in your footsteps and start getting paid for my writing!

 

I said nothing about showing or telling in the message you quoted from me. Maybe you didn't mean to quote me or you thought you were quoting something else.

 

Keep it up. You'll get there.

 

You replied to my post regarding showing and telling in short stories, and therefore, that's what I assumed you were talking about.

There are sometimes reasons for word count limits in short stories.

 

Just because something is shorter is not an excuse for telling when you can be showing. I don't know. Do what you want. I am selling my short stories so I was just stating how I see it. But you can do whatever you want. Best of luck to you.

 

OP, here! I guess the reason for me posting this thread in the first place is I am working on a story that involves some classroom settings, and the PoV character (entirely in 1st person) not having something crazy and exciting occurring every single day during the story. Which means that of course my character will just go and "tell" us, the reader, what she learned in a history lecture, as opposed to going intro great detail about the lecture itself, what her teacher looked like and how they presented the material. And just like with real life there will be days or just hours where not much happens, so it's a timeskip or the character makes a note to tell how the monotony sometimes gets to her. *shrug* In my heart I know those are perfectly fine excuses to tell instead of show - not everything of note needs to be right up front on display, so to speak. But it doesn't stop my brain from worrying about doing it at all in the first place, that I have to show everything. I am not a published writer (I never plan to be). I still haven't finished an original novel-length story (only one fan fiction, and my unfinished projects are from me having other stuff in life going on). So I don't 100% consider myself an "amateur", even if I'm not a professional in any sense of the word. But even so, the "show don't tell" dribble we surely were all told when we were young writers has kind of screwed up our brains even when we know that it IS OKAY TO TELL sometimes. It's very frustrating.

Sorry for the rant!