Pebblepup's Writing Den

When you are writing fiction, you are telling a story. The problem is that readers should be using their imaginations to ‘see’ the action. If you tell the story, it’s flat and becomes uninteresting. It’s much better to let your words show the action so that the reader can ‘see’ it.

What does it mean when ‘experts’ tell us to “show, don’t tell?”

“Annie threw the ball.” You know what happened, but it’s not that interesting to read, is it? That’s because I told you what happened. Now consider this. “Annie drew her arm back and then flung it forward, releasing the ball as she did so. It flew in a high arc towards the batter.” Both sentences told you that Annie threw a ball. But the second one lets you visualize the action much better than the first example did. This is what “show, don’t tell” means.

To do that you need to visualize the action yourself. Then write everything someone would need to do to complete the action. This is in the first draft, of course, you might need to cut some words while leaving the essential ones in place.

To throw a ball, a person would have to pick it up first. Then they would have to pull their throwing arm back. Then they need to swing their arm forward. When the hand with the ball is at the farthest point away from their body, they need to let the ball go. That would be as boring to read as “Annie threw the ball,” in its own way. That’s where revision comes in.

Once you describe the action as much as you can, you need to cut words. Now the description of throwing the ball can stay in your rough draft, but you need to pare it down for your final draft. That’s the hard part of writing. You can imply certain things, like someone picking up the ball. If the ball is in their hand, the reader can assume they picked it up at some point. That’s fine.

The idea is to get your readers to immerse themselves in the story. Writing, in a sense, is showing a story. Think of the action in a film. The audience can see what’s happening, so there’s no need for a narrator to tell them. You have to write in such a way that the reader can view it as a film in their head.

Use action words. Mix up active with passive voice with an emphasis on active voice. Pick words that convey an image. This will let your readers’ imaginations out to play and that is our goal as authors.

That’s the best way I have of describing the process. If your readers can ‘view” a film of your story, you’ve done it right. Take some time to practice showing versus telling. It does take practice to get there. If you take the time to do it right, you will find readers turning to your work more often than not. Good luck and keep writing.