What is the difference between show and tell in writing

Rather than having everything simply imparted to him, he sees it in his mind and comes to the conclusions you want. What could be better than engaging your reader—giving him an active role in the story experience?

Showing : When she wrapped her arms around him, the sweet staleness of tobacco enveloped her, and he shivered. Showing : She wore coveralls, carried a plunger and metal toolbox, and wrenches of various sizes hung from a leather belt.

Showing: I barely touched my food, riveted by Tim. Riveting dialogue breaks up narrative summary, differentiates characters through dialect and word choice , and allows a story to emerge naturally, rather than your spelling out every detail. She eagerly thumbed through it, looking for the beautiful paintings she remembered so well, only to discover the book had no illustrations.

The author had so engaged the theater of her young mind that she had imagined those very real impressions. To eliminate passive voice , eliminate as many of your state-of-being verbs as possible is, am, are, was, were , etc. Click here for my detailed guide on fixing passive voice. The teacher was a round little old man, hairless and pink of face. He owned but one rusty, black suit of clothes and a pair of old overlarge dress boots that curled up at the toes and were so worn down that the heels were wedge-like.

He stood at the front of the room rocking on the points. The reason it works? In this novel, Dr. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light.

Coming up with good ideas is the next step, and significantly more difficult. The most challenging part is the act of translation from concept to compelling manuscript. Related: How to write a novel from scratch. What so often happens for writers, particularly those just starting out, is that they put their idea down on paper and stop there.

They see the act of writing a novel as writing down the details of the plot from start to finish. What are some of the main challenges about showing that make it so difficult for so many authors? Showing requires subtlety. Perhaps the biggest challenge of showing is to be able to convey the facts and nuances of your novel through subtle actions, descriptions, and dialogue. The other challenges outlined below all contribute to the overarching issue of subtlety.

Showing requires unbridled creativity. Showing requires human understanding. Much of the art of showing has a foundation in human psychology. As a writer, you need to understand your characters better than anyone else—how they act, react, gesture, and speak.

Showing requires a diverse vocabulary. Showing requires the ability to self-edit. The book editing process is vital for a number of reasons, one of which is the chance to eliminate some of the telling you may have done without realizing it. Showing requires trust in the audience. While clarity is certainly important in any novel, a good writer must walk the tightrope between over-explaining and giving away just enough.

Showing requires practice. A lot of practice. No one is born a perfect writer, and nearly every major author who has dispensed writing advice has said something along these lines: If you want to succeed, you have to spend a lot of time writing. Given that the story is a fairy-tale, most of the versions we know well are very much about telling, and not showing. For example, if you were to explain this story to someone who had never heard it before, you might say it like this:.

Little Red Riding Hood was a young girl who decided to pay her grandmother a visit. When Red arrived with her basket of treats for grandma, she saw the wolf and was immediately suspicious. He went over to the wolf and used his axe to cut open his stomach and pull Red out, safe and sound. In this version of Little Red Riding Hood , you are only giving the details absolutely necessary to tell the story from start to finish.

Something smelled off—had Grandma left the eggs out on the counter again? Red wrinkled her nose. Red clutched the basket tighter in her hands, feeling the wicker press into her fingers. Grandma looked worse than she remembered. The old woman was wearing her favorite floral cap and matching gown, but the cap was pulled down so low that Red could barely make out her face.

From the sides of her cap protruded two long ears, covered with wiry black and gray hair. Her ears stood straight up, pressing in the sides of the cloth cap and twitching slightly as Red spoke.

In fact, the issue is typically more subtle, which makes it harder to identify. Fortunately, there are some red flags you can look out for in your own writing, as well as in the feedback you receive.

The reason? Too much telling and not enough showing in your story manifests itself in many different ways. Over-telling can affect everything from the overall plot of your novel to the conversations your characters have. When you know your own plot inside and out, it can be very difficult to spot the instances where you are leaning more on telling rather than showing.

However, there are some words that frequently seem to pop up like weeds around telling passages. Example Sentence: Maisey flashed a wide grin at Ben, obviously finding his joke funny.

Everything that follows the comma is unnecessary. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it out in a shaky exhale. Example Sentence: Keith felt a wave of despair wash over him as he watched the key disappear into the water. However, the author is still coming out and telling us exactly how Keith felt, rather than giving us visual or internal clues.

For example, Keith could let out a cry or whimper, or he could desperately reach forward to try to catch the key, or he could think to himself, Oh no! Contrary to popular belief, there are times when telling may be better than showing—namely, when describing how a character thinks or feels, otherwise known as internal narrative.

Internal narrative is essential because it helps us understand exactly what makes a character tick—his fears, his motivations, his secret dreams. Telling is sometimes a better strategy than showing when it comes to writing internal narrative. But sometimes, you just need to tell it like it is. If AutoCrit finds that you tend to tell instead of show, you may be guilty of several similar writer gaffes, such as using too many adverbs, relying on generic descriptions, or writing weak dialogue.

All three of these writing styles are forms of telling that will put your reader to sleep. Never fear: AutoCrit can help you spot those pitfalls too, so you can keep your prose—and your reader—energized. Showing versus telling is the essence of good storytelling. Welcome Back! Enter Your Details to Log In.

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