Show, Don’t Tell: One of the Most Important Tips for Fiction Writers
There are lots of helpful tips and techniques in fiction writing, but I want to talk about probably the most important one: show, don’t tell.
It’s one of the biggest and most talked-about pieces of advice in creative writing.
So, what does it mean?
The point is that you want to show your reader what is happening, rather than simply telling them.
What’s the difference between showing and telling?
For example, you could write:
She was nervous.
Here, you’re telling your reader that your character was nervous.
But you could show that she’s nervous instead, through her behaviour.
For example:
She sat down in the chair and tapped her fingers on the arm. A moment later, she stood up, looked out of the window and began pacing up and down the room.
You haven’t told the reader that she’s nervous, but you’ve shown them through her actions.
Perhaps she’s biting her nails, if she’s a nail-biter, or doing something else that suggests how she’s feeling.
This is where knowing your character well can be helpful, because different characters will show their nervousness in different ways.
Why is showing so important?
Telling your reader something takes some of the fun out of reading for them.
It’s much more satisfying for readers if they can interpret things for themselves, rather than simply being told what to think or feel.
Telling can also create distance between the reader and your story.
You’re telling them what’s happening and how to interpret it, rather than giving them the opportunity to experience it for themselves. At the worst end of the scale, it can begin to feel as though you’re lecturing them.
Showing, on the other hand, takes readers into the story. It allows them to see your characters for themselves, almost as though they’re watching real people, and to make their own interpretations of what’s happening.
And that’s what you want. You want readers to feel involved in your story, rather than distanced from it.
When is telling useful?
Of course, sometimes telling is important, too.
For example, you might write:
Three hours later, she arrived home.
That’s absolutely fine. Your readers don’t need to know everything that happened during those three hours. If nothing important happened on the journey, you don’t want to drag them through every little detail.
Sometimes it’s much better to tell readers something briefly so that you can move on to the next important part of the story.
The key is to think about which moments really matter.
If something important is happening to your character, that’s generally when you want to slow down and write it out as a scene, showing the reader what’s happening rather than simply telling them about it.
So, use telling when you need to move the story along, but show your readers the important moments.
If you’d like to practise these techniques in your own writing, our online creative writing courses at Alight Writing Academy include guided exercises, assignments and detailed personalised tutor feedback.