I Hate "Show, Don't Tell"

I detest the criticism "show, don't tell" because the same reviewers who cite one of my paragraphs with the berating mantra will, on the next page, bust another paragraph of the same size with the opposite rebuke, “Summarize this.”

Perhaps their real message to me is,

“He doesn’t write like we do.”

I think critics who dole out the three-word maxim are charlatans.

Nevertheless, being a humble and teachable student of fiction and all-around good person, I do my best to incorporate the denunciations of envious plodders who claim to know something about words.

What's wrong with telling?

What child at bedtime says,

“Mommy, show me a story.”

Not one who has ever lived! Instead, children around the world from the beginning of time say,

“Mommy, tell me a story.”

The ambiguous “show, don’t tell” should be thrown out because it only aggravates authors who are trying their best to make the world a better place.

All fiction is telling.

Every book tells a story.

Instead of issuing the clichéd complaint about telling, I propose we provide more thoughtful literary advice, such as:

1. Expedition vs. exposition.  Instead of explaining a scene, take your readers with you on an adventure through the scene.

2. Who doesn’t like an exposé?  Reveal the situation before your readers’ eyes layer by layer.  Let them be the first to see what’s going on.

3. Don’t provide answers to questions your readers haven’t asked.  Don’t let the readers know why the fourth leaf on every tree in a town is red until the reader asks the question.  You’ll know when the reader asks because she’ll be walking with you through the story, remember?

4. Don’t write, “The forest is dense.”  Instead, write, “Kyle had trouble fitting through the brambles.”  Why is Kyle trudging through thickets?  It’s because he’s running away from bad people trying to catch him.  Try to keep up with me.

Isn’t this more instructive and fun than the droning, “Show, don’t tell,” no one understands? 

Clever telling?

A common irritating complaint about my earlier stories was that I didn't describe how my protagonists looked. Such complaints were annoying because most novels don't describe their characters. This is because it's usually not necessary. If it weren't for the movies, would we know what Katniss Everdeen looked like? The trilogy is told in first person. Why would Katniss describe to herself how she looked? Actually, she does so in a clever way when she describes her friend, Gale:

He could be my brother. Straight black hair,

olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes.

But we’re not related, at least not closely.

-- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

That's how a first-person narrator can describe herself!

Not to compare myself to Ms. Collins, but I've recently written a novel, Rippling Ground, in which a young boy explores a cave with adults trained to do so. He wants to be there because he and his brother had recently discovered the cave on their aunt's land. But exploring a cave can be scary even if you're with people who know what they're doing.

How to get a first-person narrator to say he's scared without the critics yelling, "Telling!"

Here's how:

Everything around me was uneven and wet, and dark openings close to each side of us concerned me because I didn’t know what was in them in the darkness.  There were no railings to keep anyone away from anything dangerous.  Yet, I was further into the cave than I’d ever been before, and I didn’t want to be sent out because I looked too scared.

Voilà!  Did I do as well as Ms. Collins?

Good fiction = being there

Do the words Déjà vu sound familiar to you?

Describe to your readers what is happening so vividly that when they find themselves in a similar place in real life sometime in the future, they'll say, “Wait a minute—I’ve been here before.”

Plant images in your readers’ minds so profoundly that they won’t be able to distinguish truth from fiction.  This is the service we provide our readers.

West-Central Argentina

My novel Rippling Ground takes place, in part, in the desert-like region of west-central Argentina.  I’ve never set foot in Argentina.  However, I'm required to provide my readers with such a complete and immersive experience of what it’s like to be there that if they ever find themselves standing on that same ground, they’ll say with great delight, “Hey, I’ve been here before.”

Which information do you include and when?

What descriptive information do you include so it's not "telling" (including too little) and isn't info-dumping (including too much)?

The answer is:

Include only the information necessary for your story,

and only when it's needed.

See how easy that is?

I have provided below the first four paragraphs of Robert Jackson Bennett's novel, Foundryside. I recommend reading the book because it is a remarkable and descriptive story. I've numbered the first four paragraphs of Chapter 1 for clarity:

1. As Sancia Grado lay facedown in the mud, stuffed underneath the wooden deck next to the old stone wall, she reflected that this evening was not going at all as she had wanted.

2. It had started out decently. She'd used her forged identifications to make it onto the Michiel property, and that had gone swimmingly--the guards at the first gates had barely glanced at her.

3. Then she'd come to the drainage tunnel, and that had gone...less swimmingly. It had worked, she supposed--but her informants had neglected to mention the tunnel's abundance of centipedes, mud adders, and shit, of both the human and equine variety.

4. Sancia hadn't liked it, but she could handle it. That had not been her first time crawling through human waste.

I love this opening. Yet, paragraphs 2 and 3 are "telling" because they tell us what happened (which is what "telling" is) prior to the events in paragraphs 1 and 4.

Why don't the "Show, don't tell" agitators jump all over this? It's because the paragraphs are fun to read. Nobody cares about the stupid rule.

The first four paragraphs appropriately provide only what is needed at the time. We learn about the "old stone wall." This is because she's about to climb it (spoiler, sorry). We're not told of any other walls in the area because they're not relevant.

We don't know what she looks like or what she's wearing because that isn't relevant at the moment. We don't yet know what the Michiel property is all about, as that information isn't essential then either.

We only know about Sancia's uncomfortable predicament because that's who the readers are beginning to care about. How does Robert Jackson Bennett know what his readers are feeling? Because he's taking his readers along with him as he tells his story.

Notice I write, "as he tells his story," and not "as he shows his story."

Critics don't know anything. Someone needs to "show" them a thing or two.