Humanology and Writing

Show don’t tell is a literary technique that makes your words form into actual moments of living. A reader can literally live through your words when you show them a world that they can relate to. Showing readers is inviting them to experience the story as if they’re a part of it. Every breath. Every step. Every piercing heart beat. Every cold touch and every drop of rain. To show something in literature is to enable it be re-lived in the experience of the reader.

To ‘tell’ is simply to recount what happened keeping the reader as the distant observer, never venturing too far off the written word. But can you imagine your words to hold enough power to transport readers into places within the story as if it was happening to them? Well, that’s the power of connecting your reader with your story through the power of the imagery you create when you show them what it feels like, how it sounds, what that sound does to your body, or how a smell effects your senses?

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Readers and authors have many things in common. One of which is the five senses. Smell, taste, touch, sight, sound. Though how we experience things might be different, we each share a physiology that typically reacts in the same way when it’s stimulated with the right imagery. If you, the writer, has experienced a taste, a smell, a sight, a sound, a touch, this is a great place to begin in conveying what something feels like to a character, because your reader is likely to have the same experience of smells, tastes, touch, sight and sound as you do, and the character you’re writing.

You can have the literal effect of the senses, for example, the scent of freshly cut grass or just-washed linen hanging on the line. Or you can create imagery using the effects of the senses when you compare one thing to another. For example, his smile knotted my stomach. Most people know what it’s like to feel that knot of anxiety in their stomach. Whether good or bad anxiety, whether it be panic or simply nerves, this is yet to be established by the story behind this sentence. The point of this example is to show you that showing something to a reader doesn’t have to be literal. You can still draw on the senses, the physical one in this case relates to touch.  The knot touches her insides, it twists her stomach. The reader, in this moment can feel something from the character, as she feels the knot, they too can relate to that knot. By showing the reader what that smile did to her and how it made her react, we are inside the character feeling what she feels, waiting for the next moment to begin.

If a reader has never experienced the sound of footsteps on crunching gravel, or the sound of an ice cream truck, then they’re lost on the tension you might be building.Senses offer both author and reader a point of connection. You may already write this way through instinct showing the reader everything they need to know to feel their way through your story. But if you don’t, here’s a little more guidance on what show don’t tell can accomplish.

Show don’t tell examples:

Show

1. The door made its awful wailing sound. I turned to close it but my hand caught something soft. The smell of leather filled the space. My heart began pounding in my chest as I realised that it wasn’t the wind that’d blown the door open. Thick and heavy, his shadow crept over mine. The space closed between us, and I realised my body was paralysed in silence.

Tell

2. The door opened. I went to close it, cursing the wind. I froze as I saw a figure standing in the doorway. I went to scream but nothing came out.

Show

1. Mr Whippy ice-cream and raspberry sauce reminded me of a hundred Saturdays on the beach with my dad in the eighties. Sunshine, salt air, and the ham and sand sandwiches my mum used to make us all eat came tumbling into my mouth at once.

Tell

2. I got myself a Mr Whippy ice-cream with raspberry sauce. It reminded me of being a kid in summer at the beach with my family.

If you can feel a heart beat, you can feel the build of tension. If you can taste the ice-cream you can enjoy the flavour of a moment combined with the memory it evokes. These moments we give as writers may not be all that uncommon, meaning a reader can easily relate and capture the moment as you want them to. If you can draw a sense of a character through your own experience, you can connect to that character and all their choices, and so too can your reader. When a character and their experiences are relatable you’re reader will find it easier to connect with them through the moments you choose to show.

So when is it truly important to show don’t tell? This is a good question, and if you’re currently wondering if absolutely everything you write needs to be shown through feeling, the senses and imagery that relates, then if you’re a new writer, this may seem overwhelming and exhausting. The last thing you need right now is the whole show don’t tell technique to put you off writing altogether. To answer this question clearly let’s begin by taking a look at the narrative.

If your character is walking to his girlfriend’s place and nothing that important happens during this walk, but you want to give a flavour of that walk, then you might want to add noises and smells.

For example:

The smell of the hot dog stand wafted in my direction. (Smell) The sidewalk was no more crowded than usual with just a pinch of space between us as we wove in and out of each other like an army of soldier ants. (Movement, sight, action) Cars revved their engines as the traffic lights signal green and horns erupted at one vehicle that had stalled out in front.

Nothing much is happening but by using the senses to feel your way through the sights, sounds and smells you can transport the reader into that walk with the character.

This would be a basic show don’t tell. If you’re one step ahead and know that every environment and every moment in your story is leading to the next, then you may want this ‘uneventful walk’ to take on more meaning.

Another option for this example would be to show the character through the environment. When we consider ourselves and our feelings, whether they be joyful and carefree, or frustrated and anxious, we see our environment differently. I’m sure you can remember a moment when something has bothered you because you’ve felt tired, anxious or on edge about something else, whilst also remembering that that ‘something’ has not bothered you at all in previous times when you’ve felt calm, peace or joy. When we feel different, we experience things differently. Our characters are no different.

It may be that the character is anxious and the crowds make him feel boxed in, which heightens his awareness of loud noises, bumps and brushes of shoulders within the crowds. The busy sidewalk could be seen as something more sinister. Rather than showing soldier ants at work, it could be a never ending labyrinth of human walls stopping him at every turn.

The imagery you use has the opportunity to move the story forward, to slow it down, to pick up the pace, to add flavour into the environment and create a picture of internal introspection or torment. A very simple walk can say a lot as it builds into the scene when something is about to happen. This is also called foreshadow.

It’s not a case of when should you show don’t tell, it’s a case of what does the reader need to know in order to feel the tension or calm within the character, or to feel what’s coming next in the way you want them to. Imagine a twist coming up in your plot. You want to surprise your reader. Everything that comes before this twist needs to be orchestrated in just the right way. You need to show the reader what to think, you need to make them look the other way, so that when the twist comes, they never saw it coming. Or, you may want to be building tension so that the reader can see what happens five minutes before the character. Again, what you ‘show’ your reader will be the difference between how they feel about the impending incident. And how much they’re invested in wanting something good or bad to happen to this character very much depends on how much you’ve let them into his heart and his mind and his backstory.

It’s also incredibly important that when you get to those beautiful moments of conflict and risk that all the flavours of human vulnerability and courage are on display. Building tension is a great way of holding a reader’s attention and keeping them tuned in.

Imagine the character from the earlier example is heading to his girlfriends, ring in his pocket, ready to propose. His heart is clenched in tension, along with the angry taxi drivers’ horns. He’s on high alert, fed with more angst with the chaos and unrelenting lack of courtesy that parades the roads of New York city. Through this, the tension is being slowly built through showing how he feels juxtaposed with his environment feeding this vulnerable moment where everyone is out for themselves.

When he arrives, he cuts out of the crowd into calmer, quieter environment where he’s fully exposed. No where to hide. He’s stepped out of a chaotic frenzy of unknown characters with unknown motivations. He lets himself into his girlfriends flat, immediately hearing noises that crush his heart. And suddenly the chaos of the street is right in front of him in the alienating sounds coming from his girlfriend’s bedroom. The tension is heightening. Does the reader want him to go in? Does the reader want him to leave? That depends very much on how you’ve asked the reader to connect with him, and what you want them to want for him.  The imagery of alienation, noise, and him feeling like a nobody on the cusp of rejection in the ‘show don’t tell’ from his walk over to her place is spilling into what should have been a heart warming romantic moment. This is the final wall in the labyrinth for him.

You can use this imagery to portray the callus, impersonal response from his girlfriend as he stands at the door about to question things.  Here, it would be useful to consider imagery that compares her reaction with something the reader will instantly relate to, and which also creates the next move within the plot.

The thing about showing and not telling is that you will want to convey a feeling. This feeling can come through how a character sees the world, and what you want the reader to receive. When you ‘show don’t tell’ every moment, what you show will move the plot forward a little further, the character development a little deeper, and the reader empathy or resentment will be increased a little higher.  This is the beauty of foreshadow.You will know everything that is about to happen but your reader doesn’t. By showing everything that leads your reader to catch the tension or to see what might be round the next corner, or simply show so that they can feel what you want and when you want them to feel something, it means every moment in writing should be an opportunity to connect your reader to your character.

Showing is not describing a setting for the sake of it. Showing is not describing your character from head to toe. Showing is about letting your reader walk in your characters shoes, feeling what they feel. You can’t make a reader feel something when the tension blows up, in the same way that you can by drip feeding them every ‘show’ they need to see as the tension is building. It’s all part of the reader experience. The journey you take them on very much depends on what you show them and how that makes them feel.

You want them to feel his nerves. You want them to catch his excitement or trepidation. You want them to feel the shake of his hand as he holds the ring. You want them to hear the crack in his voice as his question breaks the stunned silence at the bedroom door. You want them to feel the crush of his heart as if it’s their own. This is delivered through imagery as you unwrap the character on every page (not just the big moments) and everything that’s important to them so that the reader can walk in his shoes and feel what he feels.

Show don’t tell doesn’t have to be every word in every sentence. But every word you write must earn its place, just as much as everything you show must be showing something for purpose.

Show don’t tell is purposeful. It is never just because. Show don’t tell will be the difference between your reader investing in your character and your story or not really connecting.

Make the connection between the character and the reader and you’ll have your readers invested from the beginning right through to the end by showing everything they need to see in order to relate.