It leaves all the hard work to the reader, perhaps?

I thought maybe showing is also a more subtle and evocative way of painting a picture in the readers head, less obvious than just stating facts or whatever. More artistic.

Having said that, it depends on the subject matter right?
Sometimes telling is better suited to a particular piece than showing.

Both have a role to play I think.

[This message has been edited by Zoot (edited March 09, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Zoot (edited March 09, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Zoot (edited March 09, 2006).]

When Jenny finally had enough, she went to the hardware store in a driving rainstorm, bought an axe, then returned home to chop her husband to bits.

Showing:

Jenny stumbled backwards under the weight of David's fists.

"Slut!" he roared. "Bitch!"

She fell backwards, striking her head against the coffee table. "Stop, please!" Her head stung, but no worse than it had at any other time. She felt hot tears on her face.

"What am I going to do with you?" David roared, but he did not hit her again. He strode up the stairs two at a time and went into their bedroom.

Jenny lay there on the floor for a minute longer, feeling sorry for herself, but this time she felt another emotion brimming at the back of her conscioussness: anger. She touched the spot at the back fo her head where David had pushed her into the coffee table. Dampness. She looked at her fingers and saw blood there. He had never drawn blood before.

"That is," Jenny murmured under her breath. She grabbed her car keys and went outside, scarcely aware of her disshevelled hair or the driving rainstorm. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there, but she knew she had to go.

It surprised her when she pulled up to the Ace hardware store on the corner. She should probably go to the police or maybe even a hospital, but she could not get the car to drive any further. It had stopped here, and here she would go.

The axes were right out in front, in a seasonal display along with fireplace pokers and lighter fluid....

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So yeah, it does take MUCH longer but as you can see (I hope) one is a story, the other is a thing that happened. That's the difference between showing and telling, plain and simple. That doesn't mean there aren't parts you can't just spit out and say (especially things that are of minor importance...some peopl eare better at figuring out which are which than others) but basically, show it to me.

In the example above, if this is the crux of the story you're going to tell you'd better show it. If Jenny is a minor character, for example, and all we need to know about her is her husband beat her and she killed him than the telling version may be enough.

There are times when you need to summarize (tell) something that happened so that you can get back to showing the important parts.

Christine's example is a good one.

The problem is knowing which lens to use. When you seek the nitty-gritty detail, the emotional texture and flavor of your story, you need to show. Telling is a tool when you need some distance to summarize and zip along at a faster pace.

This is especially important at the beginning of a story because you have to give us some reason to care about the story. Setup is only half the battle of the first 13 lines--in fact I'd go so far as to say that set up is not even necessary. All you need is something interesting and a character that I can begin to imagine. But telling does neither of these things.

I can tell the same story in 2 pages that I can write in 350 by showing.

Would you pay $7.99 for a 2 page story that you will read in 20 seconds?

He bit the large hunk of watermelon.

He hoisted the large unk of watermelon in his five-year-old hands, and his eyes widened with wonderment. He had never seen a piece so big. He plunged his mouth into the reddest-looking part of the slice's peak, salivating with anticipation of the summer-soaked sweetness of the first cool, wet bite. he bit a hunk, and the sweet, translucent, pink juice squirted from a corner of his mouth, glinting in the sunlight. Some trailed down his arm and dripped onto his thigh. the coolness of it was welcome; it was the hottest day of summer yet.

Telling is good when you want to condense a situation or share information without making your characters do dumb things. But then you could get into info dumping and that's another story all together.

Sometimes people just sit and talk. They don't knock their hand to their face or gasp when they get an idea. I find it laughable that in some books the characters have to be continually doing some sort of action with every single line of dialog. This especially bugs me when I'm not too interested in the topic of conversation. I just want it to end, but nope, I have to wade through five pages of "showing" for the author to get a one-sentence idea across. I must be weird. Maybe, but I think it deals more with patience. High action movies have ruined me.

Telling is boring. I agree. But a two-page, detailed travel log of walking from one side of the room to the next is even more boring...and irritating.

The watermelon is fun, but a detailed log of each bite and morsel of food he takes is not fun. It's fine to eventually say, “He finished his meal . . .” without showing how he finished his meal.

I think another thing that is helpful is to write your sentences with active verbs, instead of passive ones (i.e. be, to be, am, is, was, were, are, or been). Then your writing will tend to show more than tell. “He was happy” compared to “A feeling of bliss engulfed his soul and forced the corner of his lips to curve into a smile.” In the first sentence, I’m telling you that he’s happy. In the second sentence I’m showing his happiness without actually saying he’s happy.

Sorry, that one always gets my hair up.

There's nothing passive about "He was a tall man." Sure, it's a bit bland, but that's not the issue here.

"He was run over by a car" is passive.

quote:

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"Show what needs to be shown, and tell what needs to be told."

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In a nutshell, there is a phrase called "past continuous" that throws the "was/were" rule out the window. Example: "They were playing music" is not passive.

My thought on the subject of show and tell seems to be a little different. “I” think the big difference is that with showing you let the reader draw his own conclusions.

Over in the 13 lines thread I was talking about this. The author had written something like --

They didn’t like to eat late but had to because of their jobs.

And I said it might be more interesting to phrase it in a more showing than telling way as –

They were dining at nine, again. It was the fourth time this week.
After the waiter had left with their drink order, John quickly explained. “I had to wait for this phone call. From Hong Kong, you understand.”

The told version gives a single, bare bit of information. The shown version gives specific details from which the reader can generalize background. Also in the shown version there are tantalizing hints about character.
They ordered drinks. He explains “quickly” before she says something. He is involved in (we assume this is happening in the states) international something.

Telling holds the reader at a distance from the story. Showing involves the reader a lot more. If you're showing, the reader feels like he or she is part of the story--seeing, feeling, speaking.

I thought maybe showing is also a more subtle and evocative way of painting a picture in the readers head, less obvious than just stating facts or whatever. More artistic.

There are times when you need to summarize (tell) something that happened so that you can get back to showing the important parts.

Showing is a close-up look, telling is a wide-lens panoramic view. Both are useful tools and should be used at the appropriate times.

The great thing about showing is that it does the same thing as telling but also moves the plot along, gets you to know the characters, allows you to be more artistic, and actually...write.

Which bite excites the senses more? The more often you excite someone's senses, whether subtly or blatantly, the more intimately connected they will feel with what you are trying to share with them.

"Showing" is not better than "telling". It's just more suitable to some situations, particularly climaxes.

I find myself going bonkers sometimes reading two pages about how someone is just about to push a button. Push the dang button already! I'm probably not as patient as most others. I like the showing but not when it bloats the book to the point that there really isn't much of a story behind all that showing.

Telling is good when you want to condense a situation or share information without making your characters do dumb things. But then you could get into info dumping and that's another story all together.

"Show don't tell" is a bad rule, and impossible to follow. OSC says, "Show what needs to be shown, and tell what needs to be told." The part that needs to be shown is the interesting part; the part that needs to be told, so we can get through it quickly, is the dull part.

Is there anything here that we can't all agree on?