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How many times have you been told (or told others) to SHOW, DON'T TELL? For me, many times (in both cases). Telling is basically the Satan of writing fiction, right? And showing is fiction's Jesus.
Submitted as a point of discussion: the beginning of a story by Orson Scott Card appearing in the current issue of IGMS.
This is 100% tell. No show. There's not even a character. Is it possible that OSC missed the boat on this one? Has his success made him so artistically bloated that he can churn out ****e writing and be sure to get it published because, well, he owns the magazine? Or is it possible that telling isn't so bad after all? Is telling, in fact, a perfectly acceptable way to start a story? After all, when you communicate a story to someone, we call it "telling a story," not "showing a story."
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More a gag than a story, really. Besides, there are no hard and fast rules in writing---anything someone can think up someone can find a good (or even great) story that violates it.
I read a new story by Card just the other day---an Alvin Maker story, no less---in, of all places, the National Review. A story story, too...
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An even more fundamental "rule" might be worded as "if you can make it work, go for it."
I submit that "show, don't tell" most often appears in feedback because the author has spent precious wordage on summarizing when the reader would like wordage spent on clarifying, on helping the reader experience the story.
By the way OSC really doesn't agree that showing is better than telling in all cases, and the above-referenced story may be as much an example of why, as it is an example of how to "make it work."
In a way, the opening of OSC's IGMS story is also an example of how passive voice can work (I noticed several examples of that "devil" in the opening paragraphs as well). Passive voice works when the actors in the scene are not as important as that which is being acted upon.
And the mystery of the alien vessel is much more important than the names and characters of those investigating it. Hence passive voice, and telling.
Whatever works.
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Show is always preferable, but context and purpose are the main determinants. My general rule of thumb is that if the 'tell' involves some character driven or initiated action, or character response to stimuli, then show is a must, if possible.
Don't tell me Timmy is nervously sitting on the chair outside the Principle's Office, show me his roiling thoughts, the excuses he constructs then dismisses in a vain attempt to explain his actions. Show me his sweaty palms and dry mouth and the nervous shifting from one buttock to the other on the unyielding wooden stool as he waits for the dread summons.
That Alvin Maker story (at least the beginning) flouts another piece of advice I hear often; it contains a ton of "be" words. "Were" and "was" are all over that sucker.
Thoughts?
When I see successful authors ignoring some of our rules (yeah, I know, there are no real rules, but if I put up a story with a bunch of telling and a bunch of "be" words, I'm guaranteed to get called on it every time), I just wonder if we amateurs might be the blind leading the blind with some of the feedback we give each other.
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Card's "Breeding True" at Intergalatic Medicine Show sample reads like a form imitation; that is, magazine documentary journalism. The sample, though, is New Journalism's imitation of prose's dramatic structure sans Gonzo journalism's personal aesthetic: a reporter's personal participation in the report. The story is of a form type that fosters, if not requires, customary anyway, "tell's" summary and explanation lecture and passive voice for impersonal composition.
The sample contains several features of story method customary to New Journalism and remarkable opening features, despite the summary nature: routine interrupted, emotional equilibrium disrupted, conflict and complication introductions, event and setting introductions, and "exposition" introductions of the theme and meaning of the narrative, what the story is really about. Subtle and sublime though, through an unconventional fiction form.
I'm of two minds whether the writing intends imitation and commentary about journalism's mediocre on-the-fly composition or is off-the-cuff composition. Unnecessary and common grammatical glitches throughout the sample would ordinarily, to me, signal an inexperienced writer. "As" used as coordination conjunction at the start of a sentence, several empty sentence adverbs, preposition connectors likewise empty, (passive voice), static voice, vague pronoun antecedent referents, grammatical mood and case glitches, missing, warranted punctuation.
A bright and subtle part is whomever sent the craft toward the Sun, not Earth. What does that say, mean, internal to the story? Is this the proverbial monkey trap? Tie bait inside a clay jar, secure the jar so it cannot be upended. A piece of fruit that, when a monkey reaches in to take out the fruit, makes a fist that cannot be pulled out without releasing the fruit. The trapped monkey won't let the fruit go to free itself. "Breeding True"? My curiosity is aroused by that one motif.
Is that what the story is really about? I suspect something along those lines. The subtle mockery of clerics, politicians, scientists, jurists, ethics panels, protesters, etc., signals probabilities. Piece of fruit in a jar and no one will let go? Will they worry this piece of fruit in a jar interminably?
A fine example of a story opening that shows readers don't have to be bludgeoned by sharp, hot action, by forceful language, by bait readers into the action from the get-go rabid "hooks."
Although, an infinite variety of possible closer distance, more personal, protagonist hero or heroine and agonists, regular prose drama and structure, less "tell," more "show," less essay, more immediate in-the-now-moment unfolding action narratives of the same human condition subject could appeal to readers, too. Maybe the topic naturally wants the remote, detached distance of journalistic objective omniscient. The topics of substance seem satire about the follies of human curiosity and maybe contentious quarrels about discoveries that contaminate a discovery.
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It's been awhile since I read the novels, but I seem to remember that Alvin Maker stories tend to have a distinct narrative style--simpler language, with more frequent grammatical errors, to reflect the viewpoints of characters who generally don't have access to higher education. The short stories especially tend to read like something that could be told aloud, a verbal recounting.
Honestly, my best guess is that different stories have different needs, and it's a long and laborious process to figure out what needs what.
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quote:Originally posted by Robert Nowall: More a gag than a story, really. Besides, there are no hard and fast rules in writing---anything someone can think up someone can find a good (or even great) story that violates it.
I read a new story by Card just the other day---an Alvin Maker story, no less---in, of all places, the National Review. A story story, too...
A folksy raconteur at a campfire or a kitchen table or a taproom type narrative point of view and voice.
The theme and meaning of "Naysayer" exactly fits National Review's political slant since William F. Buckley founded the magazine and the conservative unification movement, regards the climate change public debate. The politics are less a matter to me than that the story asserts a moral law. A different approach discovers a moral truth.
If I was of a mind to parody the story, I'd portray Maker realizing that naysaying comes from all corners of the compass and that naysayers at least have their due says until the metal of a car rooftop meets the road rash of a tarmac. Maybe name the viewpoint agonist Calvin Shaker, name Arthur Stuart Jill Steward and portray her as more than foil, as anti-agonist conscience, as an opposite social position -- one a conservative, one a liberal: contentious, affable companions.
Instead of hydrology to symbolize climate change contentions, more askew, say, mandated matchmakers who only arrange relationships between incompatible individuals. Instead of a scientist academic, Professor Rea (urea, urine), likewise askew, a soapbox pundit only hegemonic extremists pay mind to. Instead of a "doodlebug" (ant lion), what? a mental itch that must be scratched.
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quote:Originally posted by wetwilly: How many times have you been told (or told others) to SHOW, DON'T TELL? For me, many times (in both cases). Telling is basically the Satan of writing fiction, right? And showing is fiction's Jesus.
Submitted as a point of discussion: the beginning of a story by Orson Scott Card appearing in the current issue of IGMS.
I have to disagree. I think it's all show, but of an odd sort: It's written as an article in a scientific review journal or something like. It invites you to believe that you're reading someone's writeup of events, rather than a story per se. And it must have worked for me, because by the end of the excerpt I'd plumb forgot why I was reading it, and had settled in to read ... a scientific article.
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I think it's a balancing act. Personally I have read some stories and novels that were mostly all show and find them just as lacking as all tell. A character in self-reflection, doing research, day-dreaming, or flash back are all forms of tell.
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