🥑 show AND tell??

Forward this message to your writing friends! You can read Part 1 of the series here.

Is it time to retire “show, don’t tell”?

Probably not. That’s the kind of suggestion that gets me ratio’d on social media.

In the interest of: show AND tell.

Different situations require different tactics. Let’s look at three practical examples:

1. SHOW

She was anxious about getting fired.

Instead of telling the reader, I can show this through physicality or emotional narration:

Her stilettos tapped the floor tiles outside the HR manager’s office in an unsteady rhythm.

Or, for an omniscient perspective:

With her eyes, she traced the pipe-leak stains on the ceiling to still the thoughts of termination—or worse—scurrying through her brain.

This kind of showing works because it’s simple and evocative, like a shot from a movie.

2. TELL

Anxiety swam through her veins, coursing from her pattering heartbeat to every extremity. Her fingers trembled against the manilla folder gripped in both hands, and a tremulous shudder had seized her legs beyond the point of her own control. Never in her life had she experienced such a frittering of her nerves, and her watering eyes struggled to focus on the plastic nameplate crudely affixed to the HR head’s door. A single bead of sweat ran from her hairline, disturbing her mascara on its way past her narrow nose before it traced the curve of her ruby-red lipstick and dripped to the tile—

How much of that did you skip? There’s nothing wrong with any of the individual ingredients above, but the resulting cake has WAY too much sugar and not nearly enough flour.

Here’s my point:

Indulgent description is no substitute for substantive connection with your reader.

When you find yourself waxing eloquent, ask if the audience is better served with direct, evocative telling instead of overblown showing, e.g.:

She’d never been so anxious in her life.

Maybe you can see the inevitable third step:

3. SHOW AND TELL

Andrea had been waiting outside HR for almost ten minutes. With her eyes, she traced the pipe-leak stains on the ceiling to still the thoughts of termination—or worse—scurrying through her brain. She’d never been so anxious in her life.

Here we see showing and telling working together to form some freakish hybrid known as just kinda normal prose. #shelling

None of these options is necessarily the “best.” It depends on context—but overall, you’ll find that a balance of showing and telling tends to keep your audience hooked.

A practical exercise: write this scenario with a character from your WIP.

Friday: an alternative to “write what you know.”

What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever received? Reply to this email and I may use it in a future Bite.

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