If you’ve been in the writing community for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard the advice “show, don’t tell.” This is one of the most common recommendations in the writing world.
And for good reason. When a story is full of telling, it’s boring. Readers want to be immersed in a narrative. They want to experience it with the characters. And that’s what showing can do.
But like anything, showing can be overdone. So how do you find the right balance between showing and telling?
What does “show, don’t tell” mean? What’s the difference between showing and telling? How do you show effectively? When is it better to tell?
This article will answer all your “show, don’t tell” questions.
What Does “Show, Don’t Tell” Mean?
“Show, don’t tell” is a storytelling technique that favors conveying information through action, description, and dialogue over stating information through facts, exposition, and explanations.
Showing is preferred because:
- it makes readers feel as if they are a part of the story
- it conveys information about the characters, setting, world, and background of the story in a natural way
- it is more engaging than telling
Telling has its place—which we’ll get to below—but you generally want to avoid it because:
- it interrupts the story’s flow
- it can be boring
- it can feel like lazy writing
For these reasons, “show, don’t tell” is considered a golden rule of creative writing. Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at some examples.
Telling vs Showing
Telling: The boy was sad.
Showing: The boy’s head hung as if a weight rested on it.
Telling: It was early morning.
Showing: The sun peeked above the horizon, emitting a soft morning light.
Telling: The woman helped me calm down.
Showing: “Shhh,” the woman said, rubbing my back. “This will pass.”
Telling: Her brother came into the room, clearly flustered.
Showing: Her brother threw the door wide, tossing his open backpack on the couch and running a hand through his already-wild hair.
I’ll let you be the judge on which is more interesting.
Ways to Show
There are many ways to implement “show, don’t tell.” Here are some you can use to immediately make your writing more engaging.
Action
Often when we tell, we summarize or leave out the action, which leaves missed opportunities to describe how a character carries out an action and clue readers in on how the character is feeling. We can learn a lot through action.
Telling: The princess walked across the ballroom.
Yes, this has action (walking), but it doesn’t reveal anything about how the princess is walking (or feeling).
Showing:
The princess sauntered across the ballroom.
The princess hurried across the ballroom.
The princess trudged across the ballroom.
Replacing just one word demonstrates how much you can convey through action.
Action gives movement to whatever you’re describing. Even if your subject is inanimate or isn’t doing anything, you can describe it with action to give it life.
Telling: The mountains were full of snow.
Showing: Snow blanketed the mountains.
Telling: The truck was a beater, and there was a high chance it wouldn’t start.
Showing: A dent morphed the back door of the truck. Chipping paint created odd shapes on the hood, making it look as if it belonged in an abstract art gallery, and dust coated the interior.
Eliminate Weak Verbs
Going right along with focusing on the action, we have to eliminate weak verbs. When you rely on weak verbs, you take the action out of the narrative.
Here are some examples of weak verbs:
- to be verbs (is, was, are, were)
- seem
- wonder, think, feel
Often these verbs take the focus away from a sentence’s real main verb or act as filler words. Take the sentence “He was typing on his keyboard.” What’s the verb here? Was. Boring. What should the verb be? Typed. “He typed on his keyboard.” Much better, right?
Let’s look at some more examples.
Telling: The book was old.
Showing: The edges of the pages curled, and cracks divided the spine into wrinkled sections.
Telling: The coffee seemed too hot to drink.
Showing: Wispy steam danced in the air above the drink.
Telling: She felt her heart break in two.
Showing: Her heart shattered in her chest.
To learn what other words and phrases weaken your writing, check out this article.
Dialogue
If you’ve ever eavesdropped on a stranger (don’t deny it), you know just how much you can learn about someone from a conversation. Dialogue is a great way to convey emotions, backstory, personality, etc.
Telling: The pair had been best friends ever since Sally moved into the neighborhood three years before.
Showing:
“What are you doing today?” Sally asked.
Hannah met her eyes.
“Practicing again?”
Hannah nodded.
Sally groaned. “You’re always busy now. We never hang out anymore.”
“Well, you could come.” Hannah grinned.
Sally scoffed. “Not after last time.”
These characters clearly know each other well. Your readers can figure out that they’re best friends without you telling them.
A word of caution: avoid dialogue that feels unnatural or staged because it can come across as telling too.
Telling:
“What are you doing today?” Sally asked.
Hannah met her eyes. “I have to rehearse.”
“Again?”
Hannah nodded. “Every day this week. I have to get my lines down for the audition. It means a lot to me. It’s the last role my mom had before she got in the car accident. She can’t ever act again, but she would love to see me do it.”
“I know.” Sally groaned. “You’re always busy now. We never hang out anymore.”
“Well, you could come.” Hannah grinned. “As my best friend of three years, I would love it if you helped.”
Sally scoffed. “Not after the last time I ran lines with you. You didn’t tell me the props were real. I almost cut my finger off.”
In this conversation, the characters state a lot of things that the other character already knows, so it sounds contrived for the reader’s sake. A conversation like this can read better than straight exposition, but when you can, try to create natural-sounding dialogue that hints at the information. Your readers will be able to put the pieces together.
Details and Descriptions
One of the best ways to show is through description. With vivid imagery, your story will come off the page.
I have a whole blog post about description, which you can find here. But in general, you want to use all five senses and root your description in your POV character by describing the things they would notice.
Description is easy to overdo though. You don’t need to use paragraphs to describe something that only needs a couple of sentences.
Telling: The empire’s capital was surrounded by a high wall, and inside the brown buildings were low and made of mudbricks.
Too much showing: Walls enveloped the empire’s capital, towering over the rest of the city. Desert sands beat against the fortifications, pitched into the air by the gale-force winds streaking across the dunes, the sound constantly audible at the city’s edges. Beyond the walls, low, mudbrick structures sat uniformly, all approximately the same height—two stories with balconies on the second floor—and color—a dull brown—producing a monotonous appearance.
The right amount of showing: Walls surrounded the capital, protecting the city from the wind-blown sand of the desert. Uniform mudbrick buildings sat inside the walls, all two stories, brown, and square.
When to Tell
There’s a time to break every rule. Okay, maybe not every single rule, but there is a time to tell, not show. When, you ask? Great question.
Telling is great for:
- Unimportant details
- Maybe your characters go to a new place but only spend five minutes there. You don’t need to describe it too much, so you can tell readers what it looks like in a simple sentence.
- Repeated information or scenes
- No one likes reading the same thing twice. It’s boring to read the same thing more than once, even if it’s phrased differently. Your readers don’t want to read repeated information or scenes. (See my point.) If you have to repeat something, summarize it.
- Getting a point across quickly
- When you’re writing something like an action scene, you don’t want to dwell on any one thing for too long. Telling is usually faster (just make sure you don’t take the action out of the action scene through telling).
- Revealing something with a big impact
- If you’ve been foreshadowing something big, you don’t want to beat around the bush when it finally comes to light. Stating the reveal can have a nice effect as the readers and characters come to the same conclusion. (e.g. “The nanny was the thief,” or “The tour guide was her long-lost brother.”)
If you’re not sure when you should show and when you should tell, experiment with both. Write a scene trying to show as much as you can, then write it again with a mixture of showing and telling. Play around with it until it feels right.
I hope this “show, don’t tell” guide helps you figure out when to show and when to tell.
Happy writing!
4 responses to “Show, Don’t Tell: Finding Balance Between Showing and Telling”
An excellent reminder!
I’m glad it was helpful!
I really like you blog, Lexi! And I’m getting insights I hadn’t had before. I had always heard of “show, not tell,” but I didn’t really understood it before — maybe because I write in nonfiction so I haven’t really worried about it, but as I think about it, I think it can be helpful in that genre, too. I’m noticing that “showing” is so much more poetic and engaging. Thanks for sharing your insight on this.
“Telling” is more common in nonfiction, but yes if you ever want to make your writing more poetic and engaging, “showing” is a good way to do it.