Break the Cardinal Rule: Show Don't Tell Might Be Ruining Your Fiction Writing

Join Drake and Marie as they discuss when to tell and not show.

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Transcript

So what I don't want to see as a reader and what I don't do as a writer is I don't start a scene with a page of this is what everything looks like, this is what the room looks like and the chairs look like, and the thing looks like an and the blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

And then get you into the character's head. I do it constantly, you know, I always say, like for scene setting,

what I do is I'm constantly having the POV interact with the setting, the setting, interact with the P.O.V. or the setting, interact with the setting. And I always have to define what I mean by setting, setting as everything that isn't the P.O.V..

So it could be character one talking to character two that are both secondary characters. That's the setting, interacting with the setting that lets me know, you know, like maybe, maybe me and Marie walk into a room and then Marie turns to the the woman behind the desk and says, Hey, could you help us out a minute? Well, look what I just did.

There's a woman behind the desk. We just found out there's a woman. The desk is Marie. A secondary character in the story has just interacted with a tertiary character in the story boom scene setting. I didn't have to go say, you know, Marie and Drake walked into the the room. On one side of the room was this with this woman sitting behind and on the other side of the room was this and this was over here and this was like this and this was here and this was that.

And this was this and this and this. And then start the scene. I can literally just have the scene unfolding. And so it's that balance of is that a tell when Marie turns to talk to the woman behind the desk? Yeah, sure. It's just but it's one line here and one line there. It isn't. It's just so much more palatable because then there's going be dialog which is showy and emotions and and interactions and actions and all sorts of things.

And so that's going to make the scene so much more interesting.

Releasing your inner dragon.

So Marie, the world seems to be obsessed with this show don't tell thing.

They do.

But is that. Is that mean that we have to show all the time? Is that like, the end goal for everything?

Well, that depends. Do you want to write a million words and say nothing? If so. Absolutely. Go right ahead. Show everything. But if you actually want to get your story done in a reasonable amount of time, there are points where you need to actually tell the story. You can't show everything.

The purpose of show don't tell is to take the reader deeper, to give them a more immersive experience, to let them explore the world and the characters in a very intimate fashion. That doesn't mean that that is the only way to get your story across. And in fact, if you try to show everything, you're just never going to get to the end of it.

Yeah. Well, and also it just becomes melodramatic and a word salad and you say a bunch of words, but you don't actually say anything.

Yeah.

And so that's always the problem of being too overtly showing.

And yeah, I'm going to take my take the antagonistic side of this because and I don't know why in every podcast I say this last night in group this outfit on this topic that we are randomly talking about today, because it really is that random, because our producer gives us a list of things and we just work through it.

But for whatever reason, the night before, something always happens that I can use in the podcast. Here's my problem with it. So I'm in beta for this next book that's coming out at the end of the year, and I have paired my beta team down Now that I'm back into it and where I'm at, I just don't need the size of the meta team that I had.

It's a lot of work and so I pared it down a lot. It's still probably more than it should be because it's, you know, a little over 35. I think it's probably too many even still. But one of the things that I've noticed is and, you know, if you've read me, you know that I'm a very immersive, very showy, very sensory, heavy, detailed writer.

And yet still these you know, and you can always tell where these other people are on their journey of learning the craft writing, because most of my beta readers are people who are also trying to become writers, and the ones that are just learning show don't tell. I can tell that this is what they're working on in their craft because they'll go through and you know they'll have it three pages of just dripping immersive, showy, emotional goodness.

And then there's, you know, one line where I'm just like, blah, I just tell you something and they're like, circle it. And they're like, this is a tale. You need to get rid of it. You need to rework this whole thing. And I'm like, No, I don't. It is fine. It's actually what it should be. It's exactly the moment that needs to happen in the way that it needs to happen.

So what happened last night is somebody is working on their to be verbs and so they just kind of went through and cut out every single.

Sorry, sorry. I'm going to interrupt you briefly. You said there to be verbs split apart, not there to beavers, because that is a different book and it's a great book. It's very funny, but it's not what we're talking about tonight.

Right, Right. There are to be verbs. They didn't just have to be verbs in their in their manuscript. So, no, they're they're learning, you know, that that's totally and it's passive. And, you know, this is where they are in their writing journey. And so they're going through. And but, but a lot of writers do this. They're looking for hard and fast rules.

In other words, they're looking for math equations to use in creative writing, and that ruins your manuscript every time there are no. So, like, one of the things that we talked about last night, he was like, well, it's like, well, I need to cut out all my was because I know that's and I'm like, No, no, you need to understand when you're using a was poorly and you need to rework those sentences so that it doesn't have the words because was is are red flags you know using important means you're using the was for passive voice or for telling or for passive verbs or whatever.

There's there's several different ways that we don't want to use was and I pulled up one of my, you know, chapters that he's read, and I was like, you know, this chapter, it's you love it, right? And he's like, Yeah, it's exciting. It's great. It's everything I want to be as a writer. And I did a final replace.

Mike There are 22 was his in this chapter, and he's like, What? Like Yeah, but they're all supposed to be. They're like, You can't write a manuscript without the word was. I mean, you can, but it'll be a gimmick. So it's just that's the thing that I want to push back on because in the industry I only hear two sides of the hotel argument.

I hear people that are all you must be so you must be so you must be showy. They don't really understand what they're saying and they don't understand how to like when you ask them, okay, how do you do that? They're like, I don't know, just just be showy.

And then the other side is showing versus telling us a myth.

It doesn't exist. And I understand why they feel that way, because most of the industry can't explain what it is like, what me and you do when we break it down and we literally show you what it means to show versus tell.

But just because you know doesn't mean you use it every single second of every single sentence of every single moment in your story.

You literally can't like I, I summarize scene sometimes I have I had this discussion with with a friend of mine that I work with on his worldbuilding, and he was like, okay, but I'm afraid that I'm in for dumping in the scene. I'm like, You are, but it's fine. It is a relevant piece of information that's contained in one paragraph that communicates what the reader needs to know in order to understand this scene.

Yes, it's an introduction, but it's the right place for the info. Absolutely keep. But there's nothing wrong with it. Do not try and take this out. Do not try and show this. This is correct.

Yeah.

I just want to say something else briefly because I read the comments on our channel and predominantly respond to them. And we do get comments sometimes about like what you say is subjective and so on. And yes, okay. So here's the thing. Drake and I speak passionately and we speak as though our opinion is the only one that's important.

But it is an opinion

that the art of writing is a subjective one. The standard of writing is a subjective one. The quality of writing is it's all subjective. There isn't a hard and fast rule here, except as far as grammar is concerned. And even with grammar you can probably make some exceptions can.

Be subjective.

Because I mean, you know this, what is that? But I've never been able to get through this book because of the terms in it. The mockingbird one where they talk in that weird kind of slang way.

To Kill a mockingbird.

Yeah, I think it's the killer. A Clockwork Orange.

Grant. Yeah. Yeah.

I've never been able to get through it because of that, because of the way that I it's just too much like, work. But, but, you know, so all of these things are subjective. There's a, there's a book called House of Leaves, and in the middle of the book, there's two pages. The guy typeset that himself because the words do this like spiral inwards towards the center as like this weird print gimmick for, for this one.

scene, like, you know, you can do anything in a will it work? That's a different story. Right. But and that depends on whether the book finds its audience at House of Leaves that find an audience that a lot of copies of it have been sold. You know, Clockwork Orange is Fricking Famous. It's one of the classics. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's don't don't think that because we speak strongly and but we have strong opinions that we are unaware that these things are subjective.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's, that's why I'm saying I'm taking kind of an anti approach because you know, you're not going to get very further into the weeds on being a showy writer than what I try to be, And yet it still isn't about being. It's not about following every rule. It's about understanding why the rule exists and then using it to your advantage to impact the reader.

And so that's that's really what showing, you know, you kind of touched on it, but I want to I want to just nail it into the board as far as, you know, showing showing is there to take the reader deeper. It's there to force the reader to not just be told the story, but to see the story. Or if you go even deeper, to feel the story.

Yeah, and I do believe readers want that. I do believe that that is

there's a more modern style of writing now to make the readers actually be able to feel, you know, we as prose writers and I write in every medium

and every medium has advantages and disadvantages. But the biggest advantage of being a prose writer and the reason why I love prose above all other forms of storytelling is that it's the only one where you're painting directly on the reader's imagination.

With everything else. With everything else, you're actually using other senses to paint that. So like on a movie, you're using the sense of sound in the sense of sight to actually convey this stuff. So yeah, there is emotions and there's all of that, but you're still coming through things, you know, images and everything like that. You can't do that with words.

With words. They have to form those images in their heads. They have to form those emotions in their heads. They have to form the sounds in their heads. Everything comes from the brain. And there is something powerful about that. There is just something magical about prose writing that. No, that's a reason why you hear all the time. the the movie was good.

The book was better because it has a better.

Nothing nothing coming out of anybody else's imagination and showing it to your eyes is going to be as good as what you imagine in your head. Yeah, nothing.

Hundred percent. So so that's that's what's showing is however, it can be overdone. It can be used incorrectly. It can weigh down the story if you show everything you know, one of the things showing does is adds more words. When you add more words, you're slowing the pacing down of your story. Sometimes, not always, because it gets really weird.

So like when I'm writing action scenes, I am actually adding more words, but they feel faster. But that's in how you can structure sentences and your word choices and everything else. But I actually use more words, you know, like I'll have a page of a scene where 5 minutes or 8 minutes or 10 minutes of time will go by, and then I'll have a fight scene where I'll have an entire page where literally 3 seconds go by in the same amount of words.

Yeah. So but it feels that 3 seconds feels like it went by way faster than the five minute dialog scene or the ten minute dialog scene. So that has to do with a whole bunch of other factors. But regardless, when you show you're going to add words, you can't, you can't show quickly. And so as you said in the beginning of this so eloquently, do you want to finish the book eventually?

Like eventually you've got to, you know, get story told. And so it's the same thing. You mentioned the whole info dump thing, and that's kind of the thing this is a part of we want to tell versus showing what we don't want to do. And that's the thing that there's right ways and wrong ways to do it. Or there's I shouldn't say there's there's not right ways, wrong ways.

There is better practices that seem to be more successful with audiences than other methods. That's really what it is, I think.

I think that's what I very much want to emphasize here. An audience like almost any book can find an audience. It's about the size of the audience. You find, right? And some of that is marketing. A lot of it is luck, but a as a chunky portion of it is how well the reader connects to the opening chapter or the opening few paragraphs of the book that how and I'm saying this specifically because an easy connection for the reader is connecting them to a character right?

It is an easy connection to form between a reader and a character is to be like this character kind of like you. Can you associate with them or you interested in their story? But it doesn't have to be the character that you connect. You can connect the reader to the plot. You can connect the reader to the philosophical elements.

I mean, I like, I like drag. I do read the class. So I have read Commas The Stranger multiple times. And that book opens up with how boring the the that first person narrator finds the fact that his mother's thought right. But it's a it's a book about a philosophical exploration of does anything matter?

Yeah.

And if you connect to the reader either on your somatic element, right. Which is what Como does or on your plot element, which is what J.K. Rowling does in the opening of Harry Potter or with your character, the way that Susan Collins does in, you know, Hunger Games, Hunger Games wakes up immediately. We're in the scene of like this thing is coming or like as long as you connect to the reader in those opening paragraphs in some way, you're golden.

You got them.

And you saying all that makes you go, Man, I can't wait to hear actually success with this. So we can't have like multiple cameras because I actually want to do a commercial now. And it would be nice if I again went to the in other news, if you want to really practice this stuff, I do monthly workshops in the writers room that you can either join the writers room and get for free or you can just pick up on your own, you know, buy them separately.

And in this month's Writers

Workshop, we did exactly that. We did a couple of our workshop. We worked on what it was like or what you need to think about for connecting that reader as quickly as possible. In the opening of your story, in the opening of a scene, you know the different elements that you should look for.

And then we wrote it and we practice and we talked about it. And so it was a fantastic time we had for all. And if you would like to be included in that just head on over to writer's room dot U.S. and you can be a part of that too. And then I can turn back to the other camera.

But we only have one camera, so I'm just sitting in my chair. Is really all I'm doing. But anyway, no, that that is the thing. And that's really another thing that I want to talk about was the fact that I hate how people, how dumb people are when they equate success with how something was written. So you just mentioned Susan Collins like me and you hate first person, present tense.

We made it no secret that as readers.

I can't I can't read Hunger Games. I have to try to read and I cannot. And she's probably the best at first person present.

I would argue that that she is definitely the best at actually maintaining that feeling. But my problem is with the stupidity of the industry, because the reason why we have been inundated with first person present tense is because the industry went, Wow, Hunger Games was a success. Why? it must be because it was written in first person present tense.

Let's buy a whole bunch of first person present tense, because obviously that's what the readers want. Like, no, it was a great story that connected you quickly, that you cared about the characters, you cared about their plight. It sucked you in, it intrigued you, it stoked your imagination. It lit a fire under your emotions. It made you want to read it.

It also was successful.

It also was one of the best books in terms of actually maintaining cliffhanger that don't annoy the reader. Yeah, so a friend of mine calls it the Katniss in a tree factor, but she says every chapter, these are these there's a thread that resolves, but the chapter ends with Katniss in a tree and you're going, What happens next?

Yeah, well, that's what I try to do in all of my chapters too.

100%. But you don't maintain that level of, like, continuous danger, right? Because that book is basically just one danger label from next. But I mean, that is also different in genre, right? She's that is very much an adventure fantasy genre and it's written. It is a magnificent adventure fantasy genre from that perspective. Yet epic fantasy is slower. It just it just its nature is slower because.

You as fans want to learn more. They want to immerse.

You type you. You need to take your time, explore the world, do a little bit more like culture building and so on. And that's fun. Like these are just different genres. There's nothing wrong with it. Yeah, but that, that Katniss in a tree factor kept fans all the way through. Right? And she did cliffhangers, right? You didn't do what annoys me, which is like, let me just chop my scene off in the middle.

No, that's not a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger is when you resolve the conflict of the scene and then start the new conflict.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's that's a topic for a different podcast. Yeah, but my point is, is that so many people do that. So like during the research that our producer gave us and watching videos, yeah, one of them brought up Harry Potter, and I've heard this before, so this wasn't the first time I've heard it in the argument of no telling is good calling is good storytelling because Harry Potter, it's opening couple of paragraphs are tells.

And so obviously, obviously Harry Potter was successful because it starts off with a paragraph of tell and it had it been started off with a paragraph, a show wouldn't have been successful. And I'm just like, You're an idiot. So not that, not that YouTuber, but I'm just saying thinking that way isn't is just dumb to think like that because it had nothing to do with that.

If it started off in a show, it would have been just as successful because again, it's a story that resonates with the audience. Period. It just is better.

I do have to talk about Harry just briefly on the topic of Harry Potter. I know that it is a beloved book. Many adults have read it and all the rest of it, but it is a book aimed for middle grade.

Yeah.

And the first book absolutely reads like middle grade. It It reads like a slightly older, more grown up kind of Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton kind of book with that. And I'm not I'm not throwing stones. I'm not saying you're wrong to like it. I also have read Harry Potter multiple times, like, Yeah, but my point is that that telling us is very typical of that genre because you are writing for younger readers.

Yeah.

And younger readers need a more clarity of description. Yeah. Now she did do very well to make those opening paragraphs very engaging, despite being telling.

Now some of the peanut gallery just said something. And by the way, if you would like to join us, actually, I should do that.

And by the way, if you would like to join us while we're recording Releasing your Inner Dragon podcast, you absolutely can't. It is one of the things in the free area of the writers room.

So if you go to writer's room about us, you can join for free. And one of the things you did is you can join us as we record these every Thursday morning Pacific Standard Time from 932 about noon, and then I can

the other camera.

That's going be my thing. Now. I'm just going to was going to turn to my my imaginary second camera.

So I I'm actually talking about the second chapter. I'm not talking about the opening chapter when I'm talking about this at all. The opening chapter was omniscient because the P.O.V. was a baby and it had to be written in a completely different P.O.V.. I'm actually talking about when we open the story and Harry is under the stairs and he's waking up and you know, the Dursleys are getting ready and all of that.

So that's what I'm talking about. The opening paragraph. I mean, the opening paragraph of that chapter, you know, where we are in the story, where we are in third Person Ltd, where we are there it opens up in a very telling paragraph that with absolutely no show whatsoever in it. And that's not the reason why Harry Potter successful.

No, it's not. It would have been the exact same level of success had that first paragraph been showing it, you know, and that's really kind of where I'm getting to both me and you constantly are preaching the the the positivity of being an immersive writer, being an emotion writer, being a showy writer, being, you know, really dynamic writer and all of this stuff.

But at the end of the day, writing well does not sell books. Good storytelling sells books. And if you're a telly writer and you tell good stories, you're going to sell books. So this happened to me during convention season this last time. So I'm in an area that has a lot of authors and so people that are shopping the area are going from table to table to table with authors.

And so every author is trying to sell them their book, and I'm trying to sell them my book, too. I'm not going to lie, but I'm listening to everyone else and everyone else is doing the marketing thing. They're like, read the back blurb of my book, which is a marketing piece, and if you're traditionally published, you don't even write that.

It's just a it's a, it's a, it's an exciting thing to try to get you hooked into the story. And that is a good thing because again, I just said it's the story that's that people want to read, not necessarily the writing, but this time I chose to take a different route because I had been listening to this marketing pitch the whole way.

So I decided to give a non marketing pitch. And so when they came up to my booth, I would say, Hey, look, I don't have a marketing pitch for you. You can read the back blurb if you want, but that's just marketing what I recommend and I would hand on the book on page one. So what I recommend is read a page or two.

If I can't show you that I'm a good writer in a page or two, then you probably shouldn't buy my book. Every single person who read it went, Wow, you're really good writer now. Every person that read it didn't buy the book, but half did. Maybe even a little bit more than 50%. I wasn't keeping track of like what my percentage was, but it was at least half would be like, Yeah, I want this.

I want a copy. So, I mean, I'm in a fantasy convention. The vast majority of people there are fantasy fans, but a lot of them are, you know, the other half of them were like, Wow, you're this is like, my goodness, I feel this scene. This is it's not my thing. I'm not you know, this is not a book that I would read, but wow, you can read and they didn't buy.

And the eye opening experience for that for me was, again, good writing doesn't sell books, good stories, sell books. What they're interested. And it is a very subjective thing. And so because you know and I'm I am taking risks in that book, I start you in a non-human character. I start you in a fairly slow way. There's some there's some risks that I'm taking for that opening chapter, and I'm fine with it.

I'm happy with how I start that book. But to cold call people who've never heard of me and hand them that as my opening chapter, as the opening thing that they're going to read from me is definitely taking a risk. So, yes, you should write well. But why? Why? If if good writing doesn't sell books, then why should we be pushing ourselves to do it?

Because it cuts through the noise. There's so much white noise out there, it does separate me from the pack. It does make people who who would would be interested in my story, but also interested in the person next to me story. It makes them make that choice easier because they go, I'm interested in both stories, but man, this one's well written.

I'm going to get this. And so it does help me cut through that white noise. And it also keeps them coming back because they know they're getting a high quality of work, whereas if the writing isn't as immersive, isn't as emotional, isn't as gripping, they may put the book down and forget to come back to it. I mean, we've all done that.

We've all been in a book that was it was enjoyable. We were having a good time with. And then for whatever happens, life happens and you put it down one night and the next day you don't get back to it, the next day you don't go back to it. The next week you don't get back to it. And eventually, you know, seven months go by and you're cleaning your nightstand.

You're like, totally forgot about this book that's now buried under a bunch of stuff. And you're like, I don't remember anything about it. So I would have to restart it, but I don't remember that it really, you know what? I'm just gonna put on my show. And if you don't finish somebody's book, you'll never buy their second.

So I do just want to get us back on track. On when to tell. So. So we've discussed why it's a myth that you should all tell or I'll show. You need a combination of the two. So to bring us back on track. When is telling better than show in your book?

There's actually quite a few reasons

the the biggest would probably be

when it's redundant. You know if you've already shown something and then you know you're coming back to the same thing, maybe you've already shown a character and you're bringing that character back in or you've shown an event. You know, in my class I talk about, I use this monster attack in the beginning, and then when I get to this point, I talk about, But now Drake is going to tell his wife about the monster attack.

We don't want to show him telling his wife about the monster attack because we were there. We lived it with Drake, so we literally are good with Drake. Just going, you know, with the narration just going. And then Drake told his wife about the monster attack because we already lived through it. We know all the emotions of it, so that would probably be one big way.

Yeah, absolutely. Summarizing hundred percent though, do not try to show, you know, characters informing other characters about things that the audience has already seen. The only time when you want to do that is when the other characters reaction is going to tell the audience something. And even then summarize what they say and then just show the reaction, right?

Yeah, but still don't repeat the information. But so flip between that. But but you never want to give the audience the information twice.

And this goes back to what, you know, the people that do it, they always have the same reason or similar reason where they're like, But this character doesn't know the information.

The character needs to be told, right?

The character needs this information. It's like the character is not real. They don't exist. They don't need anything. Literally, the only thing that's real is the reader. And they already have the information. So all your.

Questions are the.

Same information to the same person.

The character can be told off screen and can act as though they already know the information. And you know what? The reader will go in their head. They'll be like, they must have told them during one of the scenes that is not on the page.

Yeah, you could literally the scene that I was just talking about, you could literally, you know, start the scene with, you know, Drake was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal when his wife walked in. I can't believe you survived that attack. It sounded horrendous. And you're like,

He must've told her last night.

When it came over about that thing. So, yeah, it's because there is only one thing. There's only one thing and that's the reader.

Yeah.

So everything you're doing is you're just doing it to the reader. So when you give the information twice, you're just giving it twice to the reader.

100%. It's absolutely one the the other, the other place where you want to go faster occasionally is transitions. Guy So if you're transitioning that a week passes, you do not want to show a week passing. You want to skim through that week passing a week passed while they studied in the library, you know, show us the output of their study.

No one cares how long it took them to understand the quantum mechanics of your magic system. Yeah, or whatever.

Or, you know, the story starts in New York, and then it needs to go to Chicago, but nothing happens on the train ride to Chicago. You don't write a scene where they actually go down and buy a ticket and get on the train and do all this stuff and watch the trees go by and all this stuff because nothing happens.

Just say. And then they got on a train. Chicago into that chapter. Next chapter. Drake steps off the train and breathes in the Chicago Air like, There we go. Done. We're there.

So absolutely. Transitions are great. Then the other one, people.

Wait, wait, there's. There's more transitions in that. But that that I think so like one of the that and just transitioning in a scene so like I will transition from like in the moment to more of an esoteric or kind of introspective moment And then and I'm very big on making sure that I transition both out of the, the, the, the scene at the moment by moment, play into a more introspective and then back.

And I will usually do something cheesy like, you know, a loud bang ripped Drake back to the current situation or something like that because I'm just it's just it's all about the reader. And so I want the reader to know, hey, I know I kind of went off the deep end on, you know, Drake imagining this other stuff or thinking about this thing or or wondering about whatever.

And I took you down this mental path. But you know what? I need you back here, and I'm not just going to slam you in the face with you're just back here. Unless, I mean, sometimes that actually works. It depends on what's going on. But most of the time it's just, okay, now let me transition and bring you out of this introspective and back into we're in this room, we're doing this thing and I'm going to do so a little tele line to do that transition works beautifully because again, the only thing that's real is the reader, and they just need a moment to go.

right, right, right. Okay. Back we're back now in the thing. And so a little tele line works great for stuff like that.

Yeah. And I mean, the same applies to like you just you said it with a travel thing. The same applies to things like meals and less. The meal is important in some way unless you're going to world bold food through food, which I often do, and you're going to have an important conversation on the meal, which yes, to be fair often, but it isn't like you can just go, They had dinner, look at that.

They had lunch or whatever, you know.

Like and you can also do that stuff off scene and assume that they did it like, yes, I know some authors write fantasy, but a lot of emphasis on No, I need my readers to know when my character pees and poops and I need to make sure that I put that in there because there are real person and and as the little book says, everyone poops.

And I'm like, yeah, or, or you can just assume that they do it because I'm not going there.

The, the other thing I think that is important and that that I don't see covered all that often is sometimes you need to tell to make sure that the reader understands a specific thing that is important because the thing about showing is showing can be unclear. Okay? Because if you show like let's say you show your magic and whatever, okay?

The reader gets a good grasp perhaps of how the magic works. And so on. But that's never going to have the clarity of like this is how it works. Right? Right. And if you have a very and I thing that is absolutely critical for the reader to fully comprehend, it is worth putting in like a paragraph of a line or something that just makes it clear to the reader like, this is the thing you need to understand.

Yeah. The only thing that I will caveat that because this is where. So like if you go back and find an out-of-print copy of my first book, I will do this a lot where I'll show and then tell you that stuff like this, that is just because of one of two things. And usually both. One, you're not confident enough in your writing ability, so you're like, I showed, but I don't know if the reader is going to get it.

Yeah. Or, you know, the other way around where it's like, I need to tell. But then I, I also want to show it. And so it's just that you just don't trust your readers enough to get it. So either you don't trust yourself enough that you've delivered the message or you don't trust the reader enough that they're going to get it from your show.

And so you tell. And so so be careful of that. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is, you know, we're going to show the depths of this emotion or something like that, and then we're going to tell them kind of like maybe there's a political thing or there's a family dynamic or something like that that we just don't want the reader to miss.

And so we're going to say, you know, something like, Whatever. I always hate writing off the top of my head, But but whatever the situation is that we're like, let the reader miss this.

In in in my political scenes, occasionally when the when the wordplay becomes very detailed on like the world building and references and you know, the like that double speak moment I will have the character basically think the tell.

Right with it be like he's only saying that because if he doesn't someone's going to die like because you just don't quite. It's so important that when you want to go ahead and double dip.

You don't want to you don't want the reader want the reader to get lost. And the problem with those kinds of scenes are they are so dependent on knowing the details of the world that you might have if you're a casual reader, that I don't want to have the reader go like, what does this mean again? You know, So I give them that information right there.

Yeah. So there's there's there's another way that I never see anyone talking about towels. And I've never seen this. I've actually never even heard anybody even talk about this outside of me. Another thing that I use tells for is to give the reader permission for how they're feeling. So let's say something happens. The story and the character reacts in a way that is just really on like has like you're like you as the reader are thinking, this is really odd that this person is doing it.

The problem with that is, is that a lot of readers are going to blame themselves for that feeling. They're not going to go, wow, this character just overreacted for no reason. So obviously something that was said pushed this character the wrong way, or you know, this is a touchy subject for them or whatever. They're going to go, I missed something.

Let me go back and reread because this is really out of context and I just so it's obviously me, the reader who has done this. So doing a little telling line and a lot of times it'll be in the narration or the character thinking of, you know, the character then goes, Wow, that was an overreaction. And then what that does is it actually gives the reader permission to know that they're feeling right, that they're actually feeling what they should be feeling that now that was an overreaction, like so that they don't because I don't want them thinking that they've done something wrong.

I want them focusing on the fact that the character overreacted. And some will some readers will absolutely just follow through that, hit the overreaction and go, Wow, this character's overreacting, but a lot of readers will blame themselves. And I don't want that. I don't want you thinking about, did you miss something? I want you to thinking about the fact that the character over and over, whatever, whatever it is.

And so I do like those little towels in there because it it literally gives the reader permission to feel like they're like, Wow, I'm really confused. I don't know whose head I'm in. And then the character goes, Wow, I don't I don't know whose head I'm in. And you're like, okay, cool. I should be feeling the way I'm feeling.

Or that was an overreaction or this seems bigger than it should be or whatever it is, whatever. There's a million ways that goes it. But those little and it is a little telling line, but it's just that little moment to to tell the reader, Hey, I just made you feel the way that you probably are confused by or, you know, feel that you shouldn't be feeling what the character feels that way too.

So your good like and that's all that is. And I just don't think anybody thinks about that when they think about some really good ways to tell within the writing.

So I yeah, I agree with that with that point very much and I think we've covered more or less why you would sometimes want to tell. But I also want to talk about how to tell without losing the reader, like how to tell, you know, in a way that keeps the reader engaged. And one of them we've already touched on in every, every example that we've given, which is balancing the techniques.

Right. Give me some show and then move me through the tell, you know, or give me a tell that leads into a show and give me the show. Summarize what is being said and then give me the emotional reaction. Yeah,

and you can absolutely do that in a balance. But I think another way is to is to make sure that you're told I have got good, strong language that your tells are still written in an engaging fashion.

if you would like more hints on that. In a past episode of Releasing Your Dragon, we actually did an episode on using Strong Verbs, so you should probably check that out in a past video

But yeah, so, so you know, you can, you can if you think again on that, on that first chapter of of Harry Potter, the reason why people hold it up as a good telling is because it was interesting, but it says it sets up this perfectly normal, boring family and then goes something strange and mysterious is going on.

Right.

And that is the that is the hook.

Yeah.

Right. That's what you got going on. And so when you're telling, that doesn't mean that you should write. They had dinner, right? You know, they enjoyed a sumptuous dinner. They they ate magical pheasants like whatever it still make sure that you're writing in an engaging fashion even when you're telling.

Yeah. And then I think the biggest mistake that a lot of new writers make is I don't think they understand kind of what we mean when we say show versus tell because they're like, Well, well, I mean, the room has tan walls and bookshelves running along the wall. How do I show that? Well, it's a description. You don't show that.

I mean, you can you can you can make it personal. So there's that thing that I use from my writing class right up at the backyard. And then I write it in a very showy way, but I'm still just describing the backyard. But man, if you did that in every single scene, if you did that in every single building that you walked past and every room.

White Yeah, it would just be a word salad of insanity. So you only do that like in that scene, he's in his backyard from his childhood. His father is dead. He's feeling all of these emotions while he's reminiscing about his childhood. That's what the scene is about. And then I also describe the backyard at the same time. But if I'm just walking into a random library and I'm looking at some random books, like if I have that level of visceral emotion to everything or thing, it's just going to be this melodramatic piece of garbage that no one's going to want to read.

So when we're talking about because they're like, Well, how do I know you don't You just do it. The trick for me is, again, as you said, it's about balance.

So what I don't want to see as a reader and what I don't do as a writer is I don't start a scene with a page of this is what everything looks like, this is what the room looks like and the chairs look like, and the thing looks like an and the blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

And then get you into the character's head. I do it constantly, you know, I always say, like for scene setting, what you're what I do is I'm constantly having the POV interact with the setting, the setting, interact with the P.O.V. or the setting, interact with the setting. And I always have to define what I mean by setting, setting as everything that isn't the P.O.V..

So it could be character one talking to character two that are both secondary characters. That's the setting, interacting with the setting that lets me know, you know, like maybe, maybe me and Marie walk into a room and then Marie turns to the the woman behind the desk and says, Hey, could you help us out a minute? Well, look what I just did.

There's a woman behind the desk. We just found out there's a woman. The desk is Marie. A secondary character in the story has just interacted with a tertiary character in the story boom scene setting. I didn't have to go say, you know, Marie and Drake walked into the the room. On one side of the room was this with this woman sitting behind and on the other side of the room was this and this was over here and this was like this and this was here and this was that.

And this was this and this and this. And then start the scene. I can literally just have the scene unfolding. And so it's that balance of is that a tell when Marie turns to talk to the woman behind the desk? Yeah, sure. It's just but it's one line here and one line there. It isn't. It's just so much more palatable because then there's going be dialog which is showy and emotions and and interactions and actions and all sorts of things.

And so that's going to make the scene so much more interesting.

I also I just want to talk about showing at the macro level. Yeah. Because this is a thing that I, I struggle to explain to newer writers. So I'm going to try and see if I can get this clear cut. You don't just show in a scene. Yeah. You show in your whole story what your character is like and your character's personality is evident in their behavior throughout the story, right?

If your character is a go getter, that should be they should be protagonist thing throughout the story, right? If they're more of a laid back person and the plot kind of sweeps them along, they should be doing that. There is a massive cognitive dissonance when I see the character behaving in one way and then you verbally tell me in your story somewhere something that doesn't match this.

So and this is particularly relevant in a relationship writing arc, whether it's friendship, whether it's romance, relationships, whatever that you can you can you can have characters look at each other and say, I love you and it's a tell, but says they love each other. But if their behavior in the book is gaslighting or abusing each other, or never remembering each other or otherwise behaving like really despicable human beings, and then you're like, it's a loving relationship because they say, I love you to each other.

No, I hate to break it to you, but you spent the whole book showing me that this person is an abusive ahole. The other person saying, I love you because they've been gaslit into believing it does not make them not an A-hole. Yeah, this. But recently you happened to be in a book that I've read, which is why I.

And yeah, because in that case what you're doing is you're showing that the use of the words is brutal. Yeah. So I may or.

May be showing me and what you're telling me these things are not much and.

I may or may not have had a relationship in my past that this is back when CDs were the thing and when she got in her car every morning to go to work. The song from Extreme more than Words may have been the song that was cued up to play every single morning, which is it's basically the song is like, What would you do if I took the words I love you away from you.

Yeah, how would you show me that you love me if you could no longer say the words I loved you so I may or may not have gone out every night at 2:00 in the morning and broke into her car and. And put that song as the song that would play every single morning for like a month when she was going to work.

I may or may not have done that, but but yeah, that's the exact thing it was, You know, I was in a relationship that she showed me that she, you know, things other than love. But she thought that because she said the words that it should be fine. And so I was trying to be poetic and say, you don't get those words anymore.

Like, if you're if we're going to be in a relationship together, show me that you love me. Don't just keep telling me this because the actions that you do are different from just the words that you're saying. I'm. We're not together anymore. Yeah. Anyway, so. Yeah, but that's the thing. And I was trying with that. I'm trying to show her that the words are actually a negative.

So if that, if this author was doing that and trying to show because that would have resonated well with me because I did live through that relationship.

So psychologically, this also was not this author I like. It's a it's an unpublished book that I'm busy by the reading critic. And I was like, this is what I see in the relationship at the end it was two sisters. I was like, This is what I see in the relationship between these two sisters. And the author said to me, No, they're in they're they're loving siblings.

I'm like.

Never going to say It is as.

If you're telling me that. But I promise you they're not.

Going to ask. It was written by my ex, but probably not. I know we were, and it wasn't really anything on her. We were just too young to be in that relationship. But anyway, yeah. No.

So. So my point is, you don't just show in a scene. Yes. Everybody talks about the showing that you do in a scene. Absolutely. But the book is a whole show of the character's behavior because the character behaves somewhat even when you're telling the character, you're telling how the character is behaving, and you build up the character's behavior and then you turn around and you tell me, actually, this character is like this, which doesn't match the entire book that I've read.

I'm not going to believe you.

Yeah. So, yeah.

So what else did you not tell?

I think that you should not tell whenever you are, whenever you've got deep emotions going on. But whenever it's emotional, impactful, like it's an emotional peak, you want to go deep on the show and you want to hit all the nuts. And whenever you are basically as you're ramping up the climax, when you're getting to like, show me the voice, stop.

Don't tell me how pretty it is when I'm climaxing. Take me through the climax.

100%.

Yeah, when we that beaver.

I say anything about that. But yes, I mean, the only thing I have on my list that we haven't talked about is really kind of back a little ways. But it's it's when to tell and it does kind of tie in to the emotions. So I was going to bring it up because we passed over it. But it does tie in here.

The flip of that is if you're being melodramatic. Yeah, like when you look at your stuff and, and this isn't really that you should tell, it's that you should show a little less. So there is a difference between being wounded emotionally and just being a whiny little bitch. Now it's going to go differently, but yeah, so, and I don't mean you should tell that.

I don't think you should go. well, let me go the other way because that's just pendulum swinging to the other side. It just needs to tone it down a little bit. Like, you know, we don't need rivers of pain and anguish and, you know.

All this we do, right? If you I mean, for example, let's say that your wife died like I would expect rivers of anguish. I would expect the anguish to be drooping off the page. You know. no, that's not good.

But yeah, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, there could be. But you just what you want to read on those is have I crossed the line from dramatic to melodramatic. Yes. You want to be dramatic and you want to push it in a case like that, you want to push it to the absolute limit of being very richly dramatic, but just no, that in in all dramatic scenes there is a line and when you cross that line, you cross into melodramatic territory and then it becomes annoying.

So it becomes a yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Do your wife die, Get over it. Like, dear God, I think we know we get it. And you don't want your readers feeling that way about your character, their feelings, their past away wife. Like that's not where we want to be. And there is that line you can push it to that Leaving on something is as heartfelt and as touching as that.

You can push it to the point of, okay, great, no one cares anymore

because you've just inundated them with that. So that's and again, it's not about telling, it's about just backing off the showing so that you're not crossing into that melodramatic area.

100%. And I think that that's a pretty good place to end this episode.

See, and I will.

See you soon.

For another one. I,

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