From Telling to Showing

Writers of fiction are consistently told, and rightfully so, to “show, don’t tell.” In other words, a reader wants to see the story unspool, not be told what happened. As I read fiction I see showing and telling as two opposite poles on a continuum. And as I write fiction I find that I nearly always need to tell the story before I can show it. Early drafts are a lot of telling in order to simply get the story down. As I continue on a project, the core effort becomes moving the manuscript as far down the continuum toward showing as the narrative needs and my skill will allow.

This effort has become highly evident in my current project. I’m several drafts in and there is still a lot of telling weighing down the potential of the narrative. Future drafts will be an effort to root out these patches of telling, or of reporting events via a narrator. The goal is to show the events of the story to the reader so they can observe and make their own decisions about how the characters behave and take action. This opportunity to make such judgements is why we read fiction.