"Show don't tell?" What does that mean? Part I

Every starting author has probably heard the same statement from an editor, teacher, or the rare publisher that actually renders opinions on your pieces: "There's too much telling." Ah, what a frustrating phrase for the young writer to hear. Unfortunately, all to often the young, aspiring writer is left to draw his or her own conclusions. Is this some statement out of the writer's necronomicon? Is there some password you should reply with?

In fact, this falls into that category of phrases that are easier to understand than explain. I often wish that, as a teenager, someone would have sat the aspiring writer down and explained this. Instead, the few readers who actually rendered useful input confused the implied author with the actual author. It wasn't until I entered grad school and my thirties that I actually understood what was wrong. Here, for your benefit, I will explain several ways beginning authors make these mistakes and correct them in the future.

"To Be" a Story Teller

"Bernhardt Hamlet2" by Lafayette Photo, London

Did you know: Russian and Arabic do not have a word for "am"? It's true. When giving one's name in either language, one simply says, "I Oren." (Or likely a name people actually have aside from yours truly.) The same goes for any construction of the English verb "to be". Neither language has this word in the present tense. In Arabic, when statements of this type require the use of state-of-being, they are quite verbose to the English speaking ear. The sentence "The car is outside" translates (and retranslates) as "The car exists outside." Similarly, the statement "I have a cat" would translate as "It exists my cat ," though it does not sound so awkward in Arabic.

English and the novice writer often have the same failing, a dependence on what their characters are, who is speaking, and what I am writing. Such strict reliance on this verb is the key of a story, but a novel (story, book, even poem) has two parts: Story and plot. Russian formalists used to call these fabula and syuzhet; although literary theorists no longer favor formalism, the terms are still useful. How a story is told is equal in importance to the actual story. In fact, realist novels prove that plot can be more important than story--since in true realist novels nothing actually happens.

Go back through your piece. (It's always easier to edit something after it is finished.) Count how many sentences have "was," "is," or other conjugations of the verb "to be." If entire languages, entire cultures, entire literature collections, can exist without the word "to be"--look at the brilliance of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, or the Arabian Nights--then maybe your story can as well. How many verbs can you change to "action verbs?"

Such an important word "be." Shakespeare stated it as the ultimate question (and Adams later told us that the answer was 42). This word is so important that, unlike Russian and Arabic, Spanish has two different words for this one English equivalent: Ser and estar. In English, we say, "I am Paul. I am from America. I am in Mexico. I am tired." But in Spanish, the speaker must know the difference between what one always is and what one is right now. 

Give this little verb its respect. Your characters will still be whatever they actually are, even if you say, "He rose to his feet, bracing against his good knee for leverage" instead of "He is old and has arthritis." Now, verbs, ACTIVATE. What can your character do that would show us what they are? Replace these states of being with words that get your characters moving. Embracing the plot is the key to telling a good story.

Next week: How description helps us show, not tell.

Search Results Most people understand the difference even if they can't define it. The "good joke" becomes a bad joke if told poorly. A good story is never a good piece of writing simply because it happens.