The Indie Novella Writing Course
Lesson 7 - Show vs Tell
Exposition refers to the set-up of your story; laying out the who, what, where, and perhaps some of the why. It is one of the biggest challenges we face as writers, as you need to show what your scenario is, but the trick is not to report, tell or explain it. Beware the info-dump.
We are storytellers, so what’s so wrong with telling a story? Consider taking a trip and coming home to regale your friends with all your adventures. When you tell a story, you are passing on information. On your trip you may have reached a waterfall and jumped from the top, thirty feet, into a pool at the bottom. And when you tell your friends about it this might be exactly how you summarise the experience. You might describe the whole trip in the span of a conversation and even blog about it, giving details of the taxi ride from the airport, the hotel room just off the beach and your guided walks through a rainforest. But you would not do this in a novel.
In a novel your reader wants to experience what you did. To feel the same sensations that you did when you took that step off the top and plunged into the waters below. It is not enough just to say it happened or simply list what took place – we hiked for an hour, it was hot, we heard running water, saw the pool below and jumped. That’s all fine but it nowhere near encapsulates the adrenalin coursing through you veins as you stood at the top looking down. One of the hardest parts of writing is moving away from telling a story, to showing the story, vividly, like your reader was there with you. By showing, we bring the reader into the story and make them a first-hand eyewitness to the events so they are completely invested in the story.
Exposition
One of the key challenges we face as writers is how to jump straight into the action without your reader asking, what the hell is going on? We want our readers to know who our characters are and what has brought them to the situation they are in. Exposition refers to the background or context a reader needs to know for the story to make sense. It is largely relevant at the beginning of a piece of writing, when we need to build a world and introduce our characters, but we also see it creeping into a narrative to move the story along, as the time span develops along with further layers of story. Some authors feel they need to explain away the time between important scenes. And this can be reasonable: if your story takes place over a period of five years, this passage of time needs realistic indication. But you can’t be expected to show every scene across that time period and nor does the reader need to have this explained. Telling allows a writer to quickly summarise events when needed, however there are ways we can do this by also showing.
In our lesson on Character, we discussed how describing a character’s physical characteristics can convey deeper elements of change in a character. So, descriptions of your characters at fixed moments can help convey lengths of time and cover key incidents having happened: ‘He coughed hard. It was his third bout of flu in as many months and as he sat at his desk he felt doughy and languid, resenting the weak man who had neither the will or energy to leave the house in a year.’
Exposition can also be conveyed through dialogue, the thoughts or points of view of your characters or descriptions, particularly how they change, scene setting, or flashbacks. Some writers use props like newspaper articles, letters and even text messages to bring in backstory. Exposition does not need to be done and finished in one go. A tip for new writers is to compile all the backstory you have for your characters or your setting and drip feed it into your narrative so your reader gradually builds up a more complete picture.
Other tips to handle expositions include:
• Utilise dialogue. Dialogue can break up long sections of exposition and bring the reader back into the room and remind them that the action is ongoing.
• Contrasting the extraordinary with the mundane. It can be vdery striking to describe a seemingly normal scene or normal character and add something the reader would not expect for specific effect. It seeps into the reader’s consciousness.
• Leave it to the reader’s imagination. You don’t have to answer all the questions are reader might have. The braver approach as a writer is to let your reader make the connections and interpretations themselves.
• Offer up the most intriguing details first. Exposition, when it is limited and done well, can be a very useful hook for your reader. Adding in one detail at a time can draw your reader in and have them wanting to read on.
How to stop Telling
As we have said, Showing, as opposed to Telling, allows the reader to experience expository details of a novel through actions, speeches, sensory details, or the characters’ emotions, rather than simply read the author’s description of events or simply telling you what is happening in narration. Telling can feel distanced and unengaging and we can often revert to unimaginative writing, like using a stock adjectives, for example saying a character feels worried, or is happy-go-lucky. Instead, we can leave this to the reader to infer by utilizing the below techniques:
Dialogue and Interactions
Double edge sword here. Taking a block of exposition and placing speech marks around it does not suddenly make it showing. Dialogue can provide a reader with an array of information about your characters just through tone or word choices. It can convey narrative details and infer to the reader background, education and the differences between two characters. One may speak in a blunt, hardboiled manner where the other could struggle getting to the point. When using dialogue the key is to make it sound natural, i.e. NOT “Hey Katy, remember the Parliament Act of 1984, the one that essentially outlawed the use of harbour markets and hence closed the loophole of buying and selling stolen goods? Funnily enough…” A reader will see through your writing if you simply take a block of exposition and put it in speech marks.
Take the opening of Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread. With just a few opening lines to set and describe the scene we are immediately into dialogue between Abby and Red and the aftermath of a short telephone conversation with their son, Denny. Through only the dialogue – the character’s specific words – and descriptions of their immediate actions we quickly understand the personalities of the Abby and Red and the situation they are in.
The dynamic between Abby and Red also comes across in this interaction. The scene also avoids too many words describing emotions. It allows us to piece together the relationship for ourselves and make our own connections. The interaction is dramatized rather than simply described, and it also avoids an outpouring of emotions that can feel unbelievable.
Strong verbs and active sentences
This is hugely important and something that usually takes an author at least their first draft to grasp. First, keep adverbs to a minimum. These can be the enemy of engaging writing. Even “he walked quietly” or “she ran quickly” provides the reader with information they could otherwise infer. This choice of words is so commonplace, they hinder your ability to paint a picture and engage the reader. One strong verb that is descriptive and specific, instead of a general, ordinary verb plus an adverb, serves the dual purpose of making your writing more vivid while decreasing your word count. “He crashed into the room”, “the kite soared above the trees”, “her face soured”.
The overuse of adverbs to explain how your characters are feeling takes away from the strength of your writing. We see this a lot in dialogue. ‘“Why are we waiting here?” she said sulkily.’ The writer is telling the reader how the character is feeling. ‘She hunched her shoulders, staring down at the ground, kicking a small pebble with the tip of her toe. “Why on Earth are we waiting here?” she exhaled.’ Your characters and their actions can speak for themselves. In a play you do not have notes after each line directing an actor how it should be read. The same applies with a novel. Your job as an author is to put enough into your writing for the reader to interpret these emotions themselves.
Also, understand the difference between Active and Passive sentence structures. A sentence is passive when its subject is acted upon. ‘The coin was dropped into the well by Brandon.’ An active sentence is where the subject is acting. ‘Brandon dropped the coin into the well.’ If you notice you are using words like was, were, are this is normally a sign of passive writing. Again, it is nearly impossible to eliminate such words from our novel, in fact passive phrases can aid varying your pacing at times if you are looking to slow things down. Instead note that the use of active sentences and unusual words gets the reader’s attention.
Similes and metaphors
These provide another tool to engage your reader and make your showing more effective. Rather than simply collating adjectives and verbs to describe your characters, you could pick out a comparison that will have your reader visualising the scene. Similes and metaphors help your own writing stand out. You can create ones unique to you and your characters. By avoiding clichés, such as ‘Sarah was sharp as a tack’, and instead taking time to think up a phrase like, ‘if brains were dollars Sarah would own Chicago and most of Illinois too’, it adds something interesting to your narrative. Clichés that people have heard over and over will usually fail to spark a picture in a writer’s mind.
Evoke the creative freedom within yourself to use figurative language as if it were a canvas and paint something unique and original. Allow your reader to experience the sensation of the scene and pass on the sensory experience to the reader. ‘The words drilled into his head,’ ‘the wind scratched and clawed at her face’.
Be cautious though not to throw similes and metaphors into every description as too much ingenuity may slow down the pace and wear out the reader. Rather, waiting to use the occasional well-chosen image can lift your writing immensely.
Do not be afraid to allow your reader to interpret events for themselves
This tip applies to avoiding adverbs, as discussed above, and applies even more so on the broader level of storytelling. Sensory details and descriptions as a way of advancing your story can be far more evocative to a reader than simply explaining backstory. Again, this is a challenge to all writers as telling is a lot easier than working through how not to tell and how to evoke instead. Filling a scene with sensory details enables the reader to visualise the setting and allows your characters to interact with a fully realised world. In many ways it’s the very essence of ‘Show, vs Tell’. Compare these 2 examples:
• Ali spent the next week grief-stricken after the passing of his grandfather.
• It was days until he next left the house. He used to love watching the autumn leaves fall, but he turned away from the winder. He remained on his bed staring at the walls, his body listless, barely able to roll on its side and unable to catch sight of the vibrant, red wooden train his grandfather had carved for him.
There is no need to tell us Ali is depressed, or is trying not to cry. Actions can relay so much more. Put your reader in the scene and make them feel what your characters are feeling.
Indirect characterisation is another tool when showing rather than telling. Direct characterization is a simple description that tells the reader what a character is like, for example, Nero was a tyrant. Indirect characterisation creates a scene that shows exactly what made Nero a tyrant. Look back at Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread and see just how much indirect characterisation is done as opposed to how little is direct.
Remember, characters we observe first hand, witnessing their good or bad qualities, stay with us compared to those we are told are good, bad, deceitful or otherwise.
Inner Voice and Writing from your character’s POV
To identify and empathise with your characters, a reader needs to get inside your protagonist’s head and see the world from their perspective. This can be done regardless of whether the novel is in the first or third person. Take one POV at a time and relay their thoughts and emotions. If writing in the first person, you can use your character’s voice but it is just as important to do this in the third person. In our lesson on Style we explored Free Indirect Discourse. This describes how, in the third person, a narrator can enter their character’s heads by presenting their world view as if it was the narrator’s. An internal voice can shine through by echoing a character’s thoughts in narration and exploring your character’s personality. ‘Dave bit into the sandwich. What on Earth? Greg knew he hated peanut butter. This wasn’t a mistake. It was retaliation. No shop to go for miles and not even a vending machine in this poor excuse of a school.’
Even if not using Free Indirect Discourse, we still want a reader to experience feelings and emotions which are unique to your character. The use of specific details, and choosing adjectives and verbs carefully allows the reader to inhabit the character, see what they see and interpret the sounds as they would interpret them. Hence, try to avoid generalized details and cliches and instead create a voice that feels true and unique, relaying intimate knowledge and phrases specific to that character and touching upon the levels of intimacy of their relationships with others. Make it clear to a reader that this is your character’s experience, and is unique to them only.
Editing for Show vs Tell
In conclusion, there are a lot of little things you can do to aid Show vs Telling, which will make your story infinitely more engaging for a reader. By looking out for passive sentences and making them active instead, removing adverbs and thinking carefully about the choice of verbs and adjectives, we can transform the flow of our writing and bring our characters and scenes to life.
Ask An Expert
This week, in anticipation of Week 9’s Masterclass with David Godwin Associates, we have literary agent Philippa Sitters sharing her thoughts on Exposition and Showing / Telling.
When talking about Showing and not Telling, what advice would you give authors?
It is such a style thing. I would rather be shown, but it is storytelling and I won’t be put off if someone tells me a story in a traditional way, because that is their technique. But is someone is walking you around a house and showing you everything and not giving you any room to use your own imagination then it is probably off putting and feels a little basic.
Weekly Writing Exercise
This week we’re keeping it simple and asking you to get creative. We’re going to TELL you a story and, in return, we ask that you SHOW us the story back. All should become clear in the example below.
When Rabih meets his client, an unflappable Scottish woman named Kirsten, he quickly falls deeply in love. Soon they are dating, and after a year the couple will marry and encounter major challenges along with the banality of domestic life. Over the course of 13 years, they will have a daughter followed by a son, and one will have an affair. The dynamics of Rabih and Kirsten are those of a typical couple: in addition to everyday disputes and flashes of romance, traumas of the past resurface in unexpected ways. Both individuals have experienced nearly symmetrical losses in their childhood: Rabih lost his mother to cancer at age 12, and Kirsten was abandoned by her father as a young girl. As a result, even Rabih’s overnight business trip can cause Kirsten disproportionate distress, and a large pile of dirty laundry triggers in Rabih traumatic memories of war-torn Beirut.
We’ve TOLD you a lot about Rabih and Kirsten’s relationship. Now SHOW us as much as you can about their relationship in just one scene.