I just finished the edits my editor requested on Miner. Most of it turned out to be comments by her: Telling. Show me this.
So, I’m going to put up five sentences from books and have you tell me if they are telling or showing and if you think they are telling rewrite them to make them showing.
2) And his hair, Mimi thought disbelievingly staring up at him, was perfet.
3) He knew he'd botched it even before he heard her quiet intake of breath.
4) She shook off the fanciful feeling and straightened her shoulders.
5) Immediately, the smells of wild onions and animal tallow filled his head.
7 comments:
I feel your pain, Paty. I'm a writer of extremes. In my first drafts I either show too much or tell too much. I'm constantly going back and editing as I write to make sure I have a good balance.
Unlike other writers, I don't think you should "show" everything. Personally, a book full of showing slows down the pace. "He lifted his hand, wiped the sweat from his brow, returned his hand to his side..." Ugh. Booooring. Sometimes a one line "telling" sentence here or there gets the point across in a much faster way and speeds up the pace. So I guess you could say I like a good balance.
As I look at the list you posted, I don't see anything glaringly wrong with any of the sentences. The problem (in my mind) arises when you read an entire book and see an author telling over and over and over, or showing the boring parts over and over and over. And that's probably what your editor was getting at - not that you "told" but that you were doing it repeatedly.
I just sent Stolen Heat to my editor. She'd already read it, but in my revisions (which were minor) I ended up cutting 6K words. SIX THOUSAND WORDS! Granted, I did alter a couple of scenes, but the majority of that cutting came from trimming down areas where I showed too much. See? Writer of extremes. I'm learning (slowly) that less is more. And a lot of times you don't need tags to show or tell at all.
So my suggestions for your examples...
1) ...he said in a manner that indicated she didn’t believe him at all.
...he said in a clipped tone.
2) And his hair, Mimi thought disbelievingly staring up at him, was perfect.
And his hair was perfectly styled, as if he'd just walked out of Giorgio's, not a golden lock out of place.
3) He knew he’d botched it even before he heard her quiet intake of breath.
I like this just the way it is.
4) She shook off the fanciful feeling and straightened her shoulders.
Butterflies took flight in her stomach as she straightened her shoulders.
5) Immediately, the smells of wild onions and animal tallow filled his head.
I like this one the way it is, too.
As Eli said, I think it's a balance between the two. Sometimes telling is the faster way to do things. And it depends what's being told. If you say a character had fear in his voice, I'd kind of like to know what fear sounds like. Does his voice shake? Squeak? Grow soft? Or if he looked chagrined, that could be fine as is, but when taken out of context, it's hard to know. Chagrin looks different on different people.
Things like he looked scared, appeared worried, seemed anxious... all of these are ambiguous. They don't offer a sense of the character. That's when more is needed, but maybe not literally. There's a chance that metaphor or simile will work instead. Like a look of anxiety flitted across his face, making his eyes squint and the corner of his mouth twitch. That does more than show as it offers a sense of the character's attitude and reaction to the situation. Showing often does more than show visually because it also can convey tension, personality, clues about other characters, etc.
1) ...he said in a manner that indicated she didn’t believe him at all.
IMO, this is just poorly written. I don't get what it means so I can't rewrite it.
2) And his hair, Mimi thought disbelievingly staring up at him, was perfect.
Another badly written sentence, but maybe: Mimi noticed how his hair parted in a perfectly straight line, marks from his comb indenting the smooth wave across his forehead.
3) He knew he’d botched it even before he heard her quiet intake of breath.
This seems fine to me.
4) She shook off the fanciful feeling and straightened her shoulders.
Fanciful? I have no idea how to rewrite this because again, it doesn't make any sense. Paty, where are you finding these?
5) Immediately, the smells of wild onions and animal tallow filled his head.
Works for me. I guess you could distinguish the smells as sharp or pungent or heavy, but that's all I'd change. I know what onions smell like, but it would be helpful to get a hint of how animal tallow smells. Oily? Hmm...
Eli and Karen- Thanks for playing along. And Karen, these came from some of the free books we received at national.
I find it interesting that sentence #3 both of you like as it is and I would have worked myself to a frazzle to change it because I was told when knew, thought, believed are in the sentence it is telling.
Eli- I like your changes they are better.
Karen, LOL- fanciful is a word used a lot in historical westerns as it was a word used back then meaning marked by unrestrained imagination rather than by reason or experience- or as if by fancy or whim.
I'm headed over the mountain. See some of you tonight!
1) ...he said in a manner that indicated she didn’t believe him at all. This is telling. The writer told the reader the woman didn't believe the man. (I think this is what it meant-- confusing sentence.) She could have shown this by having her narrow her eyes and say, "Sure," or "You do you know your nose flares when you lie, don't you?"
2) And his hair, Mimi thought disbelievingly staring up at him, was perfect. This sentence is a little awkward (I think it's the word disbelievingly. THat's a mouthful!) Anyway, as far as telling goes, I think is fine. I'd just have her say, "His hair was perfect." (Eli added a nice touch with the Giorgio's comment. Ditto, I liked Karen's comb tracks.)
3) He knew he'd botched it even before he heard her quiet intake of breath. I like this one.
4) She shook off the fanciful feeling and straightened her shoulders. I like this one, too.
5) Immediately, the smells of wild onions and animal tallow filled his head. I really like this one although animal tallow screams raw meat and bones at me so ugh.
I just read what Eli and Karen said about a balance and believe I agree. As far as realized, knew, etc.., I've read the same stuff you have and tried for a long while to weed it all out until I started noticing it in other books and that it didn't both me at all so why was I doing phrasing gymnastics to avoid it ALL THE TIME? Balance is the key.
The first sentence is weird, because I don't see how "he" can say something in a manner that indicated a second person didn't believe him. Maybe it was an uncaught typo and "she" said it?
The second sentence about the hair being perfect just sounds a little generic to me. It would give insight if we knew what one character might consider perfect--his hair was long, black and in a ponytail--perfect to her. Or his hair was in a military cut--perfect to her. So it's not telling vs showing there, exactly, it's just presenting material that feels like it might not matter, or maybe that could do double duty. Or tell why she cares if it's perfect, maybe.
I'm fine with the other three sentences. I agree with Eli, I don't think everything needs to be shown either. Only what adds to the character or plot, probably.
Flo
Thank you all who commented on this. I think from here on out- I'll try to make sure I have as much showing as possible, but I'm not going to beat myself up trying to change something if I am so wrought that I can't figure out how.
I agree with the balance and you know sometimes I write a sentence a certain way because it is the character's POV and enhancing the showing isn't really showing the character. So I'm really being intrusive as a writer when I enhance something that the character wouldn't think just to make an editor happy. So what I'm learning is to stand up for myself and my writing.
"... sometimes I write a sentence a certain way because it is the character's POV and enhancing the showing isn't really showing the character. So I'm really being intrusive as a writer when I enhance something that the character wouldn't think just to make an editor happy. "
Paty, this struck me. Showing things doesn't have to include thoughts about hair, etc... which might include intrusive words or thoughts your character would never consider. The most basic example of showing and telling would be something like this:
"I hate you," Sara said.
Bob felt sad.
versus this:
"I hate you," Sara said.
His heart sinking in his chest, Bob shook his head.
Okay, not great writing, but I just got up. The point is it did not intrude into the way Bob thinks or talks. It does not choose unnatural words for him to say. It just shows the result of hearing Sara's remark rather than the author telling us how he felt. So telling can be more intrusive than showing. It's a matter of degree and balance and I think it's great you are struggling to understand the nuances of it. I share your struggle and I thought this blog brought up some excellent points.
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