WORK:NarrativeVSShowDon'tTell

Miranda Morgan asks:

> I was wondering if I could have a description of the differences between
> show dont tell vs narrative. I have read the essays, but the distinction is
> still unclear to me.
>
Narrative, dialogue, description and exposition are the 4 main tools used to tell a story.

To "show-don't-tell" something you want the reader to know or understand, generally speaking you use all 4 of those tools in turn, switching among them seamlessly and smoothly.

The basic exercise to teach yourself to notice those shifts and how the tools are used and blended is to take 4 highlighters in different colors -- get a paperback copy of a best selling novel at a yardsale, (a Robert Ludlum for example) and go through the text marking each clause of each sentence for what it is -- dialogue, description, narrative or exposition.

You have probably all heard of the evils of the "expository lump" -- you can have a "lump" of any of these 4 tools and it will be almost as bad. Dialogue, when done right, can be sued alone for long, long passages, but the absense of the other 4 will quickly become apparent.

See the course on writing Radio scripts for the exercise in carrying a story forward using only dialogue.

Miranda's Assignment 1 is an equivalent exercise in narrative. It is, until the last couple of paragraphs, an exercise in creating a narrative lump. That lump should have been broken by about paragraph 4 to create the kind of "pacing" that is favored in long fantasy novels.

"Pacing" is created not only by how quickly you advance the story, how many times the Situation changes within every 500 words - but the illusion of speed is created by the way you switch tools.

But with all that, what exactly is "show don't tell" -- and why use it?

To get a full understanding of the concept "show don't tell" you really should read the new postings to the Writing Workshop in Visual Writing -- and the use of visual writing in the craft of journalism.

Go to

http://simegen.com/school/workshop/

click choose a teacher

click Anne Phyllis Pinzow.

Read any of those essays you haven't studied before. They're articles on writing, but they read like fiction.

Now, think about how the human mind works. Think about what we believe and how we come to believe it. Think about how we learn, and what mechanisms cause learning to happen.

You can probably all write thousands of words on each of those topics (if you happen to do so, send it in for a workshop post!)

Next, put your mind into the mindset we are casting you into here -- the mindset of the professional writer.

You sit down to write a story, and the very first thing you do before even deciding to think about what stories your subconscious has been saving up for you -- is raise your mental eye and look your audience square in the face.

That is, you ADDRESS your audience. Then you tell them a story. You SELECT (remember writing is a performing art -- and art is the selective recreation of reality, not reality itself.) elements of your story to emphasize and others to fade into the background according to WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO, and how you want them to react.

No two writers have the same audience. So we can't compete with each other.

So with that in mind, think about how human minds work and try to create some broad categories to group people into -- because that's what publishers do when buying a story. They have to sell lots of copies to make a profit, so they have to target an entire category of humanity with each novel so they'll know how to advertise it.

The reason I specialize in sf/f is that I think like a scientist with an imagination. I think like sf/f readers.

You want to convince me of something, you've got to come up with evidence and keep your opionion to yourself. If I figure it out for myself, I'm much more likely to believe it (at least until the end of the story). If I have to puzzle out how a thing works and why, I'm much more likely to remember it -- the harder it was to figure out the more likely I am to remember it, use it, learn it and keep it.

In the field of fiction writing, in order to keep your readers interested in your story long enough to finish it -- maybe long enough to memorize your name and find your other books -- you have to CONVINCE THEM your alter-reality is REAL.

In sf/f we say, "believe 6 impossible things before breakfast".

To suck your readers into your story and make them believe that they really are the characters in your story, you must take into account how the target-readership for THIS PARTICULAR STORY learns, remembers, and believes new things. You have to argue them into believing your impossible scenario -- you have to make it seem plausible to them.

If you just tell them your story -- they won't believe it. It's your opinion, not theirs.

If you SHOW them your story, and make them figure it all out for themselves -- they'll believe it. (if they are that sort of a people)

But be prepared for them to figure it out differently than you had intended. The more personal their answers to your questions, the more fun they'll have, and the more likely they'll be to buy your next book.

What does it mean "show" -- does it mean describe? No, but you need description. Does it mean narrate? No, but you need narrative. Does it mean dialogue? Actually, dialogue is about the clumsiest way to show-don't-tell and almost always goes wrong in beginners' hands. Does it mean exposition? Well, absolutely not. Exposition is the place where the author expresses the author's opinion. Exposition is where you tell about the story -- not tell the story.

So what does "show" mean?

It means DRAMATIZE.

Remember, the motto you see around this school -- WRITING IS A PERFORMING ART.

You dramatize what you have to say.

What you have to say is your THEME.

You must dramatize your point -- your moral-of-the-story -- your opinion.

How do you dramatize something?

Well, how do you factor a quadratic?

You dramatize a theme the same way you factor a quadratic -- you take it apart into its components.

How do you find the components of a theme?

You look at the philosophical statement of your theme -- and then you IMAGINE two sides arguing. You find someone who believes the opposite (or oblique angle) of what your theme says, and someone who is a true-believer in your theme -- their opinions are the 'factors' of your theme -- and those two people are protag and antag for your story.

In other words, you take YOUR OWN OPINION on the subject, and you factor it into opposing viewpoints, and find somewhere in your imagination people who hold those opposing viewpoints, and you've got protag and antag (not that it's always so easy to tell which is the protag!).

Once you have a protag and an antag and they start arguing about the theme by doing things to each other and their shared environment -- you will be SHOWING NOT TELLING the theme.

The things they DO show-don't-tell the story you are telling.

If someone feels something emotionally, they ACT how you think a person who feels that thing would act.

The reader then reads that the character did such-and-so and CONCLUDES FOR THEMSELVES what this character FEELS.

Now you may have it in mind that the character feels fear, and the reader might conclude that the character feels embarrassed.

As a professional writer, you must allow for those readers who disagree with you about what the characters feel.

You show them what the characters do -- the reader concludes what the character feels on their own, and the reader will believe that forevermore because the reader figured it out. If you then tell them otherwise, they fall right out of your story because they can't believe you.

Now, take a bit of worldbuilding backgrounding. How do you show-don't-tell background?

Problem: show-don't-tell the deeply loving and committed relationship between a married couple, the protag and his wife. The plot and genre-pacing requires that you have 700 words to achieve this, and then the couple parts as the protag's story whips him away into an adventure. Furthermore, that same 700 words must delineate the dangers of the woman's pregnancy (because the ending requires the woman and child die in childbirth, leaving the protag devastated), and what they do with themselves on a normal day -- because there won't be any more normal days as the story gets moving and the reader has to understand their normality to appreciate the abnormality of the adventure.

How do you "factor" all that into conflicting components?

How do you SHOW DON'T TELL a long standing committed relationship?

You could have some third character say, "Oh, don't those two lovebirds carry on so? You'd think after 12 years of marriage, they'd be over the kissy-huggy part."

And that would be using dialog to TELL NOT SHOW.

What do you do? How do you find what to write?

You ask yourself, "Why do they love each other?" and "What's lovable about him?" and "What's lovable about her?"

What personality traits do they each have that cause them to MESH together so that their relationship is exclusive, unique, irreplaceable?

Find that pair of traits -- then put both these characters into a SCENE (a Situation) -- where each one will behave according to that trait. (the scene and Setting etc all depend on the traits you choose).

The reader will SEE the man doing what she loves him for, and the woman RESPONDING to the man by doing what shows that inner being that he loves her for -- and the reader will see how that pair of traits just flows together so wondrously they will never get over the kissy-huggy part.

If this is a well-written novel, that same trait that makes him so lovable to her is the very same trait that's gotten him in DEEP DOO-DOO and is forcing him to hie off on an adventure. The trait that is so lovable about her is the one that causes her to die in childbirth -- some how or other -- and his loveable trait causes him to conclude her death was his fault.

Both those traits will also be derived from the theme. Having or not-having such traits will be stated by the theme to be good or bad -- dangerous in this society or within that context.

If you write those 700 words well -- you will never have to tell the reader of that great love, you will never have to use the word love, or have one character say to the other "I love you." You will never have to discuss your theme -- it will be there coded into the choice of traits. The less you say about that love -- the less articulate your characters are about it -- the more powerfully your readers will believe it, dream it, remember it, and memorize your name.

See also Jean Lorrah's expansion on these ideas.