Show Don't Tell

'Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.' Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

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If I were in grad school and my professor wrote "Show don't tell" on my dissertation paper, I would scream in frustration. Understanding what this advice/requirement/rule actually means has dodged me for a hundred years.

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But I'm starting to understand. It's a good thing, since a writer who tells and fails to show is going to have boring bored readers.

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I have a feeling that 'show don't tell' is equally necessary to painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians. So with the hope of touching upon something more universal than just important to me, writing a book, here's some clarification of what 'show don't tell' looks like and doesn't look like.

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From Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir: "Your writing will be far more engaging if you show your readers the particular squint in your father's left eye that appeared as he got angry, or if you show them the thumping of your mother's fist on an oak table before she burst into tears, than if you merely tell them that your father was prone to fits of anger or that your mother often cried out of frustration."

.The key to writing that shows is the senses and that the story is told much like a movie. This means sometime to SEE, or to HEAR or to SMELL or TOUCH or TASTE. Want to know about my character Casey? I could tell you she is both strong and vulnerable, currently depressed and immobilized. Or I could tell you this:

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Casey ran her fingers through her $ 5o haircut. "Mave, do I look okay?
Mave grimaced. "Not really. Not like you usually do."
"I know,"Casey said. "I'm due for another cut, but I can't seem to find will or wind power to pick up the phone and schedule an appointment."

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Here is a favorite example: "It was a hot, sultry afternoon." I am telling you this. If I want to show you, I could say, "The afternoon blazed and sweated."
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This is where I am this afternoon: evaluating and snipping and crafting words that I hope will tell a story that is worth telling. I have to paint portraits in my story. I have to assure that my characters will evoke a range of realistic feelings for the reader: admiration, sympathy, disgust, fear, believability. I have to explain the whys and hows and when and wheres by SHOWING.

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Not so easy.
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"kj was afraid and frustrated she would not be able to capture the personalities of her main characters." -----------"kj cleared her throat. She shook her head from side to side. Her feet twitched on the wood floor and she brought her hand to her heart. Could she write this story? She stood up, opened the window for air, and with uncertain fingers, began typing."

.Love
kj