Updated: Jun 18, 2018
Everyone’s saying it, but it’s called storyTELLING for a reason, right?
Telling is a legitimate tool of writing, but just like a hammer isn’t much good without a nail, this tool needs the right partners to succeed in your storytelling. #writingtips #writingadvice
It all started with Anton Chekhov. Yes, the same playwright we attribute another writing tip to: Chekhov’s gun. His quote that ends “show me the glint of the light on the broken glass” is a wonderful one. It is our job as writers to create a fully immersive experience for our readers and we have to use the tool of “showing” (or descriptive writing) to truly execute this on the page.
No argument there.
BUT we get into trouble is when we altogether devalue the act of telling . Tools are only effective when used properly and here is the Super Secret Insider Hack when it comes to “telling.”
It can’t stand alone.
Telling is the socially awkward friend who just needs a buddy to hang on to at the story party. Without that buddy, poor Telling becomes so dull that the attendees ignore him completely, or worse, walk away.
When you pair Telling with cool dudes like Voice and popular girls like Description, Telling adds some pretty cool things to the conversation. He pipes up with little known trivia, interesting tid bits–but careful! If Telling starts going on for too long, he’ll bore the crowd and kill the party.Kurt Vonnugut once said: “Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves should cockroaches eat the last few pages.”
Story information (or exposition) can be shown and it can be told. If the tool of showing is the only one tasked with all the early information, your story can easily begin to feel bogged down with pacing-killing “show him do this” then “show him do that.”
Telling is quick and to the point. This sharp tool is perfect for getting the information out there, and even more important, clarifying the stuff you just showed.
Imagine an intense scene: a woman has just pulled a gun (a Chekhov’s gun, of course) on an intruder and “we must show not tell”, so the writer creates something like this:
The man in the dark coat moved toward her like a pouncing jaguar.
Sarah’s fingers brushed against the cool steal of the deadly weapon, her hands rounding the pistol’s grip. The hard plastic was unforgiving in her fist as she pulled it from the deep pockets of her jacket. Heart pumping too hard to deliver blood to her shaking extremities, she readied her hands to steady just long enough to pull the trigger and stop the terrible man coming at her.
Nice description. But, Sarah! The guy is already coming at you (like a pouncing jaguar, no less)! Pull out the gun a tad faster, will you?
Description is automatically more words, which gives the scene a sense of slowing the action. When we over-describe (as this example did quite purposely for effect) we call this purple prose, but the more immediate issue is that this intense situation is slowed AND isn’t even very clear. Why is this guy attacking her? Where did she get a gun? While some of this information could be found in the context surrounding this paragraph, when a writer is so terrified of “bad telling” what ends up happening is that the point of the scene and the important information never actually make it on the page. If your beta readers are telling you they are confused, not sure what is going on or why, you may have a “Show and Never Tell” problem.
Now let’s look at telling this scene. We’ll let Telling give it a try on his lonesome (warning: it won’t be pretty).
The man lunged at her.
Sarah pulled the pistol from her jacket and steadied her hand to pull the trigger.
Oh Telling, you get to the point, sure, but all the flavor has gone out of the sentence! When Telling has been left to his own devices, the words on the page become flat information only. No sense of voice, no sense of mood or character, and certainly no descriptive language.
But it is fast and it is clear what is happening, so you’ve got that going for you, Telling.When a writer embraces both telling and showing as valid tools, our writing can employ the best parts of Telling: quick and to the point while partnering his on-the-nose words with something spicy, something voice driven, something interesting.
Let’s give Telling the partners of a little voice from Sarah and a little Description and see what happens:
The man in the dark coat lunged at her. Nope, not the delivery guy. Damn. Tony was right.
Sarah reached for the gun Tony had pressed into her hands two nights ago, tearing it from the pocket of her jacket and raising it with both hands. She pulled back on the hammer. Steady on. She shut her eyes, preparing herself from the bang, and squeezed as the man leapt at her.
Join with me in accepting Telling back to the party, just keep an eye that he doesn’t take over the scene. You may be surprise how much clearer your writing becomes.