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Originally Posted by
AuntShecky
“Show, Don't Tell”: How to Jumpstart Your Short Stories
A non-fiction book currently making the cable talk show rounds is Tell to Win by Hollywood insider, Peter Gruber, whose apparent advice is to include “stories” or autobiographical anecdotes in negotiations in order to make one’s listeners more receptive. Well, such a strategy might work in the business world and in private life, but in contemporary fiction-writing, narration that is straight-up, linear, and literal doesn't generally make a good short story. Stories that “grab” the reader usually don't “tell” too much; what they do is “show.”
I have no idea who Gruber is, but there could be nor premisse smore false. An oral storyteller has much more resources to show than a writer. The manipulate the audience with their changes of voice, movement of hand, body position, etc. The advice is very nice, but you simple do not compare two different artworks by the same standards and expect to made a fair judgment of it.
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Where did we get the idea that stories involve “telling”?
Semantics. When you tell a story, you show, you describe, you do in any form you want. It is all "telling".
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As children, we were introduced to literature in the form of fairy tales, the epitome of story-telling.
Really? Where you? Is a true faery-tale your form of introduction into literature? It is the form of he majority here or in the world? The term faery tale specify a traditional form of stories (not always short) and certainly not all short stories.
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As you remember, most fairy tales begin the same way: “Once upon a time,” and more often than not the narrative proceeds chronologically: first this happened, and then this happened.
The most famous book with faery tales in the world, 1001 nights do not have a single story that starts with Once Upon a Time. The two most famous collectors of faery tales did used it in all their tales. It is an english expression, with origem in orality, but not a rule even in english.
As chronology goes, the very start is a game with time, but as overall rule, all short stories have little disgression on past because the limitation of size. But not a rule written in stone.
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They typically all end the same way as well: “and they lived happily ever after.”
They do? Who lived forever ever after with the wife of blue beard? Who was alongside the little mermaid, who got alongside jesus and pedro ever after, did red hidding wolf found a female wolf?
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Concerning the characters-- usually a maiden (often at story’s end revealed to be a princess), a handsome prince, and an indisputable villain such as a wicked witch– the story depicts them just as they are with little or no shading or nuance. There is little doubt over just who is good and who is evil, as the fairy tale proceeds from point A to point B, with few side trips through the woods.
Princess - Prince stories are just one of dozens of kinds of faery tales. There is none in Blue Beard, Ugly Duckling, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Emperor's Nightingale, Thin Soldier, The woodman and the geenie, Red Hidding Hood, etc.
And while it is more than natural that you can understand who is who in a faery tale, since they work with basic concepts and imediate understanding, the afirmation is dubious. Baba Yaga, personagem of several faery tales move from benefict to evil, Shahiyar the king of 1001 Nights is neither, Who is evil in Ugly Duckling or The Happy Prince? Ultimatelly even the idea that faery magical beings are good or evil is denied, they are fickle, with different kind of morality, as they are primary an agent of destiny or lucky.
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Fairytales are certainly “old,” but literature created primarily for adults is older still.
Faery tales only became created for children when Brother Grimms picked stories from folklore to teach kids. The term - relatively new - was not meant to reffer to children stories, but basically with stories with fantastic turn-overs. (not even need to be magical). And if we seek the primordies of faery tales, we find only works for addults, from Appulleio to 1001 Nights.
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One of the world’s ancient works, The Iliad, is an epic poem about the Trojan War. As the poem opens, the war has been raging for nine long years, but rather than starting off with a lengthy recap of the conflict, with its causes and battles, the Iliad begins in media res – “in the middle of things.” The first scene of Book I introduces the poem’s hero in less than a triumphant light. Indeed, the first time we see Achilles, he’s having a flat-out, raging temper tantrum. Homer, the world’s first storyteller, does not “tell” his story– he “shows” us characters with human flaws straight out of the gate.
Semantics. He tells. And he is even descriptive enough in several scenes. He lists the catalogue of ships even. But Homer was not an author of short stories, but epic poetry. The first short stories are more likely the fables-parables groups, like Aesop, which simple narratives. The show not tell is for example the use of animals. You do not need to describe "A strong man walked with a simplory dumb man and a smart man", you say "A lion walked with a donkey and a fox". The fact a short story is sustained by traditional narrative does not mean it is abusivelly taking space for all imagination with descriptions. It means he will show with narrative.
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A more modern medium for storytelling is the motion picture; on film especially, “showing” is much preferable to “telling.” We've all seen really bad movies that depend on an invisible ”voice-over” narrator to make sure we know what we should be seeing on the screen with our own eyes.
And I have seen several bad movies without this narrator. But awesome good movies with an narrator, specially noir movies, which found how to use this narrator. Frankly, Blade Runner with Harison Ford narration is superior and it is innocent to think it is the narrator position and now how he was used by the director that will make a movie bad.
But yes, being a visual art, showing is very suited for cinema.
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Another cinematic “no no” is burdening the story with long scenes full of expository dialogue: for instance, two cops are sitting around talking about a crime that already happened.
You must tell Tarantino that his mockery of long dialogues still misunderstood.
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Scenes like this certainly bog down the movie which would have better had it started with showing the crime as it is committed. Most contemporary movies “hit the ground running,” so to speak, often before the opening credits have started rolling. That’s not just movies released in 2011. Produced way back in 1943, The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp begins with a convoy of military motorcycles loudly racing across the screen. Even then, the co-directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger wisely knew what grabs the audience, who naturally must have wondered where are all these soldiers rushing to--and why?
Sorry, but 2001 does not start like that right? I want to know if you will tell Luis Bunnel that his idea that you do not even need a narrative for a movie is so awful. You seem to limitate the idea of cinema on thraillers, which produced a handful of memorable scenes, a few good movies and a truck loaded of trash based on non-stop action.
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In a short-story an intrusive narrator is like a busybody who tells the reader exactly what to think is the equivalent of “voice-over” narration in a movie.[
Non-sense. The only problem of a narrator in a movie is that in movies we are educate for a narrative where the sound and the scenes - dialogue and lips moving - are syncronized. In Short stories and many stories, the position of the narrator - first person or third person - is a technique. Matters if they used it well or not. And the very "Master" of Short stories, Edgar Allan Poe loved first person narrator, telling us what he was seeing. And a certain Voltaire has his Candine filled with his meddling.
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Similarly, a short story that doesn't really “get going” until it fills in everything that has happened previous to the plot of the story bogs the work down.
Anton Chekhov used to cut down the begining of his tales exactly because to him only mattered the narration of the events he described and not the past of the characters. A Short story is a frame of a big narrative, it does not leave space or time - that is why Cortazar compared to Photography and a full movie to a novel. (And the Iliad does not fill us with all that lead to the war by the way).
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Such extraneous material will likely fail to give its audience a reason to keep reading. If the plot of the current short story depends on a previously occurring incident, the writer can allude to certain facts from the “back story” with a judicious use of a non-intrusive flashback, which can be as brief as a sentence or two.
He does not need to tell a single word if he does not want. Kafka rarelly game a reason of why a character was struct in his short stories, Borges much less.
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Instead of opening with, “Once upon a time,” with a narration set deep in the past, a good short story begins right in the middle of things with a “cinematic” scene.
No, it does not. Once upon a time is really not deep in the past, but a fake present, but that is irrelevant, several great stories do not start in the middle because short stories are framed narratives, usually held in a single space or time.
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Sometimes a story gets weighed down with linear narration in long strings of simple declarative sentences with the same predicate – “is,” or “was.” Occasionally the reader has to plow through all the minutiae of the character’s biography, from his conception to the point of the story at hand – even in some cases, what’s going to happen to him when he dies. Some writers feel compelled to list every thing the character does during every waking hour of the day. In high school we all read about Gregor Samsa and how he wakes up one morning a “changed” man. Amateur stories written a century after Kafka’s famous story still can't shake that device. I can remember an article in a writer’s magazine in which an editor said that every time she received an unsolicited manuscript which begins with the protagonist waking up in the morning, she didn't read another word and shipped it right back to its author in the S.A.S.E. he so dutifully enclosed.
This makes no sense... Kafka does not explain anything previously (or after) about Samsa, it just starts. And well, a writer magazine just gave a dumb advice...
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The obsession with “telling” spills over into the extensive descriptions of each and every character. No psychological quirk of the character’s personality is left to chance, and the physical makeup could have come from a physical description on a police blotter: “He was about 14 years old, 145 lbs, five ten in his stocking feet. Distinguishing marks: hairline scar above left eyebrow and a five-inch tattoo of a dragon on the right side of this neck.”
Uh? Which stories have you been reading?Only Detective stories? Certainly no faery tales, who are very poor in describing some characters. For example, Red Hidding Hood has a Red Hood and is a young girl. Nothing Else. It is about perfect. And psychological what? It is one of those time people want to tell that the only character they know is dostoieviskian?
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In general, “showing” is more effective than telling is that the former allows the reader to be an active participant in the unfolding of the story. The writer provides just enough details to show us what the character is in relationship to the story. In this way, an author is like an impressionistic painter; just as the viewer’s eye fills in the soft lines and splotches of the painting, the reader takes the swatches of dialogue and brief glimpses of what the character does and fills in the blanks. This is a much more satisfying experience for the reader; if he is expected merely to sit there passively as he is told what happens and why, he may as well be watching some inane reality show on TV.
Nice, good you are not telling about traditional faery tales or oral storytelling which have a level of interactivity unmatched by text.
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The desire for some beginning writers to be absolutely “honest” and forthright sometimes has the side effect of going overboard when the compulsion to “tell the story” is so strong. It’s counterintuitive to hold back and thus shy away from subtlety, understatement, and nuance. For instance, instead of having the author tells him exactly how the character happens to be feeling: “disappointed, sad, happy, ecstatic, relieved, angry,” ad infinitum, the reader would prefer to make that judgement himself. One would like to advise such a writer to fight such earnestness and instead, trust the reader to “get” what he wants him to know, by presenting the characters in a minimum of details---there may be few of them, but they are just vivid enough to make the desired point. “Show” the story, but whatever you do, don't “tell” it.
Nothing should stop you to say "he is sad" if that is what meant to be said. However, the problem is your advice has no relation with faery tales, short stories, perspective of narrator, etc.
