On Showing and Telling

[miyako73]

I read somewhere that a good story shows the interesting to make them not boring and tells the boring to make them interesting. When I read The Kite Runner, I felt exhausted with its writer's showing. When I read Lolita, Nabokov's telling in the early chapters made me dizzy. I think there should be a balance between the two. What do you think?

[WolfLarsen]

Never be boring! Never!

[JCamilo]

Show not tell is a cliche, Myiako. People repeat it like a mantra, just because 99% of the most boring beginners manuals do it. Show when you need, tell when you need.

[miyako73]

I need your help and advice. I'm in this state again where the literary bullies in my mind scream ESL! Amateur! Loser! Fail! Are the two sets of paragraphs telling, amateurish, and boring?


1)

I went straight to Bukowski’s, our usual hangout on Dalton Street, to meet Aden, a friend who could never be my best friend. He knew I was leaving and we might not see each other for awhile, so he volunteered to take me out and shoulder the bill. When I got there, he already occupied our favorite spot—the farthest table from the bathroom. We hated it when someone puked all over the bowl and left without flushing and cleaning it. It did happen actually, and the person was banned. The pub's ventilation could not easily diffuse the stench of his innards. He definitely drove us out without even trying. From then on, we had marked that spot as ours.

After we said our wassup, hugged the brotherly way, and shook hands as if one of us had been gone for awhile, we called the middle-aged waitress who already knew what we wanted. We were loyal customers, not alcoholic regulars. She knew us by name, but we could not remember hers. Our food came out quick. She served us bacon cheese burgers and beer—Boston Lager, of course. The two together paired well and delighted our mouths. We ordered another round and decided afterwards to go to my place and grab a six-pack along the way. Aden had a short story he wanted me to read.

Aden was a local who lived in the South End. He and I had the same major, but he had a particular focus in his reading and writing. Two of his stories ended up in Penthouse. It was tough to even guess that he could write. He looked too much of a jock and too all-American to be summoning muses and complaining about writer’s block. He started at Boston University on a football scholarship, but he quit in his second year after hurting his back from skateboarding. We first met in Professor Hardy’s erotic fiction class, and it was I who introduced him to Malena, my Brazilian friend who had a killer smile and a body fit for a men’s magazine and who loved writing about ghosts, vampires, and zombies. Aden came to me when he had problems with his girlfriend and with his plot.

2)

The night before my departure my family prepared a despedida, a sendoff dinner, where they greeted me, “Bon Voyage!” Niel, our eldest, took a day off from the seminary. It was my mother who pushed him into priesthood. He liked to cook, and his extra weight proved that. Loren, two years older than I, showed up with his boyfriend, Maru, son of a well-known politician. She could have been a brilliant lawyer, but my mother had her take Home Economics to prepare her for domestic life. Who would spend four years learning how to set a table, fix a master bed, or dust off a wall? Sara, our youngest, still in high school then, joined us, but she was not allowed to drink. She loved to dance, and she practiced ballet and flamenco daily. The most fashion-conscious in the family, she had her own style, very expensive style. I was glad they were all present and not resentful that our parents would be spending a lot for my studies.

Niel said, “Everything is God’s grace. So go for it.” He prayed over me, his heavy hands on my head. His mumbled blessing that came out from his partially closed mouth, for some reason, allayed the fear that I had been feeling but could not make sense of it.

Loren kissed me on my cheek blushing from the red wine. “As long as you’re coming back to write about the injustices in this damn country, that’s fine by me.” She still sounded like someone who went to law school and became an activist. What a wasted talent!

“I want a cell phone that plays music,” Sara said, her lithe arms, the size of a wide belt, around my waist. She promised she would be nice and do well in school.

Their faces appeared and faded in my head one by one when the smell of crisping pepperoni from the pizza place across the street entered through the window I had always left ajar. Uninterrupted since the day began, the distant noises from the streets bustling with cars and people droned and buzzed inside my empty apartment like endless hums and whispers. Then the siren of a moving ambulance sounded off, as if its driver turned it on to rouse me up. It was around a quarter past three on my wristwatch. I got up and took a quick shower. The aloe shampoo gone, I used the half-melted soap I found under the sink on my hair. I rolled and pressed the toothpaste that was almost empty, good for one more brushing. All my clothes unwashed, I checked my jeans. No dirt stains and wet spots. No time to go to the Laundromat, I smelled my shirt. Still had the scent of my deodorant. I used a clean towel and wore fresh underwear, of course. All done in ten minutes. “I hope I won’t smell,” I mumbled to myself inside the taxi. I had an appointment with Student Accounting Services at four.

Mrs. Longfield, maybe as old as my mother but tall and slender, came out and called my name. She must have been too busy that she rushed her coffee break. I saw a trace of dark coffee stain the size of a dime on the breast pocket of her beige buttoned blouse. She greeted me, introduced herself, and led me to the chair by her table free of clutter. The confidence in her voice suggested that she had been in her job for quite some time. I found her willing to help the way she moved around. She took out a piece of paper, a computer printout, from her drawer and gave it to me. She checked my account on her computer.

[miyako73]

bump. I need help to get out of this bubble of doubt.

[hillwalker]

I need help to get out of this bubble of doubt.

Pop!

Some quick feedback:

I enjoyed the first extract up to a point but I'm not sure the puking is necessary. It explains what doesn't need explaining in my opinion.
Also the interminable greeting - wassup/hug/hand-shake - adds nothing to the portrayal of your two characters.
Overall a well-written piece but there's not much flesh on the bones.

The second is much better. You're describing each family member yet it doesn't come across as a cast of characters merely there to fulfil a role.

I'd suggest one or two changes though:

Who would spend four years learning how to set a table, fix a master bed, or dust off a wall?
We already know the answer - Loren. So either rephrase the question perhaps to
Who else would spend four years learning how to set a table, fix a master bed, or dust off a wall? or change it to a statement
No one but Loren would spend four years learning how to set a table, fix a master bed, or dust off a wall.

And I had to read this a couple of times to make sense of it:
His mumbled blessing that came out from his partially closed mouth, for some reason, allayed the fear that I had been feeling but could not make sense of it.
I'd suggest a slight rejig
I could not make sense of the mumbled blessing that came out of his partially closed mouth, but for some reason it allayed the fear that I had been feeling.

Then the abrupt switch to the N's apartment - perhaps it needs a - - - - - so we know it's now another time and another place.

The opening sentence is a muddle - 3 things to focus on (faces/pizza smell/window left ajar) so we end up not knowing where to look.
Similarly, the following sentence is over-written. So many sounds that we're in danger of suffering sensory overload.
There seemed a distinct change - maybe the 'apartment' scene was written long before the 'family farewell'.

You also have a misplaced clause that might tempt misinterpretation:
The aloe shampoo gone, I used the half-melted soap I found under the sink on my hair.

And finally:
She must have been too so busy that she rushed her coffee break.
I like the touch involving the coffee stain but perhaps you could allow your readers to surmise how it got there. Giving them leave to exercise their imagination is a good way to get them to engage more closely with what you have written.

It may appear that I have torn your work to shreds but there's nothing amateurish or boring about the way you write. I found much to savour in both pieces so don't be so self-critical.

H

[hillwalker]

As for telling versus showing

There's room for both - but often writers stick with telling us everything because that's the lazy option. Report everything to the reader and let them go figure.

For instance, in a sentence like 'I was cold', readers will be unable to fully experience this because they have no frame of reference on which to measure the narrator's tolerance of coldness. Was it minus 10 degrees? 15 degrees? Who knows?
In a sentence like 'My teeth were chattering and every breath I inhaled scorched my lungs like frozen fire' at least the writer shows how it felt to be so cold. It might be rather overcooked - certainly not the best example - but you get the idea.
The first sentence is stating a fact that the reader has to either accept or refute at face value. The second allows the reader to share the feeling and experience the narrator's 'cold' feeling more effectively.

H

[Emil Miller]

Show not tell is a cliche, Myiako. People repeat it like a mantra, just because 99% of the most boring beginners manuals do it. Show when you need, tell when you need.

To my mind this is absolutely correct. Until recently, it was accepted that stories were told by tellers of tales. But the mushrooming of the moving image via TV and particularly that in films has created a situation where people expect to have their thinking done for them rather than use their own imagination to envisage a scene or event as described by the author. As you say, it's a cliché that need not occupy a writer insofar as 'showing' is, and always has been, automatically incorporated into his craft. Yesterday I was in London's largest bookstore
and there was a Japanesse couple talking in front of a large case of what is euphemistically termed graphic literature i.e. manga. Earlier in the day I was listening to a radio programme that mentioned the expansion of similar publications in France where, according to the programme, they are big business. In my day they were called comic books and were usually produced for children so, if we are going down the road of show not tell, there you have the ultimate example. For my part, I will continue to use my own imagination rather than someone else's but I would be highly amused to see a comic book version of Finnegan's Wake or The Wasteland.

[JCamilo]

I would not tell either is boring or not. They look like fragments, I am not sure what will you develop from there. This make harder to conect. You do not write badly, for what I saw in the forum. Not just your poems or stories, but your posts in other threads. To me your struggle is with your duede. You seems to think some technique can control him, but of course, you are more confortable and expressive when the duede is loose. Like a dance, you just need not to bother if you scream "Amateur". Amateur can be something good. Eventually your instinct will guide you. Look the tips Hillwalker gave to you, they are minor stuff, probally you would find those things yourself with a review latter.

As showing and not telling:

I think the example Hill gave shows the problem. It is a matter of style. In both, you will need the experience of the reader to tell what is could (some people chatter teeth with low temps, some with just a small breeze). "It is cold" is obviously universal. Anyone just understand as it is and this is sometimes what is needed in the story. It is a more classical approach. The other more baroque.

We should always be weary of "fundamental" principle of writting that does not exists as concept in every language and which "status" is from the last 100 years. There is no problem to tell that even your descriptions must be abble to provoke in the mind of the reader something beyond the literal, and some great tellers do it, without the so (not always so easy to define) showing. They did for centuries. To be honest, a great book is the one that tell, shows, teaches and amaze. The four levels of Dante.

[cacian]

Interesting topic because on a one hand one wants to write without being loaded with rules and etiquettes.
The reader however is not taken into account about how they wish to read or even listen.
There are no rules for reading and therefore any rules to writing sounds pointless.
To show not tell does not live up to it when watching the News for example.
The News on television is ''tell not show'' and writing which is reading is show not tell. There is an irony there.

Learning is all around and so when we listen this way and try and write the other it does not work.

[hillwalker]

The News on television is ''tell not show'' and writing which is reading is show not tell. There is an irony there.

'The News on television' is journalism not story-telling - and the same goes for newspapers, though certain rags lean towards the fictitious.

H

[blazeofglory]

Learning is in the air, permeated everywhere, if you have an air. Poetry is not confined to books of poem. Journalism is not precluded. So is fiction. It is not in the music only, it is in the hearer too music originates. When music mingles with the intense desire of the listener it finds a perfect melody. It is not just in the theory of critics it is in the common reader too i think poetry finds its place

[Delta40]

'The News on television' is journalism not story-telling - and the same goes for newspapers, though certain rags lean towards the fictitious.

literary journalism is an example where show not tell can work.

[JCamilo]

Any genre can. Storytelling is a sucess for longer time than writing. Journalism is certainly storytelling. History is storytelling, etc. But we should not confuse with news on television as a rule overall - there is no such thing a objective view, story are more hiding than showing.

[Delta40]

Any genre can. Storytelling is a sucess for longer time than writing. Journalism is certainly storytelling. History is storytelling, etc. But we should not confuse with news on television as a rule overall - there is no such thing a objective view, story are more hiding than showing.

Oh I agree however the styles that are typically adopted by some genres, do very little showing, which is not to say that they could not if they chose to.