How to SHOW instead of TELL in your novel (with examples)

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the kate and abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the kate and abby show today we are tackling a big topic a very a highly discussed topic in the writing world which is the golden rule of writing show don't tell so if you feel like your writing is cut and dry or it's filled with too much telling this episode is going to help you find new ways to show your readers what your characters are feeling how your characters interact their deepest struggles and make your story just a visual feast for your readers so we're going to simplify this idea of show don't tell because i have noticed that when i have learned about show don't tell and consumed a lot of content blog posts videos on the internet internet about this topic i've noticed that a lot of this advice is like contradictory sometimes too complicated it's it's hard to like grasp the simple principles that you can apply to your writing every day and that's what kate and i are here to do we're going to discuss the topic break it down give you some concrete examples we have some great examples here to show you the difference between showing versus telling and just have you walk away with a a simple guide basically to follow when it comes to showing and not telling in your writing so without further ado let's get into it but first we want to thank our sponsors who are you guys you're the ones who support this show and help us keep it going and we so appreciate your help so if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the kate and abby show and help us keep this show alive and free of interruptions okay let's get into it this is a big topic so i'm excited to explore it today me too it can be messy and hard to sift through all the different advice out there and also sometimes it's confusing like uh is that showing or is that telling it sometimes it's not as clear but hopefully today with what we'll go over and with the examples we're going to help you be able to decipher better what's showing versus telling yeah and i'd like to start by saying that i've noticed in my own writing and you've probably noticed this as well that this really comes to life for you as a writer this this principle all principles really of writing um over time just through practice through writing writing writing all the time and you start to just kind of work out the problem areas on your own you know you won't be able to get all of the writing knowledge and expertise overnight by listening to the right podcasts or watching the right videos or reading the right articles it's really a matter of time you have to practice writing you have to write all the time and enjoy it as well and as you experience it and get your hands dirty and actually get in there and write get into your word document your scrivener document and just practice you'll find that the more experience you gain even if you feel like oh my writing is crap today even if even if that's the case well you're learning from it you're learning with every sentence you write so i find that a lot of these things whether it's like character voice showing versus telling um writing visual descriptions stuff like that it like you get it more and more in time so if you feel like you don't get it right away don't worry it's literally just you have to just keep at it right and don't be hard on yourself if you if you're in a writing in your writing flow and you don't even pay attention and you're like oh man i didn't really pay attention to that you can always do it in the editing process right the editing process is part of the writing process so that's an important thing to remember you don't have to get super um stuck on these principles the point where you're in a creative paralysis of um oh i'm i'm afraid to you know write this because i'm not sure it's like we'll just write it and and then you can return to these principles these are things you can use and bring with you into the editing process as well but as abby said as you practice it will become more and more second nature yes so what does it look like in action um speaking of action the the main rule here is that actions speak louder than words so when you are trying to show and not tell your reader something you're basically through your character's actions through what they do what they say their body language that is showing your reader what they believe what their goals are what their internal struggles are what their personality is like versus saying it in so many words and of course this goes for simple descriptions too but we all know like the simple rule of saying she yawned instead of she or she was tired or whatever you know like those are very clear examples but to me it's like you have to take it deeper than that right unless you're writing like a children's book most likely you have a lot more prose right and and deeper internal conflicts for your character so it's like how do you how do you show that how do you show their personality differences and i think starting there starting with actions how can i show my character's personality beliefs struggles through their actions in this scene rather than just coming out and telling my reader because you should know as the author like maybe in your in your notes your character profiles you have like all of it laid out very plain very clear so that you understand it but you can't just you know copy and paste that into your book it has to come through the reader unraveling this and understanding it like give your reader credit they know how to pull apart the layers of a story they don't want to just be told something they want to be able to see it and decide for themselves so you wanted to feel like their own discovery yeah not like they're being commanded to think something about a character yes yeah i mean exactly um and so should we dive into some examples of that what that looks like yeah in action as far as like character personality and character interactions so first for an example of like writing a introverted character like you want to show your reader that this character is quiet introverted they don't really take initiative in conversations a lot but we don't want to just come right out and say that so what would be like what are let's show a example of like comparison side by side before and after showing versus telling and we're going to make this kind of fun we're not going to tell you guys at the beginning when we read these examples which one is telling show so listen carefully digest them yourself think about it for a moment and we're going to talk about it and then we'll reveal which one was which if you didn't figure it out for yourself which i have a feeling you might be able to when you listen carefully okay so so where should we go from here james asked his friends everyone had something to say except susan she was quiet introverted she didn't speak much in crowds that was the first example second example so where should we go from here james asked his friends susan seemed to listen intently to everyone's suggestions seated in the farthest corner of the room drum roll so two two very different ways to say that two very different ways to say that one is telling me a lot more and one is showing me a lot more right exactly so one feels almost like the author narrating in a way um and one feels more like the character perceiving the actions of another character right so if you didn't if you didn't grasp it it was the first one was telling right yes the first one was telling the second one was showing the second one was showing because it's far more showing to and and another point to touch on here tell me what the character is doing not what they're not what they aren't yes so to say she was quiet introverted that's fine even though that is just kind of telling me in a very clinical way what she is she didn't speak much in crowds so now we're talking about what she does not do right whereas in the second example we're saying what she is doing she's seated in the farthest corner of the room which automatically tells us this is not the type of character who likes to be in the center stage um in the limelight talking to everyone in a crowd so it's better for us to to talk about what what is the character not what what isn't the character yes and same goes for like first person narration so like if that same thing let's say this story was written from susan's perspective she wouldn't necessarily you wouldn't want her to say i don't feel comfortable speaking my opinion or i don't like i don't like speaking in crowds you would say something more like i feel most comfortable seated in the farthest corners of the room right now you wouldn't want her to say i'm kind of quiet and introverted and i don't like speaking much in crowds you wouldn't want her to say that you would want to show us you know by her gravitating to the corners of the room or blushing a lot when someone tries to talk to her or looking maybe for the earliest escape out of a party those things show us okay we're dealing with a quiet introverted introspective thoughtful character who isn't ready to put herself out there and be the center of attention yes and another example um do you want to like alternate yeah go for it another example totally opposite character personality with a character who is kind of dominating and micromanaging and overly everything right so learning how how to express what character personalities are like without coming right out right and saying this character is dominating this character is quiet right exactly so two examples one show one's tell we're not going to tell you which one's which and then you can decide when you hear it i think we should visit the museum on wednesday kira told her sister emma looked up from her planner with a frown i've already made an appointment for us that day she passed the planner to kira just consult my journal okay i know what i'm doing next version i think we should visit the museum on wednesday kira told her sister but emma disagreed she always did between the two sisters she ruled the roost we've i've already made an appointment for for us that day she said so one is way more telling one is way more showing and the the earmarks of telling here are she always did between the two sisters she ruled the roost like we're just telling you cut and dry this is how it is if you didn't pick this up this is how it is and it makes the reader i think feel like you think the reader's dumb or something you know like they're not perceiving this right they're not able to perceive these nuances so we have to come right out and hand it to them right which isn't the case it's not the case and and this also counts for those of you who are working on like screenplays and stuff this totally works in film me and abby are constantly and i'm someone who i watch a lot more films um than i read books and i'm constantly seeing like you know how they had that character just say that in dialogue when i already saw that i was already seeing that and it almost makes you feel uncomfortable because it feels like the the writer of the film thought you couldn't understand what they were already conveying so well you know what i mean yeah it's like repeat information exactly repeat information so the act of emma handing her the planner and saying i already made an appointment for us like right away that tells us okay she's the one in control here she's dominating every situation right so things like that interactions like that that show us who the characters really are how they behave what they believe even and we're gonna get deeper into that in a minute but when writing um emotions when showing emotions a lot of times writers i think will say like okay so i can't tell the emotions of these characters so i have to show them but they kind of just go they kind of just stop stop with the abstract emotion and this is a piece of advice that i've heard from various sources about showing versus telling is turning the abstract into concrete so taking like an abstract emotion like happiness or sadness or anger and making it a concrete feeling which is expressed in a certain way so instead of saying that your character is happy or whatever you are expressing what they do when they're happy how they express their happiness right so combining that with your character's personality i think is very important so that you are staying in the lines of how your character behaves and making them stay within character right you know exactly really vary based on what sort of personality you're working with right it might be a really over-the-top show of happiness or maybe it's very very slight but because they're so much more reserved it's all that more poignant for them to you know show this you know a smile and it's it's still just as impactful so it's really going to be dependent on what you've established for that character's personality exactly and that's that's why that's one of the reasons why i always recommend that writers figure out their character's personality whether you're using a typing system like mbti or enneagram or just going off of your own imagination write out like a short description when you're creating character profiles of what this character's personality is like are they more quiet are they more are there are they more extroverted do they usually voice what they're feeling do they usually keep things to themselves how do they behave in social situations and that will help you as a guide sort of to showing their expressions of emotions versus like just saying what they're feeling so an example of this telling versus showing would be something like this after her first kiss with nathan she felt happier than she had ever been in her life versus a showing example would be after her first kiss with nathan she couldn't keep the smile off her face she spent the rest of the afternoon dancing around her kitchen baking cookies and humming can you feel the love tonight so that shows you right away what she's feeling without saying she felt happier than she ever had in her life you know so it's and again this is entirely dependent on your character's expressions of emotions and how they behave based on their personality it also creates a much more vivid image yes rather than if if we just say that they're happy now i have to sort of just um guess what that looks like you know what i mean now there are certain things obviously that you have to leave up to your reader's imagination of course but with things like really showing us the guts of who a character is we don't want to leave all of that open to interpretation because then it's all guesswork right yeah i mean we do need to establish some things for sure right and that will vary their expressions will vary a lot from character to character based on their unique internal conflict their desires fears and misbeliefs or beliefs in general so um i think there's another we did was this another example for this section i think it was another example for this section so you guys can guess which is which here first version no thanks i can do it myself james shoved my hand away scowling i felt like i was boiling inside as i stared at him why won't you ever let anyone help you you think you're so indestructible so above everyone else well i'm sick of it version two no thanks i can do it myself james shoved my hand away scowling james had an insecurity complex he pushed people away because he was afraid of being found out really deep down he just wanted to feel like he could trust someone even so i was sick and tired of his erratic behavior so what do you guys think which one's showing which one's telling i know because i'm looking at the chichi no but i can also tell because because it's telling yeah it's telling it's telling and all you feel with one of them you feel like you're reading the author's notes right right yeah and i've experienced this in books you feel like you're reading the author's notes and and you were saying earlier and this is so important when a character is kind of disembodied from the story and because this is a first person example here so this is something to be mindful of is you don't want your character to be so non-biased about a situation because really most people aren't non-biased in um like every single aspect like you know for example arguments about sports teams filled with bias because you're coming at it from your own emotional lens of like well you know i'm from this state and i love this team so you're not but you know i could understand why that person liked that team because this this you're most likely not thinking that you're just like no i love the scene because xyz and you're seeing it through your own lens based on emotional experiences that you've had and data you've collected that's gone into your subconscious over time right and you can apply that with anything you see people debating about all sorts of things that you know they're not even really arguable issues but you're coming at it with through your own lens of your experiences so far so when it comes to something like a personality of someone who maybe just rubs you the wrong way most of us don't have unless we really pull back maybe we think about it way later but in that moment we're probably not thinking oh see he did he said that because he has this inferiority complex and i think it comes from this and you know he just wants to feel this way um but you know even that aside that did still irritate me that he like most of the time you're probably just going to communicate something in dialogue right so filter the characters the point of view characters opinions have to be filtered through their belief system you know in their personality right this is like this is a point that i don't hear hardly any writers talk about with showing versus telling but i think it's so vital it is it is because it it and it can be different so like in this example here and the answer by the way is the first one is showing the second one is telling and we can see that based on you know how much description there is just telling us in this sort of disembodied narration kind of way what james is he has a security complex he pushes people away he really wants this but we're still sick of his erratic behavior versus saying a response and dialogue and this can be so much more potent and it can be different depending on what the person's reaction is you know based on their personality so that you could even change if this isn't a person who would get into an argument with james it could just as easily be well whatever i sighed and the person's just checked out and done with the conversation if they're if you're dealing with more of a quiet person who wouldn't get in an argument but we we see more from the response than this long description of why the character is acting like that in the first place and um on top of that it really slows down a scene to have that much description about a character within dialogue yeah yeah and this is a good exercise that you can do if you're writing a scene and you feel like um you're telling too much or you haven't really locked into the character's voice at all it might be a good idea to stop for a minute and take some notes based on these questions how does this point of view character view the world how do they view the emotions and expressions of others how do they interpret or misinterpret action interactions with other characters so we don't see the world as it is we see the world throughout the lens of our own personal beliefs and opinions that's true of basically everybody so when it comes to showing versus telling i like to ask myself how not how can i show my reader this but how does my point of view character see this because no two characters are gonna see the world the same way or see each other the same way and that just really helps you to sink your teeth also into character voice and make their c make the character feel more like you are becoming the character when you read this book right because the scene if you have too little of that not enough point of view it can almost feel like they don't have a personality they're just the disembodied narrator telling us what all the different characters feel and why all the different characters behave the way that they're behaving where we do want some unique opinions whether they're even right or wrong you know that's important for your character to character to also have flaws in their opinion right and and maybe they're misinterpreting the way a character another character behaves but that's what makes their personality unique is the fact that they're processing it through their own lens yeah 100 another point to uh examine is also body language so i know that a lot of times writers think okay i can solve the showing versus telling thing by just using a lot of body language instead of using uh words like happy sad angry you know we can show someone clenching their fists or rolling their eyes or sighing dramatically and yes you can like to a certain degree but also you want to be careful not using body language too much because a lot of times you can slow down dialogue and slow down the pace of a scene by just like stuffing every dialogue tag with body language to explain how the characters are feeling and also it kind of makes less of an impact if you use it too much such as if you have a character rolling their eyes all the time then it's no longer impactful for them to roll their eyes at something that really matters right so if you save those more for bigger issues it makes more of an impact so an example of this would be in dialogue how could you be so stupid alice shouted angrily mara looked like she was about to cry i'm sorry versus how could you be so stupid alice snapped mara looked down tears cresting in her eyes i'm sorry so one is more centered on body language and also got rid of an adverb there um with angerly instead of saying shouted angrily snapped is better it's quicker and we don't use an adverb so i know a lot of times when you're editing you're trying to get rid of adverbs anything that ends with l y is there a stronger word for that without saying shouted angrily can we say something else you know and also showing that mara looked down tears are in her eyes that tells me that she's about to cry without telling me she's about to cry you know yes and another point final final point that we want to make here is about just showing specific details to expound on a character's feelings versus just telling you that all this character is sad because of this can we go into more detail can we can we feel what they are feeling even if it takes longer even if it takes a little bit more description to kind of go into their mind and see the world that the way that they see it so i know that sounds very conceptual so i'm going to read another example lucy felt a lonely ache in her heart when she thought about spending the summer without her boyfriend okay so that's the telling example because it's just telling me exactly what lucy's feeling right and exactly what she's sad about super cool but it's very cut and dry and we don't know why she said versus lucy and kent had had so many plans for this summer they were going to visit the coast learn how to surf have romantic sunset walks on the beach but that was before the breakup lucy felt it felt an ache fill her heart this was going to be the loneliest summer ever so so much better way more of showing because we're showing you what the character is sad about specifically you know when you show specific images you can better understand what the character is emotionally going through versus something that's abstract you know and vague of like well i was gonna have such a great time why what exactly were you gonna do that was gonna be so great and now i can feel like oh you're so sad and lonely that this is not gonna happen you know you can better feel the character's despair and same with um you know positive emotions so it applies across a wide variety of emotions and anytime that you can be more concrete more specific more visual really with what your character is feeling and thinking about that just brings us so much closer like in their head in their skin you know and we can relate more too because we don't think in terms of you know oh i'm sad because i'm spending the summer without my boyfriend we don't think like that we start thinking about all the things we were gonna do and now we can't do them we think about the sunset beach walks and the surfing and you know etc etc you have this mental imagery in your mind and it could be about anything think about the next event in your life that you're looking forward to yes and you most likely aren't thinking you know i can't wait to have that picnic with my neighbor you're most likely imagining the place what you know the sun on your face what food you're gonna be eating maybe what you're gonna talk to the person person about you're you're thinking in terms of imagery so whenever you can bring more imagery into it that's actually how the human brain is processing these thoughts not in cut and dry terms like oh i'm sad that that's not happening and then next thought you know what i mean right so so bring more imagery and emotion into it and that's what really makes us like you were saying feel like we're in the head in the skin of that character yes 100 yeah well i think that we have gone over a lot in this episode we uh definitely hit a lot of points hopefully we gave you guys a lot of good examples to go on and try doing this as just an exercise take your own writing prompt and write examples of showing versus telling for your own like benefit to see the differences between them because i find that to be really helpful when you can actually see those differences very clearly in your own writing and also of course keep an eye out for it when you're editing but yeah just to uh to recap action speak louder than words show us your character's interactions to reveal their personality remember that every personality expresses their emotions differently so it will vary from character to character use body language but not too much don't overload us with body language give us the benefit of the doubt let us unravel some of the mysteries of these characters but make it obvious how they're behaving based on their internal conflict and filter everything that your character sees through their opinions their judgments their personality how they view the world is going to be different from how other characters view the world so hopefully you guys got some good stuff out of this episode i feel like we we really uh i feel like this was really solid so it was i hope that you guys took some notes and um thank you again for listening drop some comments in the uh below this video to continue the discussion let us know what you thought of this episode we would love to hear your feedback and smash that like button if you're on youtube if not if you're listening on another platform give us a nice rating we always appreciate those thank you guys again for listening and we'll see you in the next one until then stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

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Id: KQBfbLkOaSk

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022