DARIN MICHAEL SHAW

The first and most frequently repeated tip a wannabe fiction writer is given is show, don’t tell.

You’re writing a story. Therefore, you are telling a story. You are a storyteller. No one has ever heard of a story-shower.

Show, don’t tell? What exactly does that mean, and how do you accomplish it?

Simply put, showing allows a reader to follow your story into a scene or setting as if they were there. There, they can feel and experience the story unfolding with the characters. Showing draws readers into the story using all their senses.

Working a healthy balance of showing and telling into your story can engage your reader.

Here are five suggestions for ways you can show:

Dialogue

This is a heavyweight in your toolbox for showing readers something. Consider this example. You can tell: “Dad was really angry.”

Or your reader can hear it for themselves as you invite them in:

“Darin!” Dad shouted. “Darin Michael! Get over here right now! What were you thinking?”

He was red in the face. Fire burned in his eyes. You could see the veins in his forehead. “Listen, I brought you into this world, Son, and I’ll take you out!”

(Wow. Flashback!)

And in that example, I’m reminded of a time I’ve seen, heard, or otherwise experienced something like this before. Now I’m able to connect with the characters in the story in a more personal way.

Dialogue is a great way to convey emotion and attitude and give insight into a particular character’s persona. You don’t need to say, “Bobby was a jerk.” Show us by letting Bobby reveal what a jerk he is through dialogue. Your readers will appreciate it all the more.

Sensory Descriptives

When you want to show a scene, thinking about your reader’s senses and appealing to them can help. Warning, though—this can easily be overdone. So, proceed in moderation.

Consider the mega-hit from the rock band Journey for a moment, otherwise known as Tony Soprano’s swan song, Don’t Stop Believin.’ “A singer in a smoky room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume.”

It paints a picture, doesn’t it? Brings you there much more than if Steve Perry had simply sung, “There was a singer in a bar.”

Sensory descriptives appeal because we’ve all got a sense of what a smoky room would feel like to us. An asthmatic, I start to wheeze when I hear Steve Perry sing those words! Most of us have some sense of what a booze-saturated room smells like, or how overwhelming cheap perfume—especially in excess—can be. So, we can put ourselves in the scene.

The key here is moderation—no booze and perfume pun intended. You don’t want to become too verbose here, or readers can become fatigued. They were with you a page ago, and now they’re just getting annoyed, wondering where the story arc has gone.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Okay, back to grammar class. You remember what adjectives and adverbs are used for in language. Adjectives describe or modify nouns—people, places, things. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, often telling us how, when, where, or to what degree something happens. In simpler terms, adjectives add detail to what something is; adverbs add detail to what something does.

Again, a caution: don’t overdo it.

This is another one that can easily identify sophomoric writing. Here’s a hint: Can you use adjectives and adverbs to speak into the sensory descriptions mentioned above? If you can, that would be far better than loading up on gag-reflex redundant adjectives:

She was very meticulously dressed in a deep ocean-blue sequined blouse, with a thick wool scarf of fuchsia, and wore a cute little raspberry beret, tilted…

{closed the book}

Figurative Language

This is another good tool to be applied in moderation. Are you sensing a theme?

This one is easy to overdo. You can tell: “The virtuoso played his cello.” Or you can show by using some figurative language: “He and his instrument were one, making beautiful music together.”

Or, as mentioned, you can go way overboard:

“Like lovers, they melted into one another…”

Yeah … awkward.

Specifics

When you’re finished with a story, or you’re through with a section and ready to do some revising, go back through and find every place where you’ve been vague and get specific.

For instance, if you wrote, “She had never felt like this before,” spend a few minutes imagining the specific feeling, and revise.

Show us what that feeling felt like to the character, and let us determine how absolutely amazing it was—something she’d never felt before.

Now, a disclaimer. I don’t share all this with you because I think I’ve mastered this art form myself. I’m very much an artist—trying.

I do hope these suggestions provide some thought provocation for you as you work on your craft, much as they do for me.

So, let’s get to work—showing.

How might we encourage one another? Do you have suggestions for showing that have worked well for you—either as a writer or as a reader?