Show and Tell

By virtue of the fact I’m male, and probably due to some other external influences beyond my wit, I’ve always tended towards the visual. My first attempt at the spoken word was “lookit!” (Followed soon after, by “Gimme!”)

Although my vocabulary has expanded a little since then, the theme has remained consistent. From enchanting women to elaborate deserts; exotic cars to cutting edge gadgets, my response seldom wavers from some variation of “Lookit!, Gimme!”

When in conversation, I’ll often use phrases like “Do you see what I mean?” and “Look, you’re not seeing the big picture.”

So when it comes to reading – and therefore my writing, too – I get turned off by an abundance of telling. I simply stop listening! Many of the writers I’ve worked with in the past - both in giving and receiving critiques - largely agree with the principle of ‘show not tell’ but some seem to confuse ‘show’ with several paragraphs of descriptive prose. For example, (and I’m deliberately exaggerating):

The black satin Oscar de la Renta dress created a decent cleavage from her normally miserly 32A bust. It cinched in at the waist before hugging her thighs to just above the knees. The dress, coupled with her diminutive, perfectly toned five foot two inch frame, obsidian eyes and cascading ebony locks drew both malicious and longing glances from women and men respectively.

Despite the fact the above passage contains the word ‘frame’ in a character’s physical description, one of my pet peeves (and I have so many of them they could almost be considered commercial livestock rather than pets) it doesn’t allow the reader very much latitude. There is some very specific information (telling) whereas I’d much prefer to be given stimulants for my mind’s eye (showing) and be allowed to build a mental image of the character within certain parameters rather than strict specifications.

So, I could rewrite the above passage as:

It was her first real designer dress and fitted so much better than the department store petite ranges she was usually forced to chose from. She felt sexy, thanks in no small part to Oscar de la Renta’s ability to coax a cleavage from even the most miserly bust. Tonight, for the first time, she was the sultry, dark temptress drawing looks from men and women alike.

What I prefer about the second approach is that the reader can decide how small a petite woman is, based upon his or her own perspective.

The reader dictates what constitutes small boobs, taking me out of the firing line!

The character is clearly meant to be a beautiful woman in both passages yet in the second, her eye and hair color, the length of her hair and her body type are also left to the reader to decide. That way, even if the writer and the reader have differing views on what defines beauty, the women in the dress should remain beautiful to both of them. Of course, if her hair length, eye color etc. are crucial to the plot then I’ll introduce those details, but again, I’ll see if I can ‘show’ her hair is long by allowing her to unpin it and let it fall rather than tell the reader she has shoulder length hair.

For every person who likes to be shown, there is another who reads my work and says it’s lacking a few paragraphs of descriptive prose because they simply can’t picture the cottage without knowing the make and model of the fridge or the pattern of the curtains in the living room.

All I know for certain is that I learn better when shown rather than told.

Just ask my wife!