Soooo… I noticed that a good portion of my scenes are ‘telling’ and not ‘showing’, as well as very short. Any advice on making them longer and overall better?

shaelinwrites:

Showing and telling exist on multiple different levels in a scene, and so depending on what’s running thin or being told in your scenes, here are some things to look at:

Emotion

• Telling: Explaining an emotional state with the direct term. 
•  ex. She feels content.
• Showing: Describing the context, details, reactions, features, etc. of that emotion without using the actual word.
• ex. She closes her eyes and feels the sunlight pulse against her face, soft but present, like bunny rabbit steps. 

Character

• Telling: Saying a character has a certain trait.
• ex. He was a shy man who didn’t like speaking to people.
• Showing: Showing the character do/think/say intelligent things. 
• ex. The doorbell rang and his chest tightened. He ducked to the floor, so he couldn’t be seen through the window, and tried to crawl as quietly as possible up the stairs.

Plot

• Telling: Summarizing events.
• ex. He went to the junkyard to scavenge for materials.
• Showing: A full scene.
• ex. The junkyard smelled of rust, the rot amplified by head. He kicked an iodize eaten car hood aside with the toe of his boot…etc, etc, showing him actually looking for materials with complications and development. 

Dialogue

• Telling: Summarizing dialogue.
• ex. The talked about cheesecake.
• Showing: Including the conversation in the text.
• ex. “I’m mostly into key lime these days,” she said. “I don’t know, Elma got me into it. I was always more of a raspberry fan before.”  etc. 

Setting

• Telling: Stating a fact about the setting.
• ex.  They stood before an old castle.
• Showing: Describing the setting in a way that enriches and displays the fact. 
• ex. Moss dripped from the castle’s bricks like an old man’s beard. One tower had caved over, leaving a pile of discarded stone at the castle’s foundation. Drout had evaporated the moat. Time and siege had whittled grooves into the bricks, just small enough to catch a fingertip or toe. This, this was how they would scale inside. 

Atmosphere

• Telling: Stating the current mood. 
• ex. It was a grim day.
• Showing: Supporting and creating the mood with specific details and word choice.
• ex. Charcoal clouds hung still over the ocean, their low ceiling sopping with mist and cold humidity. The grass had been smashed to puddles and mud squelched under her boots as she walked.

Backstory

• Telling: Explaining what happened in a character’s past.
• ex. She’d had a hard time finding a job.
• Showing: Showing the backstory through scene (flashback) or detailed summary that expresses the sentiment with details.
• ex. After graduation, she’d applied for jobs across the province, then country, etc. 

One handy way to rethink the (what I think to be misleading) phrasing “show, don’t tell” is to read it as “describe, don’t explain” instead. I find this a much more tactile way of explaining what words and what doesn’t, since they’re more accurate words to actual writing technique.