Show, Don't Tell: Why it Works

"Show, Don't Tell" is one of the most significant rules taught to creative writers in any genre--but why does it work? In this video, we discuss this rule from a rhetorical perspective to explain why showing is such an important strategy in creative writing.

0:00 Introduction
1:01 Showing vs. Telling
3:54 Claims and Evidence
5:28 Showing and Telling

[michaelfreundt]

'Show don't Tell' makes more sense to me because 'someone' translated it into 'Describe don't Explain', and I take your very good point that a little explaining may be needed along the way.

[otisblue]

I learned this advice not as „show dont tell“, but as „first show, then tell“. Btw I liked your video very much, thank you!

[darkengine]

I love the way you related this to, "Show your work." That makes perfect sense to me!

I've often found the advice objectionable when writing coaches interpret "showing" as solely empirical in nature, as though "Joe clenched his fists/jaw, " is so preferable to, "Joe grew irritated." I find that conflating the goals of literature with screenwriting.

If anything, one of the ultimate appeals that literature still holds for me in this age, given endless streaming content at our fingertips, is the ability to get inside characters' minds and understand the most nuanced aspects of their thoughts and emotions (in ways that can't be communicated effectively in a visual medium). I enjoy being able to experience the types of innermost thoughts and emotions that don't outwardly manifest in a character's body language.

Focusing on empirical and more concrete descriptions is one way to make a description more evocative, yet I think there are many other valid ways such as delving deeper into a character's inner thoughts, making the narrative descriptions reflect the emotional state of the character as in your example with describing the weather more emotionally and less empirically, etc.

The problem I always had with a statement like, "Jane was sad, " from a reader standpoint is that it's just so beige and dry, as with describing a mug as painted pastel green, 95cm in circumstance, and spanning 13cm in height. Something more interesting might be like this (please forgive my novice attempts; hopefully it still communicates the idea):

>> Jane's grief consumed her, plunging her into an emotional abyss from which no lifetime's worth of tears could offer any solace. The vibrant colors of the world faded into the coldest greys, and all she could remember was the lifeless body of her child.

[Anthony-gqdk]

How well you deliver this great direction and with such superb examples to back it all up too Andrew. It comes to life with the way you impart it all, well done.

[jiji_arra]

This is the explanation my logic brain needed!! Thank you!!

[jonathanlochridge]

Your
"A Very Sad Poem"
was actually pretty humorous.
It kind of has a child-like air?

Kind of like the book:
"Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"

Where a kid goes on an one about all the terrible things that happened to them that day. Most of which are small and trivial but still really frustrating. And as a result, they just feel like moving to Australia.

In that it seems to be using both simplicity and irony together to point out how of course when writing a poem just writing out exactly what you want to say and what your goal is as simply as possible is generally not how you would write a poem. Although, you still threw in one rhyme you mostly used direct repetition.

I enjoyed reading it. But it definitely didn't make me feel sad. So it kind of failed at that goal.

Potentially, you could do something interesting rhetorically if you really refined down that repetition.

The showed poem gets really really specific and uses really vivid imagery. But, I actually feel like the subtext is kind of a bit lacking for a poem. It seems more pretty and beautiful than the first. But at the same time it didn't really make me sad either. And I saw the first as more enjoyable.

I have a bit more to say but since it is focused on a completely different part of the video I am putting it in a separate comment.

[RaneMAJ-rw]

Thank you Sir, its a really useful lesson

[MrBeckenhimself]

Oh yeah it works all right. In fact it works so well that even to this day so many folks have no idea that there is no raven in Edgar Allan Poes The Raven. Thats because the readers are not as smart as they like to pretend that they are. Poe even hints that there is no raven yet even to this very day people didn't get the message. Its called story telling for a reason. You want to show rather than tell make a movie. Stephen King uses the show don't tell quote a lot. Yet if you've read his books you'll notice he tells and he tells a lot. JK Rowling same thing. Dan Brown who people claim is a terrible writer because he uses so much telling. Well few books have sold more than The Da Vinci code.

[SweetUniverse]

The 1st sentence is exactly how I write

[TheWeirdSide]

I prefer a third and master method: A...L...U...D...E.
In this approach the reader is forced—or shall we say; 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥—to awaken their own experiences, because of the writer's carefully crafted but subtle 'showing'. Then again, it depends of the subject matter at hand. This technique would arguably apply well to emotions of fear, such as in the genre or scene of horror. While describing how, say, a sci-fi object appears would require direct descriptions(since the reader has no relatable experience to pull from). Since I love a good thriller/mystery/plot twist, is a good one too.
Nothing so quick to raise feelings of boredom as the same old show a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l.