The Bowes Library Corner: Show not Tell

As a new writer, all I heard was the phrase ‘show not tell’ and after a while it did my head in. I read countless blogs about it and sort of got it and hoped that I had stopped doing the exact opposite. Throughout my writing journey, I seem to have crossed a massive divide. I’ve moved from creating novels that pass through my soul on the way out to the page, to crafting something that allows someone else to join me on that journey. I’m a completely different writer to that girl who pressed the submit button on Kindle Direct Publishing and then hid in the bathroom for hours afterwards terrified. I like to think that it’s a growing process but like all growth, sometimes it hurts.

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Passive voice was a hurdle for me and I dealt with that in a previous blog. Another one was the issue of showing not telling.

I’m a born romantic and always have been. The heroes in my head are always larger than life, never cry, save the day with a well-timed kick and look dashing in a well-cut pair of jeans. I imagine their entry and exit to heart-stirring music and struggle to manage my violin playing whilst typing.

Writing Logan Du Rose has revised all of that and more. He is all of the above but would likely do a runner if I cranked up the CD player when he strutted anywhere. He would take a baseball bat to it and look me in the eye while he smashed it. What I’ve found is that I need to put my romanticism on hold while writing. The gushing emotion I feel conceiving the scene is not attractive for someone reading it months later. Unless I’ve done it right - they won’t even know it’s there. It will have become faintly nauseating.

I’ve edited my novels more times than I can count and it’s not just to remove the odd typo or sort that bizarre cut and paste that perhaps went a bit wrong. I’m out to kill passive voice and any hint of telling. I want the reader to come with me into the action and feel the fear. It’s not a boxing match where the audience sits around the sides of the ring watching the action and needing the shouts of the commentator to let them know the intricacies of the scoring. They need to be in the ring, dodging the punches, splashed by blood and sweat and tasting the essence of failure and success.

First hand.

Anything that stands in the way of that end product needs to die. And I mean seriously - no mercy. If you have to rewrite - that’s just tough on you. Serves you right for not doing it properly the first time. As an avid reader, I get pretty sick of lengthy descriptions from authors who are in love with their own characters beyond the point of reality. I hear the violins and it turns me right off! Unfortunately, the relationship genres - erotica and romance float along in a heady bubble of the stuff and it’s a steady, seeping infection into the other genres too. It’s everywhere like mildew. You turn the page of an innocent sci-fi and there it is.

The books that sell are those which document the lives of real people who don’t do their supermarket shop to resounding drum beats. Their squalling kids don’t stand up in the trolley with their arms outstretched like Rose on the Titanic and the women have stretch-marks. Real ones.

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Just as an example, I’ve been editing my earlier works for the zillionth time and thought I would share this hideous blooper with you - just before I nuke it. I have no idea how it’s escaped detection before as I’ve found almost none this pass through, but I can pretend it was deliberate if I share it.

To put it in context, Logan Du Rose has taken his wife up to his tract of land in the North Island of New Zealand for the weekend and they pull over and sit on the edge of a ridge overlooking the sumptuous hotel in the valley that his family runs. They swing their legs over the precipice as the sun goes down behind them and chat companionably together. And then the text says:

“Logan pulled Hana in close, enjoying her presence.”

Ok, so the seasoned author rolls their eyes about now and says, ‘Oh no she didn’t - she told not showed.’

Those who are newly out of the gate might peer blankly and say, ‘So what am I meant to be looking at?’

The fact is this. How do you, the reader know that Logan enjoys Hana’s presence?

Did he write it in the dirt behind her butt with his finger, just so that you could feel part of things?

Did he pay a fortune to a pilot to drag a sail across the sky behind his plane declaring, ‘Logan loves Hana’s presence’?

How?

How do you know?

Don’t trust the author. That’s not a safe way to live. Any time I want to, I could push Logan right over that cliff edge and then where would you be? I can do whatever I like with him because he belongs to me. It’s not my problem that you’ve fallen in love with him and would be devastated.

When I was a little girl, my mother had an expression she used when I did something particularly stupid. My answer would invariably be, “Bex made me do it!” It was probably true as well. My sister always thought up the stupidity in our household and skilfully got me blamed for it. Mum would roll her eyes and say those infamous words,

“If she told you to put your head in a gas oven - would you?”

“No,” I would say with a convincing shake of my head while my sister stood behind my mother smirking. Of course I would.

It’s no different for you as a reader. How do you know that Logan enjoyed Hana’s presence?

Because I told you, fool. You can’t trust me. I’m not trustworthy. It’s like the popular expression now for someone’s outrageous claim.

‘Photos or it didn’t happen.’

Here is a later rewrite. Notice I didn’t say anything about Logan enjoying Hana’s presence. But the fact that he’s still sat there and yet there are probably other places he could be leaves the sentence redundant.

“They sat on the ridge overlooking the hotel until the sun slithered down behind them. Logan pulled Hana in close and kissed the side of her face. His fingers twisted a stray curl, fascinated by the red glow coaxed out by the dying sun. “I love it up here.” His voice sounded husky and contented as he sighed and rested his chin against Hana’s soft cheek.”

Telling instead of showing is something we all do. In an age in which we demand the right to be heard it’s an easy trap to fall into. You might know that I’m depressed because I say so. But you’re more likely to want to help me when you see me struggling outwardly with something and my eyes and body language tell that you I’m at the end of my rope. We live in a world where the little boy continually cries wolf, so don’t believe him.

And if you’re an author, expect to be able to back up your claims with actual proof. And if you can't - well, then don't say it at all!