SHOW DON'T TELL

A client asked me what I meant when I told him, "Show don't tell." I realized that maybe the catch phrases don't always make sense to new writers. I thought of how I might explain it better.

When I first started sending my stories to magazine publishers, I got the standard form rejection letters for answers. Tens of submissions later, editors started penning notes on their rejection letters. I walked on air for days when one editor wrote, "Good story." Now, I know better. In my position as editor, I have now made the same comment to beginning writers. It means, "The story amuses me, it even entertains me, but there is no way in Hell it will ever be sales worthy."

We all know how to tell stories. We learn from the moment we can put one foot in front of the other and can string words together into coherent sentences. Anyone who doesn't believe this should ask a child to describe their day or relate the plot of their favorite movie. The usual response is an epic sequence of actions told in chronological order between enormous gulps of air. Less usual, and for future readers a real joy, are those children who punctuate their tales with gestures, facial expressions, and bits of "altered voice" dialogue. With the proper encouragement, those children can become the next generation's Anne Rice, Stephen Spielberg, or Isaac Asimov. If squelched, they probably become lawyers or politicians.

As writers, we try to recapture a bit of that childlike wonder. We enter into an unspoken contract with our readers. They lend us their attention and their suspension of disbelief, and, in return, we grant them emotional release. For a short while, we endeavor to take our reader away from his familiar surroundings to a world where laughter, tears, fears, joy and even new information are ends unto themselves. To accomplish this, we must place the reader in the position of voyeur. A reader doesn't want to know what we think our characters are feeling, instead he wants to smell the sweat on the protagonist's brow, feel the itch between the antagonist's shoulder blades, and taste the honey as it rolls past the heroine's lips.

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Last Revised: 02-Dec-97

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