General writing tips

Today, I’m going to explore in depth a very famous piece of advice for writers:

show, don’t tell.

Mastering the art of ‘showing’ in your writing can be the difference between being an average writer and a great one.

But what’s ‘showing’ and how can you incorporate it into your story?

‘Showing’ (also known as deep point of view) is writing as if you’re in the character’s head – you get to know everything they see, hear, feel, understand, and experience.

Everything is filtered through the character’s senses and how they view the world.

While ‘showing’ paints a vivid picture in one’s mind, ‘telling’ (also known as shallow writing) is simply stating what’s happened in the story.

Showing gives the reader a much richer and more interesting experience, which is why it should be incorporated into your story as often as possible.

And then there’s telling.

Here’s an example of telling in a sentence:

Sara felt cold, so quickly put her woollen coat on.

As you can see, this sentence is just simply stating the facts.

Now let’s edit it to incorporate showing:

Sarah shivered, teeth chattering violently as she hurriedly put her woollen coat on, hugging herself tightly amidst the biting winds.

The second example is a much stronger sentence, putting a more vivid illustration in the reader’s mind, as it shows how cold Sarah is, while the first sentence just tells us how cold she is.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.

– William Faulkner

A story is a mixture of both showing and telling, and knowing which one to incorporate at any given time is crucial.

However, YOU the author are always the boss, and must decide on when to show and when to tell.

Generally telling is used for minor events in a story that aren’t dramatic or emotional, to move the pace along.

For example when:

Time has passed;
A character travels from point A to point B;
Sharing facts about backstory;
Sharing facts about the character’s world;
Sharing facts about the setting;
Sharing facts about mundane events.

Use showing for:

The character’s emotions;
The character’s attitudes;
Dramatic events;
The character’s sensory experiences, for example being hot and sweaty, cold and wet, thirsty or hungry,

As mentioned before, you’re the ultimate boss over your writing, so you can break the rules when you see fit, but try to use showing and telling as appropriately as you can.

If you continually ask yourself, how can I make this sentence better? you can hardly go wrong!

BEAUTIFUL WORD OF THE DAY: BIBLIOPHILE. Meaning someone who loves books (me!). Someone that takes their love of books too far is a BIBLIOMANIAC.

Now let’s talk about filter words. They’re words that put the character in the spotlight of the text, instead of the character’s experience.

They go against the show, don’t tell rule because they tell the reader what’s happening, rather than let the reader interpret what’s happening for themselves.

They include verbs such as saw, heard, listened, tasted, smelled, felt, touched, noticed, looked, etc.

They also include verbs related to thought processes, such as decided, knew, considered, regarded, realised, wondered, remembered, noted, thought, etc.

They state emotions rather than showing them, creating a less immersive experience for the reader.

Remember: don’t state – show!

Here’s an example of a paragraph with several filter words, which I’ve underlined:

I woke up and felt my head throbbing from the excess wine I had last night. I also felt sick in the stomach. I knew I’d be far too sick to go to work that day. I turned my head and looked around my bedroom. I saw my mobile phone lying on the bedside table, glinting in the sunlight. Time to call in sick, I thought.

As you can see, the revised sentence is tightened up and much stronger as a result.

Imagine you’re in a stadium, watching your beloved team play football, when halfway through, a security guard suddenly whisks you away from the stadium, towards another room. Once there, he tells you which team won, gives you a polite nod, and then scurries you out the exit.

No doubt you’d be angry. He just deprived you of the sensory delights of the game, the excited jumping for joys and the looks of crushing defeat, the cheers and boos of the crowd, the anticipation of the final kick, the excited tone of the commentator, the tension of not knowing what the outcome would be, etc. It’s what you’ve paid good money for!

This is similar to what the reader experiences when the writer tells them what’s happening in the story.

They’re really just reading a report, while being deprived of all the interesting sensory details.

This not only distances the reader, it tells them that they’re not being trusted to figure out what’s going on for themselves.

YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE: THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams. This is a comedy science fiction novel as well as a franchise! Originally it was a radio broadcast on the BBC, then it was later adapted to a novel, stage show, comic book, TV series, game and film. The Earth has been destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and Arthur Dent escapes the destruction with help from Ford Prefect (an alien writer for the travel guide The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). There, Dent’s adventures begin as he explores the galaxy with Prefect.

Filter words put distance between the reader and the story (also known as narrative distance) because the reader is being taken out of the story.

In other words, they’re not being given an immersive experience, where they feel as if they’re there.

When going over your draft, see how many filter words you can get rid of to improve your text.

It may not be possible or realistic to get rid of every single filter word, but see how many you can let go of.

They often clog your paragraphs up, making them unnecessarily wordy.

Showing, telling, and filter words all have their place in writing, and with practice, you get better and better at deciding where that place should be.

For further reading and examples on this, I recommend Fiction Editing Tools by S.A. Soule.

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Related post: How to improve your writing.