Saturday, June 16: Mystery Masterclass
G. Miki Hayden won the Edgar for her short story “The Maids” in 2004, which appeared in the MWA anthology Blood on their Hands, for which JLW had the honor of serving as a judge. Miki is also the author of Writing the Mystery and The Naked Writer (a style and composition book for all levels of writers). She contributed the forward to the anthology Seven by Seven, which featured our own Deborah Elliott-Upton.
SHOW, DON’T TELL:
A Brief Contradiction of Current Thinking on the Topic
by G. Miki Hayden
In the world of writing, people misunderstand telling versus showing. Telling is: She was dressed to the nines. Showing is: She had on a short, flowing, aqua dress of silk that emphasized her tanned legs as she walked. Telling isn’t: She felt radiantly feminine in the short, flowing, aqua dress of silk that emphasized her tanned legs as she walked. Writers “tell†in that sense quite legitimately. We definitely want to “tell” the internal state of our characters. However, a lot of times writers criticize one another for their “telling” when the telling is of a type that enhances the story.
I just gave feedback to a student writing a mystery brief. After the character finds a body of a colleague, she seems much cooler than any one of us would undoubtedly be. While we certainly can “show†the character as being upset–Nancy stumbled toward the office of her friend, Laura, nearly bumping into the wall—we also want to present her emotions from the inside, which means telling what Nancy now experiences. She felt sickened by what she had just seen, not simply by the sight of all that blood, but by the fact of a vicious hand abruptly snuffing out a human life.
We want to present the character’s attitude in as exact and deep a way as we’re capable of. We want to show how real humans will react to such a situation, what their thoughts will be, and so on.
Yes, “show don’t tell†is an important rule to remember and employ when it applies. To “show†means to add the sensory detail to the story, to physicalize the setting, the characters’ movements and reactions. “Show don’t tell†doesn’t mean not to tell us what can’t be shown exactly because the essentials go quite deeply into the character’s mind, heart, and soul.
We must tell. We do tell. We tell in a way that isn’t a substitute for the showing of detail, but in a way that expands the story and adds layers of meaning. As writers, we want to tell as much as possible. We want to both show and tell as much as we’re capable of perceiving and then reporting on. We go for the nuance that we can “tell.â€
As a reader, you’re going to appreciate how much we can tell you.
Miki, this is exactly what I needed to hear. I’d just finished the first draft of a story I am currently still “in lust with”, meaning I am too close to “see” the flaws. I had worried that I might be telling more than showing, but by your definition, I have reason to still love this baby. Thanks for an excellent article!
As a reader (and not a professional writer), I hate it when an author pops open the skull of one of his/her characters to describe what the character is thinking or feeling. I much prefer for such revelations to be achieved through action and/or dialogue/interior monologue. Don’t tell me that Nancy felt sickened by the sight of Laura’s corpse and that Nancy was outraged by the injustice of it all. Why not have her curse between dry heaves (or do something equally primal)?
Hmm… As a new writer, this is good for me. Miki gets me thinking about it one way, and then Tom has me think about it another. But that’s the point… thinking about it from different perspectives.
The trick is to determine what technique is called for by the circumstances being related. Tom’s example is good, because whenever a reader reaches his own conclusion — what I call “making the reader do the work” — that conclusion is going to be closer to the reader’s heart than if he were asked to accept the same conclusion on the author’s say so. Your own conclusions always have more moral force than the pronouncements of authority.
What most readers object to isn’t really the difference between showing and telling–but rather “nail-on-the-head” (NOTH) writing, i.e., writing that shows little imagination and usually leaves little room for imagination. But sometimes even NOTH is a good technique, especially in action sequences, where the pace should be rapid and breathless to catch the flavor of the moment.
If Nancy has to suddenly pull out her .38 to protect herself because Laura’s killer is still inside the room, you are not going to like wading through a long description of the walnut grips’ checker grip pressing into her palm as she takes up her modified Weaver stance, focusing on the site on the end of the blue steel four-inch barrel aligned with the blurred silhouette of her antagonist as her index finger applies pressure to the light double-action trigger. You’re going to want her to take aim and fire.
You’ve said here, Miki, what I’ve been thinking, and sometimes saying, for a long time. Sometimes, just telling makes the reader understand better than showing. It is, after all, called story telling for a reason. We have to tell the reader the dress is red–try describing the color red otherwise. We are telling, often,, without realizing it, even if we’re all for “showing, not telling.” If the character is a very self-contained person, as many of mine are, she is not going to stumble around or have the dry heaves. She’s going to be outwardly in complete control, while her mind is screaming at her to DO SOMTHING. So, thoughts and actions do indeed, often need to be told. And sometimes, to cut down on wordage, it’s quicker to tell rather than show, to get on with things.
I think Miki is just this side of perfect, but I have to side with Tom Walsh on this one when he says, Don’t tell me that Nancy felt sickened by the sight of Laura’s corpse… If the object of the lesson was to show and not tell, it failed. Telling by any other name is still telling.
One of the best examples of showing I can recall was in a book by Ginny Hartzmark. All mistakes in this summary are mine:
In her story a man and woman have just broken up. He begs her to meet him for lunch and reconsider their relationship. She gets off work early and goes to the tennis club where she knows he is playing a match. She watches as he loses the game. He runs to the net and warmly shakes the winner’s hand. She goes to the parking lot to wait for him to emerge from the locker room. As he crosses the lot she sees him hesitate, look around, then key the winner’s car. Without any inner thoughts or words, she drives away. Now that’s showing, not telling.
Another example is from a short story. Sorry I don’t remember the author, except that her first name is Margaret. Again summary errors are mine:
Two old ladies walk into a curio shop. Against the back wall they find a real mummy laid out on a shelf. One of the women screams and jumps back, the other narrows her eyes, opened her purse and says to the store clerk, “How much?”
We know the difference in their personalities from their actions. The author ‘showed’ them to us. Another author might have ‘told’ us one woman was scared of her own shadow and the other was too gutsy for her own good.
Enough said.