Showing Versus Telling

Some writing advice to help you

A couple years ago I did a post on my blog about showing and telling and included three tips on it. The reason showing is almost always the better way to go than telling is it creates a more engaging scene for the reader. About the only time when telling would be better is in an instance where showing would make the story more boring or it would drag out a scene.

For example, John drove for two hours before arriving at his destination. This would be an instance where showing the whole two-hour drive would be unnecessary unless it was crucial to the story. It would drag out the story to have the description of the road as he drove, the scenery like the trees how hot the sun was or how dark the night was.

With regards to showing, one of the best books on this is Marcy Kennedy’s Showing and Telling in Fiction as part of her Busy Writer’s series. A book that is highly recommended as I have used it along with a lot of her other books.

Think of all the five senses, sight, touch, smell, taste and sound when it comes to showing. The chocolate was delicious is quite boring as compared to when Janet put the chocolate in her mouth it brought back memories of her childhood when her grandfather gave her the first candy when she was four years old. It was smooth as butter when as it melted…