Abraham Maslow once said if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Since learning about the different between "show" and "tell" (better defined as "show an action from a character's perspective" rather than "give/tell a description"), I became a little like that, painfully attempting to change every sentence into a "show" sentence. So, in an attempt to get over it, I analysed one of Richard Brautigan's short stories, The Weather in San Fransisco.
The story starts with quite a bit of tell. The main scene between the butcher and the very old lady is introduced "...with an Italian butcher selling a pound of meat to a very old lady". This could have been re-written from the butcher's or the old lady's perspective, certainly: "The old lady's hands reached up to pay..." etc. But what struck me about the story's beginning was that, despite the story being very much "tell", it wasn't bad. In fact, it demonstrated many excellent literary devices--suspense, vivid descriptions, etc--all without using any "show".
After some dialogue, Brautigan finally does use some "show". But he uses "show" to describe the main part of the scene, the very old lady waking through her house with the pound of meat. The "tell" parts merely led up to this part. And that seems to be the main distinction: make the main action "show". But even this can be over-done. Towards the end of the story there's a sentence: "walked down a long hall into room that was filled with bees". The "filled with bees" part is a description here, but the sentences wouldn't sound better with "...where bees swarmed", especially as the sentence would move perspective from the very old lady to the bees.
Looking at this work, the "show" and "tell" rule seems a lot more blurred. And it makes sense. It's certainly better to write "his teeth chattered" instead of "he was cold" most of the time, but if his temperature is only a necessary scene-setting part of the story--not the main action--"he was cold" may well be permissible.
Summary and telling both have their parts in lit. Usually, like you're saying, it is for either details that are not easy to tell (or must be told for precision), or to skip through a mundane part of the story to get to something more interesting.
ReplyDeleteGo with what best paces the story.
- Eric
Sounds like you are getting hung up on "rules". Just tell your story. You will know when the characters should speak and when you should describe something instead. Writing is rewriting.
ReplyDeletethanks guys :)
ReplyDeleteExposition has it part in a good story. But I agree; show is the rule to live by. I hope I can judge my work the way I judge a book I purchased.
ReplyDeleteGood points, thx for sharing.