I wish the “Show don’t tell” rule would die a fiery death.
It’s an arbitrary, misleading decree, widely abused in writing groups where it gives pedants a footing for unconstructive criticism that they don’t have to justify.
It can push inexperienced writers into breaking the equally-misunderstood brevity rule, because sometimes showing takes a lot more words than telling. I worked with a writer who had taken show-don’t-tell so much to heart that she once showed a character’s eyebrows climbing up into his hairline instead of just telling us that he was surprised.
Worse, show-don’t-tell can block your view of the much more important maxim “How about neither?” also known as “Delete that.”
The idea behind show-don’t-tell is valid: if an event belongs in a story, show it happening in the story.
But if an event doesn’t belong in the story, it makes no difference whether you tell it or show it, because you should be cutting it.
A lot of writers believe they should plunge right into the action at the beginning of a scene. Sometimes that means backtracking to explain (tell) how we got here.
Sam’s palms were sweaty as he pulled open the conference room door, and he had to wipe them on his pants. He remembered his last performance review, the one that had resulted* in six long months of unemployment.
[*Notice the past perfect tense? That’s the red flag of awkward backtracking.]
In a later draft, you’ll need to ask yourself:
- Is Sam’s nervousness important to the story?
- Does the reader really need to understand why he’s so nervous?
- Do they need to know it at this point in the story?
If the answer to the first question is No, then cut the sweat and the anecdote–neither show nor tell.
If the answer to the first question is yes, but the answer to the second is no, keep the sweat (the showing) but cut the anecdote (the telling).
If the answer to the third question is yes…well, pro tip: the answer to the third question is almost always no. Even if the reader needs to know why Sam is nervous, they almost never need to know it at this point in the story. They need to have learned it earlier, or find it out later. Keep the sweat and move the anecdote to a point in the story where it’s more organic. Maybe show the previous firing. Maybe have someone mention it later.
Why? Not because of some arbitrary show-don’t-tell rule, but because now the character, Sam, knows something the reader doesn’t know (why he’s nervous). That’s the definition of mystery, and it’s one of the things that keeps your reader turning pages.
But sometimes you just need to tell a thing. In a case like the climbing eyebrows, simple telling beats absurd showing every time.