Show don't tell is the most repeated and least understood advice in fiction writing. Writers interpret it as never state anything directly or every emotion must be described through physical sensation. Then they produce overwrought prose describing facial expressions instead of moving their stories forward. The truth is more nuanced. Great fiction requires both showing and telling, used strategically for different purposes.
What Does Showing Actually Mean?
Showing means providing specific sensory details, actions, and dialogue that let readers experience events directly rather than having them summarized. Instead of telling readers your character is angry, you show them slamming doors and speaking through clenched teeth. Instead of saying someone is wealthy, you describe their driver, their watch, their automatic assumption of service. Readers draw conclusions from evidence rather than being told what to think.
The power of showing is immersion. Readers feel like they are in the scene, experiencing events alongside characters. Telling creates distance. The narrator stands between readers and story, summarizing and explaining. Both have their place. According to analysis from writing instructors, problems arise when writers show everything equally, creating exhausting detail without variation in pace and focus.
When Should You Show Instead of Tell?
Show during crucial emotional moments. When your character experiences heartbreak, betrayal, or triumph, readers want to feel those moments vividly. Do not tell us she felt devastated. Show her unable to get out of bed, seeing his face everywhere, mechanically going through motions while emotionally numb. The specific details create emotional resonance that summary cannot achieve.
Show during plot turning points. Key decisions, confrontations, revelations, and action sequences need full scene treatment. These are the moments readers remember. They deserve detailed rendering that puts readers in the experience rather than summarizing from outside. If a scene matters enough to change your story's direction, it matters enough to show completely.
- Show character introductions so readers form impressions naturally
- Show conflicts and confrontations that advance plot
- Show emotional breakthroughs or devastations
- Show key decisions that reveal character
- Show climactic action and resolution scenes
When Should You Tell Instead of Show?
Tell when moving quickly through time or unimportant events. Readers do not need to experience every meal, commute, or routine activity in full sensory detail. Three weeks passed while she waited for test results. This sentence handles necessary timeline progression without boring readers. Show the moment she opens the envelope with results. Tell the waiting period.
Tell for necessary information dumps. Sometimes readers need historical context, world rules, or background that cannot be smoothly conveyed through action. Brief telling provides information efficiently so you can return to showing story events. The key is keeping told information brief and relevant. Two paragraphs of told backstory is fine. Five pages stops your story dead.
What Do Real Showing Examples Look Like?
From The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, showing poverty: Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each. This shows economic struggle through specific items traded for survival rather than stating the characters are poor.
From Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, showing fake marriage: Nick poured her more wine. You are so beautiful, he said. Amy batted this away as you would a butterfly, then tilted her chin just slightly up. This shows the performance of their relationship through choreographed gestures rather than telling readers their marriage is false.
From The Road by Cormac McCarthy, showing post-apocalyptic bleakness: Barren, silent, godless. The ash fell on them steadily. The specific sensory detail of constant ash creates visceral understanding of the destroyed world. McCarthy could have told readers the world was devastated. Instead he shows the ash that never stops falling.
What Do Real Telling Examples Look Like?
From Harry Potter, telling time passage: Harry spent the next few days working on his essay. Rowling tells because showing three days of essay writing would bore readers. She saves showing for plot-important scenes like Quidditch matches and confrontations with Voldemort.
From The Martian, telling technical information: The regulator was designed for a hundred people using it continuously. When describing complex systems, Weir tells clearly rather than forcing information through awkward dialogue or action. Readers accept direct explanation of Mars survival technology.
From Pride and Prejudice, telling character summary: Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice. Austen tells us Mr. Bennet's personality directly because she will show these traits through his actions throughout the novel. The told summary prepares readers to recognize the patterns.
How Do You Balance Showing and Telling?
Important scenes get shown in detail. Less important connective tissue gets told briefly. Emotional peaks get shown. Transitions get told. This creates rhythm and pacing variation. Constant showing exhausts readers with unrelenting sensory detail. Constant telling bores readers with summary. Alternating between modes keeps readers engaged.
Show when readers need to feel and experience. Tell when readers need to know and understand. Feeling creates emotional investment. Knowing provides context and information. Both serve essential but different functions. Problems arise when writers show unimportant details exhaustively while telling crucial emotional moments flatly.
What Are Common Showing Mistakes?
Overwriting physical reactions becomes telling through showing. She felt her heart racing, her palms sweating, her stomach clenching describes physical symptoms but creates the same distance as she felt nervous. Better: Her hands shook as she reached for the door. One concrete action shows nervousness more effectively than cataloging every physical sensation.
Showing everything equally makes nothing important. When readers must process detailed description of breakfast, commute, and afternoon coffee with the same attention required for climactic confrontation, they cannot distinguish what matters. Strategic showing highlights important moments. Everything else gets efficiently told or cut entirely.
How Can You Improve Your Showing Right Now?
Search your manuscript for emotion words: angry, sad, happy, scared, confused. When you find them in important scenes, replace with specific actions, dialogue, or sensory details that convey the emotion without naming it. Not everyone was scared becomes some people grabbed their children and ran while others stood frozen, unable to process what they were seeing. Specific behaviors show fear more powerfully than the word scared.
Read published novels in your genre noting when authors show versus tell. You will notice they tell far more than beginning writers expect. They tell time passages, background information, and minor events efficiently. They show crucial scenes completely. This balance keeps books moving while providing immersive experiences at key moments. Learn from what actually gets published rather than from misapplied rules.
Tools like AI writing assistants can identify patterns of telling versus showing in your manuscript and suggest where important moments need more development. Sometimes you think you are showing when you are actually telling with extra words. Outside perspective catches these patterns. Fix them in revision after finishing your draft, not while drafting, or you will never finish.
Show don't tell is not an absolute rule. It is a guideline about creating vivid, immersive experiences at moments that matter while efficiently moving through less important material. Master both showing and telling. Use each strategically. Your fiction will become more engaging and better paced than if you followed oversimplified writing rules that professional authors routinely ignore.