Dangerous advice: Show don’t tell

I don’t much care for the “Show, don’t tell,” advice, though every now and then I feel compelled to note that a particular scene in a specific book would be a lot better with more showing and less telling. Still, as a rule, I’m not a fan of this phrase. Therefore, this blog post at Anne R Allen’s blog caught my eye: Why “Show Don’t Tell” Can be Dangerous Advice for New Writers.

I know why I don’t like “show, don’t tell.” I dislike this advice because

–It makes it sound like telling is bad.

–It prevents new authors from figuring out when and how to tell effectively.

–It makes new authors self-conscious about the wrong things.

–It ignores books that are heavily into telling, or treats those books as inferior.

***

Let’s look at one of those books.

A Winter’s Tale, by Helprin

And sometime not too deep in winter, each year, the Lake of the Coheeries would surprise everyone by freezing over during the night. In the second week of December at the latest, the inhabitants of Lake of the Coheeries Town sat by their fires after dinner and stared into the darkness around their rafters as Canadian winds rode in hordes and attacked their settlement from the north. These winds had been born and raised in the arctic, and had learned their manners on the way down, in Montreal—or so it was said, since the people of Lake of the Coheeries hadn’t much respect for the manners or mores of Montreal. The winds ripped off tiles, broke branches, and toppled unwired chimneys. When they came up, everyone knew that winter had begun, and that a long time would pass before the spring made the lake light yellow with melting streams that fled from newly breathing fields. …

The lake had frozen in one night, which meant that a harsh winter was due. Just how difficult it would get could be forecast by the smoothness of the ice. The finer it was, the harder would be the succeeding months, although—in the days before it snowed—iceboating would be unlike anything on earth.

It lay there almost laughing at its own perfection. There was not a ripple, streak, or bubble to be seen. The terrible wind and the incessant castellations of foam had been banished and leveled by the fast freeze of heavy blue water. Not a flake of snow skidded across the endless glass, which was as perfect as an astronomer’s mirror.

“The monsters must be sealed in tight,” Mrs. Gamely said. Then she grew silent in contemplation of the winter to come. The ice was airless, smooth, and dark. For two weeks the sun rose and set on Lake of the Coheeries Town, low and burnished, spinning out a mane of golden brass threads. A steady and gentle breeze moved from west to east on the lake, sweeping the flawless black ice clean in a continuous procession of chattering icicles and twigs that fled from wind and sun like ranks of opera singers who run from their scenes gaily and full of energy in a stage direction stolen from streams, surf, and the storms which fleece autumnal forests.

Even though the air temperature never went above ten degrees, the weather was mild because the wind was light and the sky cloudless. With their wells freezing up and their world nearly still, the inhabitants of the town took to the ice in a barrage of Dutch pursuits that saw the sun rise and set, and gave the village the busy and peculiar appearance of a Flemish winter scene. Perhaps they had inherited it; perhaps the historical memory deep within them, like the intense colors with which the landscape was painted, was renewable. A Dutch village arose along the lake. Iceboats raced from west to east and tacked back again, their voluminous sails like a hundred flowers gliding noiselessly across the ice. Up close, there was only a slight sound as gleaming steel runners made their magical cut. A little way in the distance, they sounded like a barely audible steam engine. Miniature villages sprang up on the lake, comprised of fishing booths ranged in circles, with flapping doors and curling pigtails of smoke from stovepipe chimneys. Firelight from these shelters reflected across the ice at night in orange and yellow lines that each came to a daggerlike point. Boys and girls disappeared together, on skates, pulled into the limitless distance by a ballooning sail attached to their thighs and shoulders. When they had traveled so far on the empty mirror that they could see no shore, they folded the sail, put it on the ice, and lay on its tame billows to fondle and kiss, keeping a sharp eye on the horizon for the faraway bloom of an iceboat sail, lest they be discovered and admired to death by the younger children who sailed boats into the empty sections just to see such things.

Blazing fires on shore ringed inward bays and harbors like necklaces. At each one, there was steaming chocolate, or rum and cider, and venison roasting on a spit. Skating on the lake in darkness, firing a pistol to keep in touch with a friend, was like traveling in space, for there were painfully bright stars above and all the way down to a horizon that rested on the lake like a bell jar. The stars were reflected perfectly, though dimly, in the ice, frozen until they could not sparkle. Long before, someone had had the idea of laying down wide runners, setting the light-as-a-white-weddingcake village bandstand on them, and hitching up a half-dozen plough horses with ice shoes to tow the whole thing around at night. With lights shining from the shell, an entire enchanted village skated behind it as the Coheeries orchestra played a lovely, lucid, magical piece such as “Rhythm of Winter,” by A. P. Clarissa.

When the farmers all along the undulating lakeshore saw a chain of tiny orange flames, and the shining white castle moving dreamlike through the dark (like a dancer making quick steps under concealing skirts), they strapped on their skates and pogoed through their fields to leap onto the ice and race to the magic that glided across the horizon. As they approached, they were astonished by the music, and by the ghostly legions of men, women, and children skating in the darkness behind the bandshell. They looked like the unlit tail of a comet. Young girls twirled and pirouetted to the music: others were content just to follow.

***

This is a beautiful story with many dreamlike scenes, especially winter scenes. I’ve read it maybe half a dozen times. I think the first time, I was too young. There was a lot I didn’t understand and I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I knew I loved the language of the story. Later, I read it slowly and I think I understood it better. I know I liked it better. I also still loved the language of the story, which is, as you see, heavy on telling, as beautiful description always is, and perhaps that’s why I always disregarded “show, don’t tell” advice myself, because I’ve always loved beautiful description.

What “telling” is for:

–Description that goes on more than a line or so.

–Establishing tone.

–Getting through unimportant transitions as briskly as possible.

–Getting through anything else unimportant as briskly as possible.

What avoiding telling necessarily causes:

–Limits description.

–Makes it hard to create a tone at all.

–SLOWS DOWN THE STORY A LOT, and I mean A LOT, and this is a problem even for an author who doesn’t care much about description.

So, what does this post at Anne R Allen’s blog say

A) Too Much “Show Don’t Tell” Slows the Pace.

Some newbie writers confuse descriptions of violence with conflict. If you describe every blow and scream of pain in a fight scene, your story is not moving forward. The story stops until we know how the characters react to what’s going on and how the fight alters the trajectory of the plot.

B) “Camera’s Eye” Showing Skimps on Information

But when a novelist tells us a character clenches his fist, he is not letting us in on much. … You’re not a camera. You’re a novelist. And it’s your job to give us as much information as possible to tell your story.

C) “Show Don’t Tell” Can Distance the Reader from the Character.

An author’s job is to create a connection between the reader and the character. Readers want to get inside the character’s head. But when we meet that guy with the clenched fist, we are just looking at him from the outside. We’re shut out of the story.

D) Withholding Information Annoys the Reader.

Let us know where we are, who the protagonist is and what he wants, or you’ve lost your reader before chapter two. If you have to tell rather than show to keep the reader from leaving, go ahead and do it. Seriously. It’s okay.

E) It’s Hard to Say Anything Original about Body Language.

How many times have you hit the thesaurus looking for a new way to say your character is afraid or angry or elated?

F) Too Much “Showing” Can be a Sign of Over-Workshopping

I know writers who have workshopped the same novel for decades in everything from college classes to writers’ conferences to online critique groups. They often try to follow the advice of every person who gives feedback. What they’re doing is giving away creative control of their own book. They are letting their book be written by committee. They’re also following a recipe for bland, boring writing. Don’t do it.

These are all good points. But surely that last is pure insecurity. This is where the only advice that matters is QUIT ASKING FOR ADVICE. Oh, maybe, PUT THAT AWAY FOR A YEAR and also QUIT ASKING FOR ADVICE. I really feel someone who does this ought to benefit a lot by putting the over-workshopped thing in a drawer and writing something else. When they have their new project finished, they should perhaps ask ONE beta reader for a critique, and then revise ONE time and then make a decision on that basis about whether to send it out into the world.

Having said that, I overworked a book once, and had a difficult time rebuilding it. That was NO FOREIGN SKY, and it was a lesson to me. The lesson was: Don’t keep rewriting according to different people’s advice. Just don’t. Minor revision is one thing; that’s fine. But big rewrites, do it according to your own vision or don’t do it at all. I may not stick to that rule forever, who knows, but that’s my rule for now.

Meanwhile!

I do like the linked post, and I hadn’t thought specifically of how “show don’t tell” can be translated as “don’t put us in the character’s head,” but wow, it sure could be taken that way. Speaking as someone who benefits from being asked, “Can you bring us more into the character’s head?”, I now wonder if this is one reason I dislike “show don’t tell” advice so much — because “show physical movements, avoid revealing the emotional context” is exactly the wrong advice for me. It might be okay for someone else. It might help a different author tone down the angst. Though my impression is, authors who write characters who wallow in angst do it on purpose, so maybe not.

Anyway, bottom line, everybody needs to show effectively and also tell effectively, whatever that means for them; and (as always) proscriptive advice is bad advice.

Also, maybe I should re-read A Winter’s Tale. Maybe I’ll wait till July, when I long for winter. Or for February, when I want to enjoy the winter more.

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