Showing vs Telling

Many writers have trouble with this. I don’t want characters in a movie, or book for that matter, to tell me how they feel. I want to see how they feel. Give me visuals. I want to see what they see. Feel what they feel. Hear what they hear.

Jane can say: “Patty showed me her garden the other day. It was so beautiful.”

What’s the problem with this? You, as the writer, have taken me out of the story and forced me to think. Now, on my own, I must try to visualize what exactly makes this a beautiful garden. So instead, show me! It might go a little bit like this:

## Jane walks into the quiet garden right at sunset. There was a soft, gentle breeze that blows her long blonde hair back ever so slightly, revealing her long, smooth neck. Jane closes her eyes, tilts her head back and breathes in deeply the sweet aroma of the Daphnes and Magnolias, allowing them to penetrate her senses. A calm sets in her body. ##

You see? Now we’re not trying to imagine what this beautiful garden is like. We remain in the story and feel what Jane feels and smell what she smells. We, like Jane, feel a relaxed, calmness come over us. Because you showed us, rather then told us. When you tell, you rip the reader or viewer out of the story and place them directly back into their own world from which they were trying to escape in the first place. When you show, they become a part of the story. They live it with your characters, and forget about their miserable real lives for a while.

The best stories ever told employ the crucial technique of showing rather then telling. So, go back over your novel’s draft, your screenplay, or whatever it is, and go through making sure you aren’t inadvertently tearing the reader or viewer out of the story by telling rather than showing.