When you sink into a good story, what happens to you?
When I find myself fully immersed in a good story, I can’t help but see the story come alive: The characters become three-dimensional human beings (assuming they’re human, of course) with specific features, gaits, and voices of their own; the places are familiar and warm and full of comforts, or new and exciting and full of possibilities; people move; seasons change; conversations happen. The story leaps off the page and embeds its cinematic magic in my gray matter, becomes a moving picture.
But not all books become moving pictures. Sometimes, the story remains text on a page. And when there’s nothing more than text on a page, I get bored, frustrated. I wish for something more.
I wish to see.
When you’re writing immersive fiction, you likely want your readers to see your story come alive. The best way to do this is to show your readers the story as it unfolds.
Let’s get to it.
What is showing?
“Show, Don’t Tell,” a common dictum for writers, reminds you to use descriptions to show readers what’s happening and why it’s important. Through showing, you’ll produce a more immersive experience for your readers. And showing, according to an article by my colleague Kristin Noland, is what happens when your characters “interact with each other through actions, dialogue, expressions, and body language,” and her definition is apt.
Really, we should consider scrapping the word “storytelling” from our writerly vernacular. Storytelling is a communicative default setting of sorts, though if all we do is “tell” stories, we’ve already lost those magical, modern readers. “Storyshowing” better wraps readers up in cinematic experiences. Because your characters drive the entire story, all showing must be done through character interactions and perceptions and marks the difference between:
- [Telling]: I watch the cats sleep soundly; and
- [Showing]: The cats lie on their sides, perfectly still, their eyes not quite closed. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of their rib cages, I might think they were dead. I press my forehead up against the bars and watch them for a long time. (— Sara Gruen, Water For Elephants)
While telling the reader the “cats sleep soundly” produces, perhaps, a generic visual — each of us has an archetypcal recall of what “cat” is, after all — the shown version of the same description allows the reader to see the cats as Jacob, the story’s narrator, sees them.
Before moving on, a quick note:
While it is remarkably easy to overshare, like a stranger with no social filter, a certain amount of telling via exposition or summary is unavoidable. Some things just need to be told briefly rather than being shown within an scene.
Show the story through your perspective character’s eyes
The perspective character who tells your story to readers is tasked with the enormous effort of capturing your audience as if by word magic. And the magic works best when the perspective character’s voice is so well developed the reader forgets they’re reading a story at all. Instead, they become invested in the lives of people.
Developing the perspective character’s voice means remembering that every description provided, every thought mulled over, every detail known or observed must come from the mind and be written in the vernacular of your perspective character. Lean into the perspective character’s role: Is your perspective character intimately involved with the events at hand? Are they reporting on the events, objectively or subjectively, for one reason or another? Are they standing next to the reader, holding their hand, and leading the reader through the story landscape? How’s the disposition of your perspective character? Are they excited at life’s possibilities or exhausted by its trials?
Here’s an example:
- [Telling]: Grayson was scared of the dark.
- [Showing, Grayson]: When his Ma turned off the light, Grayson’s blood started thrashing something awful and his shoulders got tight around his ears. He pulled the quilt up to his chin, tensed as a shadow loomed large in the moonlight streaking through the window, held his breath when a branch screeched against the glass. He wouldn’t cry out for Ma. Not again.
- [Showing, Grayson’s Mom]: She flicked off the light but lingered in the hall outside Grayson’s room, listening to the soft whispering of the quilt being pulled over his head, the click of the flashlight, the glowing circle under the heavy cover, the deep, shuddering breath of a little boy just learning how to be brave. She pulled the door nearly closed and smiled to herself.
In the “telling” example, there’s really very little for the reader to play with, visually. But both “showing” examples, depending on the perspective character’s role and disposition, allow the reader to see more fully how, exactly, Grayson fears the dark. While the little boy notices the creepiness out the window, his mother notices the courage within.
Show the locations in which your story takes place
Grounding your reader in a specific location provides a relatively straightforward way to place your reader in the story from the onset. But grounding your reader in a place involves more than just describing the architecture, design style, or color palette. While not all the places in your story will be important enough for your readers to see, the critical settings where the characters work, live, play, and dream do benefit from creative showing to put your reader in the mindset and mood of the folks in those places.
Remember settings are characters, too, so think about the reasons your characters are in those specific locations, what those locations mean to them, the histories and contexts contained therein. And always go back to the perspective character telling the story and what the place means to them, as an individual, as part of a group, or otherwise. Does your perspective character have memories of the place? What details stick out to that character as particularly important? Why does your character remember those details?
Here’s an example:
- [Telling]: Except for a few cosmetic changes, Grandma’s living room looked just the same as it always had with the same old furniture full of the same old ghosts.
- [Showing]: Except for some cosmetic upgrades applied like lipstick, it was the same old living room with the same old floral velvet couch, the same old busted recliner, the same old hand-carved wooden lamp with a knot hole into which Grandpa had stuffed his dinner toothpicks for years, the same old pictures of the same old family members staring down at us from the wall. The new paint color threw off the light coming in through the wide windows, and the new carpet made the room seem smaller, somehow; claustrophobic.
The differences in the told and shown examples are fairly self-explanatory, and if Grandma’s house is not particularly important for the story, the told example is more efficient than the more drawn out shown example. However, if Grandma’s house means something to the perspective character, the shown example provides more details of the life lived in said house and provides a glimpse into the passage of time.
Identify and assess telling in your writing
At this point, you may be asking yourself: How can I identify telling in my story? What should I look out for? And what instances of “telling” deserve to be shown instead? While I will mention that working with beta readers or a story developer will help you handle this task with ease and aplomb, you can work through your story systematically and make a few careful judgment calls on the showing that will work best for your story.
When in doubt about telling, look for sensory details — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and memories — that describe some aspect of a person, place, or thing. Would your perspective character actually notice those details? Are they meaningful to your perspective character? Is there something your character would likely not notice? But don’t overdo telling, either, or your story will become heavy with description.
Info-dumping is your enemy
Overwhelming the reader with too much information makes their shoulders heavy as they carry the mental load of information, trusting that all the details you’ve provided will actually be necessary for understanding later. And when those details are not necessary for understanding later, your reader may feel as though you gave them a back-breaking, yet purposeless, task.
Instead of asking your reader to shoulder weight they don’t need to carry, focus on capturing the reader’s attention with an interesting situation and pepper in the details, briefly, as needed and as the plot develops.
Brevity is your friend
As I shared in the article, Weave Backstory Into Fiction, “understanding doesn’t require a play-by-play of the events leading up to whatever is happening. A simple line of dialogue like, “I knew I should have grabbed my wallet,” probably works better than a paragraph detailing the ceramic plate on the table in the front hall where your character happened to leave said wallet.” That’s because not all details actually need to be shown. At least, not the details of lesser importance.
Look at the details you’ve told within your story. Ask yourself whether they are all necessary to move the plot, or develop backstory, or establish mood and tone, or connect the setting to the characters’ experiences. If not, revise and pare down those told details to the shortest possible descriptions and then analyze whether the details truly need to be shown, rather than told.
So, how do you show your story to readers? Let me know in the comments below, and share this article with fellow writers if you found it helpful.
Happy writing.
<3 Fal
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Fallon Clark is the book pal who helps you tell your story in your words and voice using editorial, coaching, writing, and project management expertise for revision assistance, one-on-one guidance, and ghostwriting for development. Her writing has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Check out her website, FallonClark.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn or Substack.