You'll actually understand "Show vs Tell" after watching this
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
- ✅ Get our Scene Writing Checklist → storygrid.com/checklist?...
📹 Watch Next
• • Stop Blaming Adverbs! ...
• • 1 Trick to Un-Boring Y...
Show vs Tell in writing is one of those annoying things that everyone says but doesn't make any sense. In this video I explain exactly how and why this has to work in your writing.
✍️ Join our next Scene Writing Workshop: storygrid.com/training?...
☎️ Stuck with your writing? Book a free call with Tim: storygrid.com/help/?...
My name is Tim Grahl, I'm the CEO of Story Grid and I'm the author _The Threshing_, _Running Down a Dream_, and _Your First 1000 Copies_. My partner Shawn Coyne is the creator and founder of Story Grid and he's a writer and editor with over 30 years of experience.
🧰 Additional Resources
• 'Read a Lot. Write a Lot.' is HORRIBLE advice - • 'Read a Lot. Write a L...
• 19 Ways Writers Fail - • The 19 Worst Writing M...
• Scene Breakdown: Ready Player One - • Scene Breakdown: Ready...
🛎️ Subscribe
Make sure you 1) like this video, 2) subscribe to the channel and 3) hit the bell icon so you get notified of future videos.
Also, check storygrid.com for more free writing resources.
🙏🏻 Looking for help with where to go next with your writing? storygrid.com/help
🙋♀️ Have a question or topic for a future episode? storygrid.com/youtube-questions - Навчання та стиль
At last, a practical explanation of this old adage.
Co-creating the story with the reader is the single most brilliant advice I ever heard about creative writing. Thank you :)
I’ve been getting my wife to read as I write, it’s been very handy to make sure that it’s hitting the marks I need.
You explained it so well, that now is fully on me to do it right. I don't have the excuse of blame the teacher anymore.
I watched video after video of "show don´t tell" and none of them was clear enough. I was still not understanding and struggling with this. Now, I finally got it. You posted this video exactly when I needed it. It´s like you read my mind! Thank you so much! You saved me!
Within one minute of starting this video, there is a great example of Show, not tell" embeded.
We all heard him say that he has had 100s of writers using his products. He did so very subtly. He was using that fact to make a broader point.
He showed us that his ideas are valuable and used; He did not tell us.
Thank you for this video! I've wanted to scream this from the rooftops for ages! Too many experienced writers just tell new writers to "show, not tell" assuming they have the common sense to know what that means and how to do it. This is the lesson that we needed!
i've heard the phrase "show don't tell" for so many years and this is the first time it's actually been properly explained to me in a way that's clear and understandable, thank you
The best video on the subject I've seen.
Love it. You implied this with the SKILL part I think, but basically if you can't convey the emotions by describing only what's observable, you need to IMPROVE YOUR WRITING.
So if I get to a paragraph in my book and have the desire to add, "This made him sad." I should reconsider what came before. I've actually noticed this in my writing as I revise my book where I realize I'm selling my reader short: They should be able to understand that he was sad at that point, so I just delete that part and am good. But whenever I see that, I think it reflects a lack of confidence in my writing--which is great feedback one way or another.
Thanks Tim!
Sometimes I note down for myself that a character is supposed to be sad and work around that emotion once I either finish the draft or think it's time for some light editing
I'm 56, I've taken a lot if writing classes. This is the best and most helpful explanation.
I try to think of it like a movie. How would a movie depict these emotions or thoughts? Then i just describe that.
It's not show not tell, it's show then tell. Not every action is important enough to show, you can use telling to save a lot of words and improve pacing
I agree. Nothing worse than having to slog through an endless "show" when a two-sentence summary can wrap it up nice and tidy and keep things moving along. Do I honestly care if someone takes a shower and uses anti-dandruff shampoo and peach-flavored conditioner and dries off afterward with a Turkish towel? Nope. Just tell me the person took a shower and got dressed for work or whatever. Maybe include she or he yanked the comb through their tangled hair to indicate frustration, but beyond that is too much.
thanks for the simple breakdown, now to check out my favourite books, see how they do it, and also practice it myself.
Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. Still feels telling to me, though I read mostly romance. In that genre, you'd have something like:
Jack smiled, PR style. Wide but hollow, meant to lure you into his web, and his next meal.
Yeah, it feels like telling to me, because it feels opinionated. I don't like it. I admit, though, it does save time.
@@eugenetswong Agreed word count can be a nightmare.
It is telling. But it’s telling that “shows.” And that’s what a lot of new writers misunderstand when they hear “show, don’t tell.”
A great video that explains this misunderstanding is called “Showing don’t tell is advice that might destroy your book” by “memoir writing for geniuses.”
@@BbGun-lw5vi Watched the video you suggested. However its wrongly applied, in this instance, depsite being a great breakdown.
Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. Is external telling, by that video's definition.
Though, I have to say, the old addage of knowing the rules to bend or break them applies here. Knowing how to apply telling to internal dialogue/thoughts, is what most authors do (or learn to).
- [00:00] 📝 "Show, don't tell" advice for writers is about depicting observable actions instead of explaining thoughts or feelings.
- [07:08] 🎭 Writing should focus on what is observable, allowing readers to infer characters' thoughts and feelings.
- [10:20] 📚 Use of nouns, verbs, and descriptors can convey the author's opinion while sticking to observable actions.
- [14:40] 🧠 When delving into characters' heads, describe observations rather than explaining emotions.
- [19:30] 🚫 Telling instead of showing in writing robs readers of the ability to co-create the story and doesn't feel authentic.
thanks angel
Well-presented. Precise. Factual. Relevant. Good job. Keep going. Ignore naysayers.
By far the best explanation of this I've come across. Well done. Thanks!
Great video with clear examples. Nice work.
Genius! Great explanation and the examples from books make it super clear
criminally underrated 🔥🔥🔥
I think this is decent advice. I think as a general rule show versus tell works that should be the main goal as you write the scene for your first draft as you go through it again there are times particularly when you go into POV you’re able to say things, like he didn’t like that guy. It really depends on the flow of the scene and the flow of the words sometimes it is very appropriate, especially when you start creating the personalities of your characters to add some here and there it gets into a problem when there’s too much tell and not enough show.
This was sooo good! Thank you, Tim. 🙏🏽
Great explanation! Thank you!
Thank You. This was educational, helpful and I learned something new. Will have to apply this.
Unexpectedly, Tim grasped his water bottle and launched it at the shelf behind him. Lego buildings exploded & bricks rained down messing up the floor, along with many of the books. Much like how he destroyed the lego builds, so he did with the rooms feng shui.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've had trouble with the "show don't tell" thing for years! Love your explanation!
This is a great explanation
Brilliant way of teaching it
Brilliant!
I agree, you've taught, no, deposited, no, inculcated, no, blessed our mind's eye and determination with the key to unlocking the reader's imagination in co-creating with an effective nudge using robust nouns and verbs, similes, analogies, metaphors. I want no part of a robbery. I'm all for reader's love. I value all of your videos. Thanks.
Word salad.
Love this.
Thank you, good teacher!
Great video
I love "TELLING you what I think you SHOULD think!" Reminds me of when I thought I was giving my brother-in-law options to settle a restless baby…. My suggestions were rejected as telling him what to do, how dare I! 😂
I get the logic behind this, and it's definitely one should strive for to apply as much as possible, but I have noticed something while I am reading a book: my brain seems to skip all figurative speech. It doesn't seem to want to translate the figurative language to the feeling or thought that the writer wants me to have.
As such for me personally, books with little figurative language read easier.
I mean no offense, but I’d argue this is a result of poor reading comprehension.
@@JamieRushing27 Or it may be a case of inability to create images from words. It's a real thing.
@@12thDecember or maybe it’s your lack of imagination and intellect.
thanks i was trying to do a writing
Many of my scenes and my scenes I mean chapters begin with something like: Peter did not like this man. His feelings for him bordered on hatred, and then I use that as a springboard for more showing as they interact there’s nothing wrong with doing that at all, it’s just more of a time and place thing.
Helpful
Great ❤ new subscriber
COOLIE MULIE!
Great
I feel this is great advice and will most of the time elevate one's writing. But I have to wonder, sometimes for the sake of pacing and succinctness, isn't it better just to tell and keep the story moving? I have a line in mine: "After four hours, the burning of his muscles was the only warmth he felt." I feel it does not need a flowery tangent to illustrate his pain. It's a concise way to end my chapter after the character has spent all of it standing in the cold and rain. Is it really so bad to leave it?
How about "... was the only warmth in his body"? For some reason, writers are advised not to say what someone felt. "She felt hurt" would thus become "An ache arose in her chest." That sort of thing. I totally agree not to bog down the plot with too much show.
Had a question though: what if one wrote in 1st person? Couldn't one write in all shades of blue and red that one pleases - about oneself, if one's both narrator and protagonist?
This is a passage in Frank Herbert's Dune series, could you analyse it?
Discovery of the bodies intensified her sense of peril. _I should have brought a weapon._ But that would have aroused Waff’s suspicions.
The persistence of that inner warning could not be evaded. This relic of Sietch Tabr was perilous.
This will sound dumb, but how do you then progress the story if you are just describing ? Are all the action phases of the story progressed by "describing the observable"?
This video is excellent, btw.
Can anyone recommend a novel with bad writing, preferably a book where this rule is repeatedly broken (besides that "classics" like 'Irene Iddlesleigh' or '50 Shades' (that latter of which I couldn't stomach beyond 34 pages))?
It appears there are a lot of those who still don't get what he's saying. Why is this simple concept so difficult to accept? You have made it a 'golden calf.' Why did each of you decide that 'telling' a story was the way to tell a story? Because you, like the majority of us, grew out of picture books. Why did we grow out of picture books? Because we discovered we have an imagination and that imagination wants to be fed. Good storytelling feeds our imagination what it needs and wants - reality that makes sense, is somewhat predictable, and, yet, surprises us in the end by not being too outside the realm of possibility that it causes us to break from reality completely. But, as in conversation, we enjoy something that a simple telling/reading cannot ultimately offer - a connection. We human beings are social creatures, created to live in unity with others and have meaningful relationships that draw out the beauty and greatness within. We truly enjoy what is excellent, so get rid of the golden calf(ves) in your life and grow and be excellent!
This guy makes natural hair loss look good.
Great beard too.
Here's the thing though - you get a novel like Fight Club, which spends much of its 1st person narrative in the red and blue
the last example makes me think that the whole obsession with Show not tell is so overrated. Because it's not the same to say "She was mad with the guy for throwing his stuff around" and "She got out of bed and thought about the other time, and tripped over his stuff". This showing does not convey exactly what she felt. That's why I think that there must always be a healthy balance, because either you must be brilliant at showing, or if you can't, just tell it, it's gonna be easier for your reader, don't confuse them
ALL writing is telling. Showing is merely when the writer tells what the PoV character is sensing, whether seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling (in a touch sense, not emotional,) etc. Once I understood that, the so-called "show vs tell" made sense, even though "showing" is still telling, just in a particular way: telling the reader what the character observes.
I heard someone else explain it as described don't explain
@@mr.e7541I'd say you can also call it 'describe, don't conclude'
@mr.e7541 yeah I liked the Describe, don't explain translation of Show, don't tell I heard elsewhere.
@@VioletEmerald I had not heard that, but I like it. What I really have to laugh at is when people cite "Show, Don't Tell" in one breath, and then advise against description in the next. There is good description and bad, good telling and bad.
why don't people normally do this? - skill issue XD - jokes aside, great video, thank you
I was thinking of Jessica Brody's The Chaos Of Standing Still. She tells her characters thoughts all over the place, it gives personality...so whats the line between representing a real voice versus writer voice?
Yeah, I don't like that passage about the man reconnecting with his estranged wife. I would prefer to see a phrase, where we are told that we are looking at his imagination, and then another phrase telling us that we are leaving his imagination.
When done skillfully, readers can find out afterwards that we were looking at only his imagination, but it should be clear eventually.
I'm reminded of how films portray certain actions, and then they have a way of bringing us back to reality. Maybe something like this could be written.
Amanda said, "Well?"
Bob blinked, and then looked at her eyes. "Say that again, please?"
Amanda summarized the history of the Persian rug, and then asked again for advice on how to wash it.
How about third person omniscient? I don't think the narrator is telling the reader how to think or feel about the character when the narrator is omniscient. It just raises the character's thoughts and feelings to the GREEN level - the character's thoughts and feeling become objective facts. The reader is still free to feel or think about the character in whatever manner they choose.
Even when one is 'showing' it's still telling. In your first example, from Devil Wears a Blue Dress, if I were standing there observing the scene, all I would see is two people clasping hands. I cannot see the slithering nature or the coiled snakes of the handshake mentioned. Mosley is telling the reader the impressions of one of the participants. instead of the show/tell aspect it should be a bland/descriptive choice. 'Showing' is a false choice. The writer, putting pen to paper (or whatever your preferred medium), is telling the story through his words. Instead of bland, be descriptive, precise, imaginative. It's time to leave this tired show/tell dichotomy behind.
Exactly, there is no personality in just directly showing what things are.
You are correct in referring to one characters pov. This is where so many "stories" fail. The reader does not feel engaged. Deep POV negates this.
@@carolemoore1258 I suppose it depends upon what one prefers to read, however, I cannot agree with your sentiment. If the author changes POVs from one character to another, then yes, that can be distracting, though this type of omniscient narrator generally disappeared in the 19th C. If the author, on the other hand, sticks to one character, or if it is written in 1st person, this provides valuable insight to the reader concerning that character. I will admit that my favorite era of fiction is European Modernism (1880-1940), where things like plot & action take a back seat to the characters' thoughts, emotions, & various internal cognitive processes. I would suggest that some of the best books written follow more of the told idiom: Mann's Magic Mountain, Broch's The Sleepwalkers, Celine's Death on the Installment Plan, Hesse's Glass Bead Game (the above modernist style isn't always adhered to, please see John dos Passos' USA Trilogy); even into the latter half of the 20th C I would nominate Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude & Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. What all of these writers' had was a clear vision, a sharp understanding of the craft & the creativity to combine the two.
I wish people would stop trying to make that silly piece of advice make sense... "Objective", "opinion"...? There is nothing objective about a story, it is fiction, and if the author gives his character an emotion, it is not his "opinion" - this IS what the character is feeling. The whole thing is really about *distance*. And that's the author's choice. Do you want to step back and let the readers make their own minds, as they would when actually encountering such people, or do you want to open up the character's inner world for them in a way that is not possible in reality...? Your choice. Personally, I love the books that do the latter.
This 100%
Step back and let readers make up their own minds is the purpose of "show don't tell"
@@futurestoryteller Step aside and let the writer decide is the purpose of my comment. The "writer as reporter" approach is a choice, not a requirement.
@@Faolandia You should try to find my solo comment. I'm actually in disagreement with the channel host about what "show don't tell" means
The short version is you create immediacy and intimacy between character and reader by refusing to dictate anything that can easily be inferred.
If your character is asked to sit, and you immediately follow that up with how the chair feels, you don't even need to say "she sat down." You can, but not only is it not necessary, it's probably a waste of words.
@@futurestoryteller But you see, my point is that "show, don't tell" really means *nothing*. First, it is hopelessly vague (as all those disagreements show). And second, it suggests a very rigid and limited view of the craft. To use your example: you are right that "immediacy and intimacy" can be achieved in the way you describe. The question is: do you, the writer, WANT this kind of "immediacy and intimacy" in this particular moment, with this particular character...? You might; and then again you might not. Some minor characters are not important enough to waste valuable space on. Sometimes you want the story to move briskly - and descriptions of sensations slow down the narrative. And sometimes the "telling" might actually provide additional insight, for instance into the interpersonal dynamics: "Sit down - he said. She sat down." I have this motto: there are no rules, just tools. Not: "do this", but: "do this, IF you want to achieve the following effect".
if she trips so easily on underwear her balance and dexterity is shown poor. It would be better if he had left a pile of dirty clothing on the floor. That would make better logistic sense.
Hmmm. Yes. Show, don’t tell, but also don’t forget to inject your opinion into the story, even though such injection requires telling. Contradictions abound.
No… that was the whole point. The skill is injecting your opinion without telling. - Tim
@@StoryGrid Counterintuitive nuance abounds too.
@@StoryGridExactly. And, just letting you know, you explained this well in your video. This is just one of those topics that needs to be revisited time and time again. I feel that I am a reasonably advanced writer, but I still learned something from the video and dusted off other things I hadn't thought of in awhile.
Show is bad writting, be cause it s much too long and it steels the Reader the Imagination whan everything ist described. By Tell there's something happening. It s so boring to read Show.
Great teaching, however, I do not appreciate foul language.
It’s just my ears burn like someone is dripping hot wax into them. and my teeth grind together like my head is being squeezed in a giant vice when the F bomb is dropped upon my Christian convictions.
I can’t tell if you’re joking. If you’re not… well your head is going to fucking explode if you keep watching my videos.
I swear to God… grown people that are walking around in life this sensitive is both terrifying and sad.
- Tim
I think you should just stick to UA-cam kids
I really like DESCRIBE DON’T EXPLAIN.
Brilliant!