It has taken me a long time to be able to articulate my thoughts on the common debate on the show, don’t tell advice that is frequently handed down to young writers. And yes, I do believe that such a debate exists the longer you stay in this craft. Le Guin had an article about why this is nonsense, and it is one of the most common topics we talk about in my circles.
Frankly, I loved realizing that I wasn’t going to get shot if I start telling things. I started telling about things a lot. “It took them two days to travel to The World’s Most Dangerous Circus.” “The pig was the ugliest son-of-a-bitch he ever saw.” “After fucking twenty women he still showed no signs of stopping.” (Actually, none of these lines exist in my books…)
But I also show a lot. I have a lot of dialogue in my stories. I show pauses and hesitations, I show which way a character is looking when they are saying something they may not particularly believe in. I show lapses in judgement and sweaty palms.
There actually isn’t a hard and fast rule to follow. I think many writers get stuck on what they “should” do rather than what the narrative requires for them to do. I’ve sort of touched on that before, where I talk about novels with horrendous word counts. This advice may also be a reason why these enormous books exist. A writer–especially a fantasy writer, with the dilemma of creating a story in a world no one has seen yet–may feel pressured to show everything in an attempt to “paint” a picture of the world.
The good news is that if I tell you that an animal has tusks and a trunk you are going to paint a picture of an elephant in your head so unless you are purposely trying to talk about something that’s not an elephant then you have no need to describe the rest of it to me. You dig?
One thing I don’t see writers talk enough about is trusting the reader. The brain is a powerful thing. It will fill in gaps in the picture. You can show part of a whole and the brain will fill in the whole. That’s what we do. We read a news headline and can’t help but insert story behind the rest of it. You don’t have to tell me outright that a character is hungry, nor do you have to show me his entire morning of scrounging along the alleys for food and coming up with nothing; you can show him glancing at a stall of food longingly, maybe tapping his pockets to convince himself he really doesn’t have money, before going on his way.
It is one of those sweet balance things that you figure out as you go along with your craft. Heck, half the reason I’m writing this is to assure myself. We already know how much of a basket case I could be about this whole writing thing.
Read The Agartes Epilogues, which will never have a saddle-making chapter…
