The Difference Between Showing vs.

Telling

When you tell rather than show, you simply inform your reader of

information rather than allowing him to deduce anything.

You’re supplying information by simply stating it. You might report that
a character is “tall,” or “angry,” or “cold,” or “tired.”

That’s telling.

Showing would paint a picture the reader could see in her mind’s eye.

If your character is tall, your reader can deduce that because you mention
others looking up when they talk with him. Or he has to duck to get through
a door. Or when posing for a photo, he has to bend his knees to keep his
head in proximity of others.

Rather than telling that your character is angry, show it by describing his

face flushing, his throat tightening, his voice rising, his slamming a fist on
the table. When you show, you don’t have to tell.

Cold? Don’t tell me; show me. Your character pulls her collar up, tightens
her scarf, shoves her hands deep into her pockets, turns her face away from
the biting wind.

Tired? He can yawn, groan, stretch. His eyes can look puffy. His shoulders
could slump. Another character might say, “Didn’t you sleep last night? You
look shot.”

When you show rather than tell, you make the reader part of the experience.
Rather than having everything simply imparted to him, he sees it in his mind
and comes to the conclusions you want.

Show, Don’t Tell Examples

Telling: When they embraced she could tell he had been smoking and was
scared.

Showing: When she wrapped her arms around him, the sweet staleness of
tobacco enveloped her, and he was shivering.
Telling: The temperature fell and the ice reflected the sun.

Showing: Bill’s nose burned in the frigid air, and he squinted against the sun
reflecting off the street.

Telling: Suzie was blind.

Showing: Suzie felt for the bench with a white cane.

Telling: It was late fall.

Showing: Leaves crunched beneath his feet.

Telling: She was a plumber and asked where the bathroom was.

Showing: She wore coveralls carried a plunger and metal toolbox, and

wrenches of various sizes hung from a leather belt around her waist. “Point
me to the head,” she said.

Telling: I had a great conversation with Tim over dinner and loved hearing
his stories.

Showing: I barely touched my food, riveted by Tim. “Let me tell you another
story,” he said.

Show Don’t Tell Example #1:

Tell: “I heard footsteps creeping behind me and it made the whole situation
scarier.”

Show: “Crunching hit my ears from behind, accelerating the already

rampant pounding of my heart.”

Why this showing example is better:

In an instance such as this, you want the reader to feel what you did: the
surprise and the sense of urgency, the fear.

Describing the crunching that hit your ears even through the pounding of
your heart not only creates a powerful visual, but it also tells the reader the
state your body was in during that intense moment. The first example is
weak and does little to explain how you actually felt in that moment.

Show Don’t Tell Example #2:

Tell: “She was my best friend. I could tell her almost anything.”

Show: “I met her at the town square, running in for our usual hug that
carried on for far too long as we gushed about our lives with smiles lighting
our faces.”

Why this showing example is better:

The first example of telling is shorter, but it doesn’t do a great job of really
showing the impact you have on each other. Anyone can think of “best
friend” and form an overall thought about what that looks like. But this isn’t
just “anyone.” This is your best friend. Showing your relationship with one
another is vital to forging that deeper connection.
Best tips for showing not telling in writing:

#1 – Get rid of all basic sensory words

Phrases like, “I heard,” “I felt,” and “I smelled,” are all very weak. These are
“telling” words and phrases (also commonly referred to as “filters”) that
force the reader further away from you and your experience.

That’s exactly what you want to avoid.

Instead, you need to pull them into your world.

This is done through using strong verbs and other visual language.

Show Don’t Tell Exercise #1:

Step 1: Read through your writing and circle every telling word you can
find. Anything that explains one of the 5 senses.

Step 2: Then write down specifics for each. If you heard someone creeping
up behind you, how did you hear it? Was it crunching on gravel? Was it the
shuffling of shoes against carpet?
Once you have these, rewrite those sections by explaining how the senses
came to you and not just what you sensed

#2 – Don’t use “emotion explaining” words

This might be a bit tricky and you certainly don’t have to follow this one
100% of the time, but if you can get this right, it’ll make showing versus
telling so much easier to grasp.

Think of any word to describe an emotion. I’ll help you out a little:

 Happy

 Sad

 Angry

 Frustrated

 Excited

 Giddy

 Love

 Anxious

 Joy

 Disgust

These are all great words to describe how someone felt. However, they’re
also very weak, unexciting ways to do so.

If you need your readers to understand how excited you were at any given
time, show them. Don’t just tell them, “I was so excited!”
Show them the sweat beading your forehead as you raced to your
destination. Show them the lifting of your cheeks as your lips parted way for
an uncontrollable smile.

Show Don’t Tell Exercise #2:

Skim through your writing and circle every word that’s an emotion.

Then, for every emotion-explaining word you find, write down physical
reactions of feeling that way.

Once you have a small list for each circled word, use it to craft
a couple sentences to describe (and show!) just what that looked like.

You can see the difference alone between these two paragraphs. By
replacing all of the “telling” words and phrases, it develops into
an experience for the reader and not just a retelling of what happened.
#4 – Use strong verbs

Showing itself can be extremely impactful, but using strong language and
verbs in specific situations is even more powerful for adding depth to your
story.
Take that list and start writing ways in which you can bring those emotions
to life. What do those things mean for you? How would these emotions come
about during that specific time?
Now take those stronger verbs and words that depict a deeper emotion and
craft your sentence or paragraph with those to reflect how you truly felt.

#5 – Focus on describing senses

Showing versus telling is largely about allowing your readers to

interpret what your characters are going through without just telling
them.

This often means using all the senses you can to depict a scene.

Instead of saying, “She hated it there.” you can use her senses to show the
readers that emotion.

For example: writing with showing like this “The faint scent of stale cigarette
smoke met her nostrils, pulling her face into a familiar grimace.” allows your
readers to understand that she finds where she is distasteful, without having
to just say so.
In short: showing illustrates, while telling merely states. Here’s a quick
example of showing versus telling:

Showing: As his mother switched off the light and left the room, Michael
tensed. He huddled under the covers, gripped the sheets, and held his
breath as the wind brushed past the curtain.

Telling: Michael was terribly afraid of the dark.

In the “showing” example, rather than merely saying that Michael is afraid of
the dark, we’ve put him in a situation where his experience of that fear takes
center stage. The reader can deduce the same information they’d get from
the “telling” example but in a much more compelling way.

Telling: I walked through the forest. It was already Fall and I was getting
cold.

Showing: The dry orange leaves crunched under my feet as I pulled the

collar up on my coat.

Tip : Use strong details, but don’t overdo it

Strong, vivid details are crucial to the process of showing. However, that
doesn’t mean you should include too many details, especially those that are
overly embellished.

Too much detail: The statue felt rough, its aged facade caked with dust
and grime as I weighed it in my hand, observing its jagged curves and
Fanta-colored hue.

Just right: It was heavier than it looked. Some of the orange facade
crumbled in my hand as I picked it up.
“Show, Don’t Tell” Examples

Telling: He knew something was wrong because he could see the fear in her
eyes and that she was trembling.

Showing: She trembled and looked up at him with fear in her eyes.

Notice how much more powerful the showing example is here. It uses half
the worlds but packs twice the punch because you’re seeing her in action
demonstrating her fear instead of being told what one character noticed.

Telling: Roger was never very bright when it came to figuring things out,
and he could never seem to do even simple things right.

Showing: Roger had been working on the crossword puzzle for two hours; so
far he had scribbled out more spaces than he had gotten correct. All he had
to show for his hard work so far were ink stains on his hands.

Notice how this showing example demonstrates the characteristics of this

character by showing that not only can he not even come close to
completing a crossword puzzle, but he doesn’t even know that he should be
using a pencil instead of a pen.

By showing how your characters behave, readers can interpret their traits
and characteristics automatically, instead of you having to endlessly describe
every character.

Telling: There was glass all over the floor, and a pool of blood behind the
bar.

Showing: His boots crunched as he walked behind the bar. “Holy shit!” he
screamed when he saw the pool of blood.
Notice how this showing example allows you to experience the scene
through the character’s experience, and it also provides much more context,
like the character’s emotional reaction.

Telling: The pancake tasted bitter, and he couldn’t stand it.

Showing: He took a bite and quickly spit out the pancake. “Darlene! Why’d
you put too much baking powder in the pancakes again?”
Notice how you can use dialogue to show ideas, emotions, and actions,
rather than simply telling the reader about it. When your characters have
experiences, you should be showing your reader those experiences through
strong scenes and action, not by talking about the experience from a third-
person perspective.