Author tips

Disguising Your “Tell” as “Show”

A better way to tackle the “show, don’t tell” writing advice

It’s age-old advice, and every writer has heard it:

Show, don’t tell.

On the one hand, I agree. I frequently review drafts for new authors, and one of the biggest problems with pacing comes from a lot of ‘explaining’ of what is going on.

This is particularly the case if the explanation covers the first few pages of the story. A book is more engaging and has much better pacing if we get into the action more or less straight away.

Imagine a book starts off with something like this on the first page:

Zain suddenly realized that he needed to climb out onto the fire escape. However, Zain was scared. He hated heights. He hadn’t liked heights since he had been a kid, and he found himself stuck at the top of a damaged tree house in a storm.

This is ‘tell’ — and it’s slow and dull. It would have been much better if we had been ‘shown’ Zain’s reactions via him climbing out onto the fire escape and feeling his heart rate rise, or refusing to do so and having to explain this to another character.

As another example, think how fast and engaging it is when a TV show or movie immediately — in the very first scene — shows the main character being chased by a bunch of bad guys. I’m sure you’d agree that it would be a lot more compelling than a long verbal explanation of how the city is dangerous and the main character is brave, etc.

However, sometimes we do need to tell things to the readers

For example, what is your main character’s background? What was important in their life prior this story? It can be confusing if an author never takes a moment to let readers know about these family origins and friendships, what is going on in the city or land where the story is set, and so on.

Sure, a very artistic, impressionistic short story might get away with no explanation at all, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions. But most genre fiction does need to set the scene (and too many flashbacks can get really confusing!).

I’d suggest two ways to tackle this dilemma: distributing the tell, and disguising the tell.

1. Distributing the tell

As I just mentioned, pacing is important in a story. The problems with telling is not just the fact that it is boring, but also that it slows the pace of a story. It requires more thinking and focus. It’s rather like listening to a lecture, and not purely entertainment.

And if it goes on too long, a reader might just put the book down and not return to it.

One way to get around this problem is to spread out the telling, so that it occurs in small doses and at the right moments. This is what I mean by ‘distributing the tell’.

As suggested above, you might want to begin a story with an engaging, fast-paced action scene. But what happens after that? Any action scene can go on for a bit too long. You need slower moments, too.

Reflective moments.

So one way to get around the problem is not to tell a character’s background in one big stretch, but to drip-feed it in.

A little about their parents here, and an anecdote about their best friend there.

One way to get around the problem is not to tell a character’s background in one big stretch, but to drip-feed it in.

This approach will also be more impactful. Because rather than finding out everything about a character at once, we get clues. It leaves the reader/viewer wondering, waiting, and eager to hear more.

2. Disguising the tell

The second strategy builds directly on the first one. As well as spreading out moments of ‘tell’ during a story so that they don’t slow the pace for too long, we can also disguise them.

That way, readers don’t even realize that they are getting an info-dump of character backstory!

‘Tell’ can be there — it’s just that it’s hidden.

Let’s return to the example of the main character’s family. Perhaps you want to explain that a character lost their mom at a young age, and has a difficult ongoing relationship with a wealthy-but-distant dad (so far, so tropey, but that’s all right!).

Pure ‘tell’ would be to write that down in the first few paragraphs:

Pamela lost her mom at a young age. This made her very sad, and she had never quite gotten over the loss. She was still in touch with her dad, but the relationship had been difficult for many years. He was wealthy, and tried to help her out, but he was emotionally distant.

Boring, right?

So instead of that info-dump, what about disguising the same information in the form of a conversation or argument?

The phone connection clicked after a few seconds.

“Dad?”

“Oh, Pamela… it’s you.”

Pamela frowned. Why did her dad never sound pleased to hear from her? It was almost as if he didn’t care. Ever since mom had died, he had acted so cold and distant…

“Thanks for the money you transferred,” she said, after a slight pause.

“Oh… that. No problem.”

Okay, it’s only a snippet and far from perfect, but you can perhaps see that we are getting pretty much the same information. The key thing is that it is delivered in a more engaging way.

You might ask whether that example isn’t just the same as ‘show don’t tell’. And to some extent, that’s true — but not 100%.

Showing involves portraying feelings and events via action and interaction, rather than just telling it to the reader. We do get that here, as we are showing that Pamela’s dad is wealthy (the reference to the money, and his dismissive attitude about it), and that he is distant.

But my point is that the ‘tell’ can also be there — it’s just that it’s hidden. Take the following sentences in particular:

Pamela frowned. Why did her dad never sound happy to see her?

Ever since mom had died, he had acted cold and distant.

This is tell. But it’s either broken up, scattered through the story, or comes through the voices and reflections of characters rather than directly from the narrator.

And that is how you distribute and disguise the key information that you need readers to know.

Good luck with your own writing!

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