FICTION WRITING
How to use ‘show don’t tell’ to create character and convey aspects of your story
The concept of ‘show don’t tell’ is one of the most famous and widely accepted pillars of good writing. It was most famously described by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, who said: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass." This guide will explain what this concept means before exploring some of the different ways you can ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ in your writing.
This guide is part of the Fiction writing series:
The difference between ‘show’ and ‘tell’
The idea of ‘show don’t tell’ is that rather than simply telling readers things about their fictional worlds, writers should show them the world, allowing the readers themselves to understand what is happening. This is how real life works, after all. The easiest way to understand this is through examples, so we’ll look at a couple of very simple ones in this introduction.
Imagine a character walking into a room. She’s angry and you, as the writer, want the reader to know this. You can tell the reader: Palvashay was very angry as she walked into the room. Or you can show the reader: Palvashay stomped into the room, slamming the door behind her.
Imagine a character out on a cold day, as the wind starts to blow. You can tell the reader she’s cold: As the wind blew harder, Palvashay felt cold. Or you can show the reader: As the wind blew harder, Palvashay tightened her scarf around her neck and put her hands into her pockets.
That’s the basic difference in a nutshell, and of these two options, ‘show’ is generally considered to be more sophisticated, though in practice you will need to use a mixture of ‘show’ and ‘tell’ in your writing, as all writers do. More on that in the next section.
Mixing ‘show’ and ‘tell’ – examples from the real world
Let’s start with some concrete examples. Below is a short extract from a story in the Turbulence collection, written by David Szalay, which mixes ‘show’ and ‘tell’ in a brilliant way. Afterwards we’ll run through how it works.
In this extract, Marion, the protagonist, is visiting her daughter, Annie, who has just had a baby. At the start of the extract Marion is just about to enter the room containing her daughter and her new grandson. Doug, who gets mentioned at the end, is the baby’s father.
Marion paused outside the door, wanting to hold onto this moment of seeing them like that. She wiped a single surprising tear from her eyes, and then a second. And then she laughed for a moment, silently, at the fact that she was shedding tears. Then she pushed the door open and went in. She was smiling.
Annie looked up and immediately said, almost shouted at her, “He’s blind.”
Marion just stood there.
“They say he’s blind,” Annie said. “That’s what they say.”
Marion, stuck in the doorway, was half-aware of the fact that she was still smiling.
“That’s what they say,” Annie said again.
Marion knew that she couldn’t just stand there. She had to do something. She stepped to the bed and took the baby from her daughter. And it was as if she hadn’t heard what Annie had said – she felt that herself, that she was just doing what she would have done if Annie hadn’t said those things.
“Did you hear what I said?” Annie asked.
“Yes, I heard you.”
“And? Don’t you have anything to say?”
Marion struggled. Finally, she asked, “Does Doug know?”
“Yes. As soon as they told him,” Annie said, in tears now, “he left.”
“He left?”
“Yes – he left!”
How the ‘show’ and ‘tell’ work in this extract
Example 1
Marion paused outside the door, wanting to hold on to this moment of seeing them like that. She wiped a single surprising tear from her eye, and then a second.
The first sentence here is ‘tell’; the second is ‘show’. The tears ‘show’ us the strength of the feeling implied in the first sentence, and the adverb “surprising” reveals a lot about Marion as a character - she is not used to this kind of powerful feeling.
Example 2
Annie looked up and immediately said, almost shouted at her, “He’s blind.”
Marion just stood there.
“They say he’s blind,” Annie said. “That’s what they say.”
Marion, stuck in the doorway, was half-aware of the fact that she was still smiling.
Here we are ‘shown’ Marion’s shock by her actions – the narrator doesn’t ‘tell’ us that she’s shocked – there is no need; this is neater and more succinct. It would be less well-written if it said: “Marion just stood there in shock.” Sometimes less is more. And the fact she is “still smiling” ‘shows’ us that the information hasn’t sunk in yet.
Example 3
She stepped to the bed and took the baby from her daughter. And it was as if she hadn’t heard what Annie had said – she felt that herself, that she was just doing what she would have done if Annie hadn’t said those things.
The first sentence here is ‘show’: we get a description of Marion’s actions. Then we get a little bit of ‘tell’: we are told what is going on in Marion’s head about why she is doing what she’s doing. It would be impossible to ‘show’ this.
Example 4
“Did you hear what I said?” Annie asked.
“Yes, I heard you.”
“And? Don’t you have anything to say?”
Here we are ’shown’ Annie’s frustration through direct speech and the repeated questions, but we are never ‘told’ how she feels by the narrator. We have to infer it, as we would if we were experiencing this from Marion’s point of view in real life.
Example 5
“Yes. As soon as they told him,” Annie said, in tears now, “he left.”
We are ‘shown’ Annie’s distress by the tears.
Example 6
“He left?”
“Yes – he left!”
Here we are again ‘shown’ Annie’s distress, this time by the direct speech and, in particular, the exclamation mark at the end. We are also ‘shown’ Marion’s disbelief through her question, also using direct speech.
This is how good storytelling should work, especially in short stories. We should be shown the episodes in the story, and, as such, we should experience them in a similar way to the characters themselves. This way, we get to experience the story in a lifelike way. However, we still need to told things from time to time to ensure it all makes sense. We need a mixture of ‘show’ and ‘tell’ to make a story work, but with more time spent on the ‘show’ parts. That’s what you’re aiming for in your own writing.
Creating characters through ‘show don’t tell’
There are various methods of characterisation (the things writers do to create characters in stories) and these methods can be roughly broken down into ‘tell’ methods and ‘show’ methods, though it’s not a perfect distinction since things that ‘show’ us what a character is like can also ‘tell’ us things about that character. But, roughly speaking, it breaks down like this:
‘Tell’ characterisation:
Facts and information about the character – age, name, gender, number of siblings, job title, etc
Physical description of the character – hair colour, height, race, attractiveness, posture, smell, etc
Personality description of the character – e.g. Nerys was a very kind lady.
‘Show’ characterisation:
Things the character says – mostly done through direct speech (there were lots of examples of this in the short story extract above)
Things the character does – their actions in both the present and past (there were examples of this in the short story extract above)
Things the character thinks / feels – this is part ‘tell’ and part ‘show’; it ‘tells’ us things the character is thinking but ‘shows’ us things about what kind of person the character is
The way other characters respond to the character – this can show us about the main character, as well as about the characters who are responding
We have a separate guide on the website about how to create characters which goes through all of these different methods in detail. Rather than repeat this information here, you should just read that guide instead.
However, the key thing to remember for the purposes of this guide is that you should be focussing more on the ‘show’ characterisation methods in your stories, and less on the ‘tell’ ones. Though, as we keep saying, you will need both in your arsenal as a writer.
Storytelling through ‘show don’t tell’
‘Showing’ setting through action – a way to maintain pace
It is essential that you include some description of your setting in your stories. Without it, your characters will feel groundless to your reader, as if they are floating in a void. (For more on this see our guide to describing settings.) However, description can often slow a story down. It can mean the action has to pause while the setting is described. At times, this is just what you want. You want to slow your story down, so some description of the setting does the job nicely. However, sometimes you want to tell a part of your story with pace, but including static descriptions of the setting will slow it down too much. Rather than leaving out the description altogether, though, you can use ‘show don’t tell’ to show the setting through the action of the story. You can move the plot of the story forward while including setting description embedded into this. Below are some examples. In each case you should be able to get a sense of the setting of the story without the action of the story pausing:
He was late. St Mark’s clocktower had struck one and Enzo found himself pushing against the tide of tourists milling towards the cafes lining the Piazza San Marco. A clump of pigeons scattered in front of him. (Example taken from the excellent Reedsy blog on ‘show don’t tell’, linked to at the end of this guide.)
The car turned right, between white gates and high, dark tight-clipped hedges. The whisper of the road under the tyres changed to the crunch of gravel. The child, staring sideways, read black lettering on a white board: St. Edward's Preparatory School. Please Drive Slowly. He shifted on the seat, and the leather sucked at the bare skin under his knees, stinging.
Daisy was awoken by the cry of an animal. She sat up instinctively to scan the barn for movement, her eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness. Beyond the glowing embers of the previous night’s campfire, she could see the door rattling on its hinges. A wave of fear passed over her before she realised it was just the night-wind buffeting the barn.
Vivid description to ‘show’ plot – the crime scene approach
Passages of vivid description can also be used for ‘show don’t tell’. This methods is sometimes called environmental storytelling. Here you are deliberately describing the setting of your story in such a way to ‘show’ your reader something about that has happened earlier in your story. Your description is not just there to help the reader imagine the events more clearly; it is ‘showing’ the reader something about what has happened in the plot, or at least hinting about what might have happened. You can think of your description as a kind of crime scene which is littered with clues about how the crime was committed, except it’s not a crime (maybe it is a crime) - it’s just whatever happened earlier in your story. Here are some examples of this:
As Adam walked into the classroom, he could see Peter Hayes lying on the floor in the corner. Three desks were stacked on top of him, and his belt was tied to one of them with what looked like another boy’s belt. There were a selection of books, both exercise and text, scattered around the room, and on the whiteboard, the word ‘LOSER’ had been written in huge, black bubble-writing. “Are you alright, Pete?” Adam asked, tentatively.
When Paula arrived home, she was shocked to find the living room in disarray. The Christmas decorations had all been ripped off the wall, and both sofas had been dragged into a V-shape in the centre of the room. At the heart of the V there was a pile of discarded wrapping paper, and on its summit, wearing a miniature Santa hat, was Diana’s favourite teddy bear, Chippers. His throat had been hideously cut with a knife and the fluffy white stuffing was bursting out. He was holding a post-it note which read: “Christmas is dead.”
The office was not what Palvashay had expected. The desks were arranged in geometric lines, equidistant from one another, and all of the other staff were wearing what looked like identical clothes: white shirts and black skirts, like a kind of uniform. Nobody was talking; they were all transfixed by the screen in front of them.
Using ‘show don’t tell’ to hint at things to come - foreshadowing
Another way you can ‘show’ your reader things about your story without explicitly telling them is through foreshadowing. We say a writer is using foreshadowing when they hint at something which will happen later on in a story. Foreshadowing helps the reader to develop expectations about what is to come. For example, a writer might have a small bad thing happen (an animal dying) to foreshadow a bigger bad thing later (a character dying in the same way). Or two schoolboys might discuss how strict their horrible English teacher is at the start of a story to foreshadow the harsh punishment that the teacher will give to one of them later in the story. Foreshadowing prevents a reader from feeling too shocked or cheated by events in a story. Here are some examples of this:
Example 1 is a description from Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Here Ralph first sees Jack and his choir arrive on the island. The writer uses this description to foreshadow the fact that these characters are going to be bad news:
Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along. Ralph saw it first and watched till the intentness of his gaze drew all eyes that way. Then the creature stepped from mirage on to clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing.
Example 2 is another piece of description, this time from Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge. Here we get a clear sense that, where the protagonist is headed, it’s not going to bring good things into her life:
At last she wakened from a doze to find that the carriage was splashing along a rising road turned to soup by the rain. On either side lay bare fields and pastureland, the horizons guarded by a line of sombre hills. Ahead, behind a small coven of dark, twisting yews, stood a grey-faced house, graceless and vast. Two towers rose above its facade like misshapen horns.
In both of these examples, you should be able to see that we are not told that either the boys or the house are going to be bad news. We are simply shown them in such a way that we can kind of tell. As such, the description shows us something about the story without every explicitly telling us.
Further reading on this topic
The following blog post does an excellent job of explaining the concept of ‘show don’t tell’ with some great examples from famous literature at the end. It’s well worth reading: https://blog.reedsy.com/show-dont-tell/
Summing up - key things to remember when using show don’t tell to create story and character
‘Show don’t tell’ means using specific details to reveal things to the reader in a natural way that they can figure out form themselves, rather than just telling them what’s going on
You will need to use a mixture of ‘show’ and ‘tell’ in your writing, though you should try to focus more on the ‘show’ stuff
Characterisation can be broken down into ‘tell’ and ‘show’ characterisation
The ‘show’ characterisation is more effective than the tell stuff: focus on direct speech, actions in the story and thought/feelings
You can ‘show’ your settings by describing them as part of the action of the story – this will help you maintain the pace of your storytelling
You can ‘show’ aspects of your story through environmental story – think of it like a crime scene
You can ‘show’ aspects of your story through foreshadowing, often done through descriptions of setting