[INSIGHT] The Balance Between Show and Tell

It is a challenge I face a lot, finding the balance between “showing” and “telling”. My natural inclination is to tell a lot, because quite honestly it's faster. And while this can work for some types of writing, in the case of creative writing, we really do need the showing part.

The two aspects, show and tell, are in direct contrast to each other, each with its own upsides and downsides. To be honest, when I first started reading and learning about this concept from other writers, I honestly wanted to throw in the towel on my whole writing adventure. There were so many different voices, yelling so many different things. It was hard to see the entire picture. It was hard to realise that what others had to say did not have to apply to me entirely. I could take the bits and pieces that I found merit in and discard the others. In this post, I will try to explore the nuances between show and tell and discuss how finding the right balance can elevate our writing.

But first we got to understand the terms as they stand.

Show: Showing involves painting a picture through sensory details, actions, and dialogue. It allows the reader to experience the story you are telling firsthand, encouraging them to put themselves in the narrative.

Tell: Telling is more straightforward and informative than showing. It provides information directly, describing the emotions of your characters or summarising events and their impact on the world you have crafted. Telling does not use the nuances of the sensory experience.
Now let’s dive a little deeper into it.

The Power of Showing

It engages the senses of the reader.

Showing invites the reader to draw on their own experiences, and their own emotions. Creating a sense of belonging in the story, a familiarity that is hard to achieve with telling. By describing sounds, sights, tastes, smells and textures, writers truly can transport you right into the story. We all know how certain things sound, how we would respond to certain events and situations, those we can show through our actions.

Character development.

Showing helps to develop characters organically. Instead of stating their traits, we can allow their actions and behaviours to reveal the nuances in their character. This will, in turn, make them more relatable and dynamic.

So when do we show, instead of tell?

In crucial scenes

Reserve showing for important moments in your story, such as a climactic scene, and emotional turning point or a significant revelation. These are the moments when the impact of those sensory details can be most effectively felt.

Dialogue

Incorporation showing in dialogue to reveal the emotions the character is experiencing is one of the best ways, in my opinion, to form a full character. If we think about how we go about life, we rarely state that we are angry, or sad, or happy. We show those emotions through our actions. In writing, we should portray those actions and convey the emotion organically.
Now that we have briefly discussed showing, let’s take a look at telling.

The Power of Telling

Informational passages

Telling is efficient when you need to convey necessary information, especially when brevity is essential. It is used for summarising background details, setting the stage for a scene or providing context without sacrificing the pace of your narrative. A classic example of telling is a prologue in a book where a brief synopsis is given about previous events that formed the events to unfold in the story you are about to read.

Transitions

During transitions between scenes, or time jumps, telling can smoothly create a bridge to gap the possible holes in the story line. This keeps your story moving forward, preventing unnecessary delays in the overall plot. Look at it like you have had a slow week, and you have done absolutely nothing noteworthy, you would tell someone the bare basics of what you did. The brief synopsis of the week instead of going into detail about every moment of your very average week.

When to tell?

Routine actions

Mundane, every day and routine actions that don’t impact the plot can just be told. This also helps to maintain the balance between the narrative momentum and detailed storytelling. Unless going to the toilet, eating breakfast, driving to work etc, is important to your story, it can just be mentioned in passing, or sometimes we even let those minor details out of the story entirely.

Background information

Use telling to deliver background information or historical context. This ensures that your readers are well informed without becoming overwhelmed by an excessive amount of details.

Achieving balance.

Rely on your reader’s imagination.

If you balance between show and tell, it should allow your readers to engage their imagination. While showing creates an experience for the senses, telling respects the ability of the reader to fill in details with their own creativity.

Consider the pacing in your story. Balancing show and tell ensures that the story flows smoothly, with moments of intensity and reflection distributed throughout.

It is definitely a learned skill to find the balance between showing and telling. By understanding the meaning of both terms and what they are used for, we can start to use them in our own world building. Based on what your narrative needs, you can decide when and where to use these tools. The key lies in knowing when to engage the senses of the reader, by vividly showing the details, and when to tell only the essentials, ultimately creating a well-rounded story.