Why I Hate Show Don't Tell As Writing Advice

I’m going to let you in on a little secret…

Why?

It’s too vague. It leads writers to rely on physical reactions eliminating the juicy emotional context of a scene because they think it’s “telling.”

It’s turned:

She was angry

Into:

She clenched her hands into fists and crunched her teeth together.

Which, yes, is better, but it’s not far enough. The second still doesn’t give the reader any information on why she’s angry or what makes her anger unique.

The writer could SHOW further with a little TELLING.

I want to focus today on these types of somatic cues, the physical things a character sees or feels in their body that writers use to show emotion, or what I call Reactions vs. Responses when I’m working with writers.

Let’s dig into our example above.

Our character is physically reacting to some sort of cue. Let’s say she’s a bride standing at the altar about to be married when the fiancés ex stands up to protest the wedding.

Now, anger does indicate something about her reaction – she’s not shocked or surprised. But anger could mean a lot of things in this type of moment.

Let’s look at a REACTION-forward scene first:

“I object.” A woman stood near the back of the church. Sarah.

The bride clenched her hand into a fist and crunched her teeth together tightly.

“What is she doing here?” she hissed through her teeth in the direction of her groom.

“I don’t know,” Jake answered, but his eyes were downcast.

She smoothed her hands on her gown. “Sarah. You have something to say?”

For one, as a reader, I’m skimming as I read this. We have a lot of short sentences and white space here in the dialogue. There are moments when that is exactly what we want (flirty romcom banter, a pacey thriller in a moment with bullets flying, frantically trying to hide from a boogeyman in a suspense or horror). But in a scene with building drama? This might not be the pace the writer wants to set.

Second, I’m still not sure why she’s angry and who she is angry with – is it Jake, Sarah, someone else who left the church doors unlocked?

Let’s look at how this character can RESPOND instead of just REACT to build tension and draw the reader in more deeply:

“I object.” A woman stood near the back of the church. Sarah.

The bride clenched her hand into a fist around her bouquet and crunched her teeth together tightly while keeping her smile plastered on for her one hundred and seventy five well dressed guests. She’d been so close to the finish line. Just a few more minutes and Jake would have been hers, legally. She wouldn’t let Sarah get in the way. Not this time. Not again. Sarah had her turn and blew it.

“What is she doing here?” she hissed at her groom through her smile.

“I don’t know,” Jake answered, but his eyes were downcast and he didn’t appear surprised.

She took a deep breath, smiled at the priest who stood frozen at the interruption, then passed her bouquet to Jake’s sister who had the sense to appear shocked or maybe actually was based on her slack jaw.

Smoothing her hands on her gown, she visualized her anger as a ball of light that she now gathered just under her breastbone, eclipsed by her manufactured sweetness, but ready to blind the one foolish enough to look at it directly.

“Sarah,” the bride said. “You have something to say?”

Do you see how the reader is told more, but can also now see and experience more of the protagonist in the second example. We see how the bride is holding her anger in, masking it. There is a tension now that the reader experiences wondering if she’s going to blow. We want to know how these two women know each other, why Jake isn’t surprised, and how the bride will regain control of the situation.

With an accordion, the movement of air over the reeds creates the sound. There are some versions of the instrument where pushing the same button will actually make different sounds based on whether you are pushing or pulling the instrument.

Similarly, sometimes you need to give your protagonist more space to respond (pull) versus just react (push). And sometimes, depending on what is revealed in a response, it might change the tune of your story a bit.

If you want to practice this, pull up your manuscript and search for somatic reaction type words like fists, smile, clench, stomach, eyebrow, skin, guts, freeze/froze, twist, shrug, eyes.

Now, see if there are ways you can pull your reaction open into a response. This could be just adding a sentence or two or perhaps some expanded narration.

This set up is inspired by a presentation Donald Maass gave to the Women’s Fiction Writers Association retreat I attended in April.

“I want a divorce,” Joe announced.

Tears sprang to Susan’s eyes.

What does this interaction show us? Susan’s upset, perhaps. But why? Because Joe is leaving and she was blindsided? Because Joe beat her to the punch? Because she’s so relieved? Something else?

Who knows?

But it distances us from Susan’s real emotions and therefore our connection to Susan.

As a writer, help the reader step into Susan’s unique response. As Donald Maass suggested, give the reader something to chew on and process. Surprise the reader with the emotional response that’s a layer or two beneath the somatic cue.

You try! Take this example with Joe and Sue and create a response instead.

Include it in the comments below and let’s see how many different responses we get from one simple prompt. I’ll paste mine in, too!

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