From the response to last week’s post, it’s clear to me that the writing advice show-don’t-tell has gotten way too boiled down in the minds of writers. We are so caught up in “doing it right” that we don’t leave room to actually do it right. And now, I’m pretty sure about this—it’s time to kill our darling. It’s time to get rid of SDT.
Over the weekend, I did a basic Google search for SDT (dismissing all mentions of Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book by the same name, which is incidentally up next on my TBR), and I found many, many writing teachers explaining SDT in its most basic, literal, simplistic sense —> a red face to connote embarrassment; a sweaty palm indicating nervousness; a fist banging as a stand-in for anger.
People are teaching it this way!
I mean, okay (begrudgingly), yes. Sure. Fine. All of these examples mean something to the reader. Each is a tangible example (signifier) that expresses something about a character’s emotional state (signified). In that regard, when we use these kinds of things, we are very literally SHOWING not TELLING.
And it’s true that this is all you would need if you were writing a screenplay—which is apparently where the concept of SDT originated. It makes sense: in a screenplay you don’t have access to the inner self of the character, so you must rely on facial expressions and gestures and things your audience can literally see or hear to explain what is happening in their minds.
But, in narrative prose - this is not enough. You cannot stop with SDT. Stopping here is the problem I’m trying to address.
Stopping here removes exposition.
Stopping here removes interiority.
Stopping here removes point of view.
Stopping here removes voice.
Exposition, interiority, and POV are not the enemy. They are, in fact, necessary components of a working narrative.
But we writers have heard SDT so many times that we’ve fossilized a second message right next to it—to TELL is to err. If we believe that, we get stuck. Because how (the f) is it possible to SDT and also have EXPOSITION, INTERIORITY, and POV in your narrative?
It seems contradictory. But it’s a little more nuanced than that, and it’s the nuance that has gotten lost.
To explain, let’s explore what the TELL in SDT is not:
TELL is not a character’s thoughts.
TELL is not a feeling, a memory, or an intuition.
TELL is not foreshadowing.
TELL is not a season, or a timestamp, or hour on the clock.
TELL is not a declarative, straightforward sentence.
Listen, we could be so freaking literal about SDT that we stop making sense. We could translate everything into its signifier and end up writing in code. Maybe that was the goal for James Joyce when he wrote Ulysses1, but that is NOT the goal now. You are not James Joyce (and thank the gods for that).
So… what is TELL in SDT for narrative prose??
TELL is namesplaining.
TELL is not trusting your reader.
TELL is defining jargon or words in a different language.
TELL is a dumbing-down.
TELL is giving it away.
Now that all that is out of the way, I’d like return to the idea of scraping the whole notion of SDT for anyone other than playwrights, and replace it with more suitable advice:
DROP IN.
Drop right into the senses of your character(s).
See the setting though a specific pair of eyes. Touch things. Listen. Think. Smell. And write it down. Don’t worry if you are showing or telling, just take hold of the perspective and flipping write.
That is how you will find your voice.2
You can (and will) edit it (a thousand times) anyway.
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tl;dr
Next week I will return to the concept of VOICE.
Fantastic article! Without telling, how better can an author offer backstory for context and pacing? For example, paging through the first chapters of novel I just finished—Where the Crawdads Sing—Chapter 2, “Jodie” (1969 section), it didn't take me long to find a passage where the author does not skimp on rich description that creates vivid imagery and emotional richness as she t-e-l-l-s a bit of backstory:
"Kya’s pa had come back from the war a different man, hollowed out by the things he’d seen in the jungles of Vietnam. Before that, he’d been a fisherman, tough but kind, teaching his kids the ways of the marsh—how to read the tides, where the crabs hid. After, he drank more than he fished, and the kindness drained away, leaving a temper that flared like marsh gas. Ma stuck it out longer than most would’ve, but even she had her limits, walking out one morning with a suitcase and no goodbye, abandoning Kya and her siblings to the swamp and Pa’s rages."
No 'rule' in writing, or probably any art form, should be made into dogma. SDT is supposed to be a guideline, not a line in the sand. Thank you for pointing out what is and what is not "tell" (my favorite advice is nearly always to trust the reader)!