Style: Show, not Tell

Nick Cook
 

Nick Cook is a long-standing member of Verulam Writers' Circle and served as Chair in the 2000/2003 season and was elected President in 2004. He has taught Creative Writing classes and strives to help members of the Circle to improve their work. A Health and Safety at Work expert, he is widely published in that field. This is a precis of the short talk he presented at the Editing Workshop on 11June 2003

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Style

Show versus Tell

  
Tell Robert is feeling sad.
Show

Robert's footsteps on the stairs were slow and heavy. He moped into the room, shoulders drooping and head bent. With a sigh he drooped into a chair.

Tell The working classes live in squalor.
Show
  • Sound of the mill girls clogs on the cobbles.
  • Sight of a thick coating of fur on the chandelier.
  • Smell of the room in which he was staying which smacked you in the face.
  • Anecdote: he watched the progress of individual crumbs up and down the table
    from day to day.
  • Finally he left on the morning he came down to an un-emptied chamberpot
    beneath the breakfast table.
Tell It got hot.
Show "It was as if someone had opened the door of a bakery oven." (Bradbury)

 

In practice you need show and tell but we tend to emphasise show because it is more difficult to do.

 

Cutting

  
Preamble

Plunge straight into the story. Very often the first paragraph or so is the literary equivalent of the writer clearing their throat. cutting it greatly improves the piece.

 
Qualifiers

Adjectives and adverbs: they can suck the life out of your writing. "You cat just ate my canary" she screeched angrily.

 
Sentence length

Aim for 28 words maximum, 16 words average and punctuate long sentences with shorter ones. Build up rhythm.

 
Long words

"Why should I write metropolis when for the same ten cents I can write city?" (Mark Twain)

 
Fog Index

a. Pick any 100-word segment of text.
b. Count the sentences in the segment (a fragment of a
sentence at beginning or end counts as a whole sentence).
c. Divide 100 by the number of sentences (= average sentence
length).
d. Count the words in the segment with 3 or more syllables.
e. Add the two numbers (average sentence length + number of 3-or-
more-syllable words).
f. Multiply the sum by 0.4.
g. Round off the result to the nearest whole number. This is the
GFI.

The lower the number, the easier the passage is to read.

Reduce the Fog Index number by reducing sentence length or using words with fewer syllables.

 

Explanation

Many writers over explain. Much better to show and let people work it out for themselves.

John was bad tempered and impatient.

OR

John flung down his paintbrush. "What the hell do you want now!" he shouted.

Which brings us back to show, not tell. 

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