Show What You Have vs. Tell Me All About It

Here's my thought for the day. As usual, I have some writing advice, because as you know I'm full of it (er...writing advice that is).

Remember Kindergarten? They had Show and Tell, right? Some mousy haired kid with paste stuck to his hands would hold up a Spider-Man action figure. He'd press a button, and a web would shoot from its hand. "Wow!" The class would say in unison, hoping to see him do it again.

"I got Spider-Man as a gift from my aunt," the kid would drone, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "It has a web, just like the one on TV. I saw the commercial. In it, Spider-Man climbs a building and shoots his web." No one paid any attention. A few would get up and touch Spider-Man's hand, someone would yell, "Make it do the web thing again." Why? Because watching what it could do was much more interesting then the story behind it, told matter-of-factly by a kid who wanted nothing more to get show-and-tell over with so he could play outside on the swing set.

Think of your readers as the audience of show and tell. You're the kid with paste on your hand (metaphorically speaking, of course). You could tell your audience the reason why your character is doing what he is doing. Go on and on about why it's important for the reader to know. But are you doing this because you feel it's necessary? Are you really dying to get on with the action instead? You might be telling, and it may be something that doesn't even need to be told. It's amazing how much backstory can be built into dialogue or even placed strategically into the character's psyche.

Another childhood analogy: Remember the old taunt? "I see London, I see France, I see (insert unfortunate child's name here)'s underpants."

Okay. So you told us you see someone's underants. Unless your character is a voyeur, who cares? How about: "Lizzie's zebra-print underwear peeked from beneath her mini-skirt as she plucked a blood-red bloom from her rose bush." Now we know Lizzie likes showing off her legs (thus the mini-skirt), she has a wild side to her (the zebra-print undies), and who knows where her personality will take us, now that we know she loves blood-red thorny flowers. Look how much more depth there is to your story...and it's only one sentence long so far.

When reviewing your work, think about playing show and tell. Pretend you aren't talking about the toy in your hand, but showing us how its works. And then, when there is a need to explain something, use words that give us more information than "I see Lizzie's underpants."

And, by the way, wash that dang paste off your hands.