I thought I’d written my post on telling. That is, I have, indeed, written my post on telling: this is it. (And here’s a related one.) But I had this little brain fart the other day—I learn so much from you guys!—and thought it might be worth sharing.
I love movies.* I know you may be raising your eyebrows, since I have often compared movies unfavorably to books. “A novel is not a movie,” I have said. But that’s true. Novels and movies are different storytelling art forms with different ways altogether to, well, tell the story. There are different constraints, the most obvious being one is a visual medium while the other is entirely word-based.
Do you think in pictures or in words? We talked about this awhile back. Most people, it seems, think in pictures. And this manifests itself in a lot of telling (as opposed to showing). Seriously, violation of the dictum to Show, don’t tell ranks in the top three of Things I Wish You Wouldn’t Do. (Oh, don’t ask me about the other two. I’m still working on that post.)
Telling is when you use narrative to tell the reader what she should think, rather than showing her with dialogue, body language, and so on—and letting her think for herself. When you start interpreting what’s happening, you’ve begun telling.
So here’s the movie analogy. It’s like you’re sitting beside me in the dark, explaining the movie as I watch it: “And then, see, Josephine shakes her head because she doesn’t believe him.” Shhhh!
You can write that she’s shaking her head; that’s body language. It’s when you start with the “she didn’t believe him” that you slip into telling. Instead, use dialogue:
“Oh, Bobby. Bobby.” Josephine shook her head. “But, you see, I don’t believe you.”
A novel is not a movie. And I don’t want you to interpret what’s happening. I can do it myself. 🙂
* Off the top of my head: Amelie. Groundhog Day. Love, Actually. Local Hero. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Bull Durham. Big Fish. In the Loop. Snatch. I have watched these films repeatedly. I will watch them again.
Tweet: Telling is when you use narrative to tell the reader what she should think.
Tweet: Show, don’t tell ranks in the top three of Things I Wish You Wouldn’t Do.
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It’s curious to me that you frequently re-watch movies, but rarely reread books. I’m a movie lover too (within some picky parameters), but it’s the rare one I watch more than once but I love to reread books.
Regarding showing vs. telling I completely agree and thank you for the example.
The Irishman won’t rewatch a movie, full stop. But for me, a movie’s only an investment of a couple hours. And I get something completely different from them. I have, in fact, reread a lot of books (remember? http://jamiechavez.com/blog/2013/06/the-luxury-of-rereading/)—I just don’t do it now because I’m, you know, running out of time. (Although I have been revisiting Georgette Heyer.)
I thought most Westerners thought in words, not pictures. I hear a lot of talk in mindfulness/meditation circles about the “inner dialogue”, but little about an “inner movie”. In my case, my brain jabbers away at me in words until it slows down into a dreamy alpha state of consciousness or is focused on something I’m writing/doing that is primarily visual.
I rarely read books a second time. I tried rereading a couple of my favourites from when I was in college, but didn’t like them the second time. Dharma Bums was one (thought it was stupid the second time). Frannie and Zooey was another (sounded kind of whiny the second time). I did like One Hundred Years of Solitude the second time, but wasn’t blown away by it like I was the first time.
Hi, Rob—thanks for stopping in. Re the pictures, I was referring to an infographic I’d seen in Time magazine (linked in one of the posts linked above). The question was “When thinking creatively, so you think in …?” and fully half the respondents said they think in pictures, while only 34% said words. I was surprised, actually.
I mostly don’t reread these days because I just don’t have the time (http://jamiechavez.com/blog/2013/04/doing-the-math/). When I was younger, though, I reread many books (http://jamiechavez.com/blog/2013/06/the-luxury-of-rereading/); still, I tend to agree with you about Franny and Zooey. 🙂