You’ve probably heard the common writing rule ‘show don’t tell’… but what does it actually mean? Let me break it down, because understanding and following this rule of thumb can be the difference between writing that is good, and writing that is GREAT.

I’ll demonstrate what I mean by answering this question in two different ways.

If I were to tell you the answer to this question, I would say that telling means explaining exactly what your characters are thinking and feeling, while showing means implying, hinting, or suggesting.

Now, if I were to show you the answer to this question, I would provide different examples of showing and telling and ask you to draw your own conclusions about which one is better.

Here are some example sentences that tell:

The room was cold.

It was a rainy night and Sam couldn’t sleep.

I felt angry when he said I couldn’t go.

And here are some example sentences that show:

When she entered the room, Lisa shivered.

Sam was woken by the sound of raindrops on the window, loud as drumrolls.

When he refused to let me go, I felt a heat rise in my body and I began to shake.

In our writing, if we are focused more on telling, our story might go something like this:

Anna was a lonely person. She felt distanced from her parents and she had no real friends, and whenever she remembered this sad state of affairs she felt like crying.

However, if we were more focused on showing, our story might go like this:

Anna was always jealous of the girls in her class whose mothers braided their hair. Her own mother never seemed to want to touch her if she could help it. This was the sort of thing Anna wished she could confide in a friend, but at recess she was always standing alone.

Do you see the difference?

By and large, showing is a much better writing strategy. Not only is it inherently more visual (because we have to hint at information and feelings by being creative with our description) but it’s more interesting and pleasing to read. Readers tend to enjoy figuring out a character’s feelings more than they enjoy being told about them. They want to have a little bit of work to do; it makes for a satisfying reading experience.

Of course, it’s impossible to avoid telling completely; sometimes there’s no way around it. But whenever possible, it’s a good strategy to lean more toward showing than telling in your fiction.