Show and Tell Exercise

[gauchecritic]

In a thread on the SDC Muffie asked of the differences and values of 'showing and telling'.

I gave what I thought was an example of same:

Telling;

'She was five feet six inches with blonde hair and he was six feet two with broad shoulders and big hands.'

Showing;

"Standing silently, her dyed hair swaying and tickling the backs of his pianist fingers, his arm draped carelessly across her shoulders, she snuggled into his side and glancing upwards noted the fact that she could see right up his nose."

I thought I had managed to convey facts in the first sentence by suggesting them in the second.

Interestingly the 2nd para has just more than double the words of the first.

The exercise:
In the manner of the above example convert the factual paragraph which follows (in quotes) into a passage which shows instead of tells.

No more than two paragraphs and in nearly double the word count of the original. 120/130 words

"He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

Gauche

(That was an amazingly difficult paragraph to write)

 

[KillerMuffin]

You could have visited the stories and cut'n pasted.

 

[Guest]

MS Word count: 133

I had to tell myself I wasn’t in Hollywood, but the young Day-Lewis look-alike meeting me eye-to-eye at the bar during the first intermission of Lohengrin was a real ‘looker’, as Mom used to say. I caught his liquid doe-eyes skimming over my breasts and hoped he had an inkling as to why my nipples were stiff and jutting out from behind my lime cashmere halter. I could feel my full breasts swell warmly as our eyes met for an instant and hoped he caught that too.

He had shoulder-length dark brownish hair, so I hoped he didn’t hold too fast with the stereotypes about blondes. I’m a natural via mostly Swedish genes. I may be a ballet dancer but I think on my feet and am almost finished with Wittgenstein’s On Certainty.
---------------------------

Thanks, Gauche; that was fun. Purr

 

[Alex756]

Let me give this a shot ... in less words

Original:


"He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

Mine:

He grabed a shirt out of his bike's saddle bag and pulled it on, trying not to smile as some cute thing at the pay phone paused in her inane conversation to look at his muscles. His brown eyes and brown hair reflected for a moment in the door as he opened it. He didn't see the blonde angel until he was staring straight into her blue eyes. Then he noticed the cherry slurpee running down her green top -- a small bit of slush caught on a nipple.

Short mine68 words)

He grabbed a shirt out of his bike's saddlebag and pulled it on over his muscles. His brown eyes and hair reflected for a moment in the door as he opened it. He didn't see the blonde angel until he was staring straight into her blue eyes. Then he noticed the cherry slurpee running down her green top -- a small bit of slush caught on a nipple.


The muscles were the hard thing to fit in I think, and I still think showing vs telling is a misnomer but a fun game

YAA
Yet Another Alex
Alex756

PS If I hadn't been trying so hard for length, the 7-11 setting woulda let me get in the exact measurement for height really easy .. gotta love doors with that stuff on it

 

[jfinn]

Okay here's my entry, though after looking at it again I think it might do better on Harlequin.com than Literotica.

He liked that he could look directly in her eyes. It had happened before, he wasn’t tall; barely over average height, but it always gave him a thrill when a woman stood his equal. It was all they had in common, but he liked that too. In fact, he liked everything about her. She was day to his night, sunlight hair and eyes like a summer sky. Even the soft lines of her body were the perfect counterpoint to his hardened muscles.

She liked what she saw too. It was in the way she stood, her arousal showing through a shirt the color of freshly cut grass. Her eyes asked permission as her hand lifted, ready to stroke the shadowy curls at his neck. He whispered, “Yes.”


Jayne

 

[wildsweetone]

The exercise:
In the manner of the above example convert the factual paragraph which follows (in quotes) into a passage which shows instead of tells.

No more than two paragraphs and in nearly double the word count of the original. 120/130 words

"He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

'The T-shirt with its folded short sleeves and trapped cigarette packet fit his body like a glove. Instantly she was aroused, her body humming sensuously, her nipples beneath the green top aroused in exquisite pain. They stared at the shared mirror, a contrast of colours.

Gold hair topped an angelic body that swayed under the green suit as she tried it on. Turning in the mirror, he tugged his new jeans, then wiggled his backside further into them. She gasped at his thin plaited tail of hair as it swung against shoulders strengthened by years of manual labour, her long fingers itching to hold and tug it.

With eyes meeting, both instinctively ducked as the fault in the cheap shop mirror blinded their visibility. Grinning, they turned toward each other and she watched his own arousal as his brown eyes darkened.'

141 words - I can edit if you'd like. I see extra words that give more feel to the character than in your factual paragraph. Great exercise Gauche

 

[Wicked-N-Erotic]

"He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

Here is my addition to this thread. Is it even close to what you are getting at?


His well chiseled body was no doubt the product of many hours spent at the gym. His hair the color of rich chocolate lay in waves around his broad shoulders, and those eyes, eyes like puddles of muddy water that held her in a trance as he approached. She stood across the room wearing an olive tone top that accentuated her voluptuous curves nicely. The sheerness of the top did little to hide her arousal as they stood eye to eye.

Her sun-kissed curls had been what caught his attention as she tossed her head back, laughing heartily with a friend. It was at that moment that he knew he had died and gone to heaven. Now standing in front of her he was wondering where she was hiding her wings.

132 words


Wicked

 

[KillerMuffin]

Sarah screeched when he pushed her legs apart and knelt between them. Sweat had turned her blonde hair into strings of dishwater that clung to her face. Men that big had no freaking business shoving a girl's legs apart. Even though the stirrups kept her spread open, his shoulders still touched her thighs. She was comfortably medium-sized, but he made her feel like a dwarf.

He smiled at her and then stuck his lubed fingers into her pussy. She gritted her teeth while he prodded around with an expression usually reserved for groping blindly under the sofa for lost keys.

"You know what they say about a man's hands," Donna said, then leered at him.

She was too startled to scream when the contraction crunched his knuckles.

 

[gauchecritic]

I thought the best way to help any budding writers what we (except Alex756 ) mean when we say "show don't tell" would be not to tell them but to show them.

I'm thinking of converting this thread and these excellent examples into a "How to..." with all due attributions and tons of praise. Let me know if you object.

It's interesting that everyone so far (except La Femme Perdita) kept with the third person, almost everyone used the "eyes level" level to indicate same height and only half kept the non-factual angel reference.

Trust the Muffin to manage to interpose some sort of bdsm angle.

I hope some 'learners' will try their hand.

Gauche

 

[Octavian]

This works if they're in a health centre....

but it could become a tad repetitious!

He was leaning on the wall at the health centre when she walked in. She couldn’t help but notice the top of his head was level with the 5ft 11inches mark.
Her eyes never left his face as she walked towards him. She didn’t see the black pad on the floor and she was oblivious to the flashing red light showing that she weighed 128lbs.


Octavian

 

[wildsweetone]

The muscles were the hard thing to fit in I think, and I still think showing vs telling is a misnomer but a fun game

Alex, Why do you think showing vs telling is a misnomer?

I have come to the conclusion that there is an apt place for both, but I'm open minded enough to listen to your thoughts.

gauche the How To sounds like a great idea to me.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Trust the Muffin to manage to interpose some sort of bdsm angle.

It was a fond memory from the delivery room. The guy who checked me for dilation was 6'2", broad shouldered, and could palm a VW bug. He could also give dilation measurements with perfect accuracy in millimeters. The Preacher's Wife, who was in there with me, made the crack about a guy and his hands. *snort giggle*

The guy (gal) with the biggest hands is always the best one to check. Ya'll who've been there done that can nod sagely now.

 

[wildsweetone]

Oh wow! Now see I thought it was BDSM based too. I took 'contraction' to mean she was in orgasm. lol

ouch! *nodding*

 

[TheEarl]

Over three times the length, but I was having fun with this, so I didn't like to curtail it. Thanks gauche; I usually hate writing anything above minimalistic description, but this was the best bit of writing I've done in ages.

The Earl


Paul completed his length of the pool and swept his dark hair away from his eyes. He lounged back against the side, his arms resting on the edge. He loved coming here; it gave him a perfect opportunity to show off his toned body. He scanned his eyes over the pool, searching for anybody who might deserve his attention.

“Mmm,” he murmured to himself as he caught the eye of a particularly fine specimen. She was staring back at him, obviously entranced by his superlative looks. Paul’s eyes dropped to her impressive cleavage, encased in a minimalist green bikini and smiled as he noticed her peanut smuggling credentials. She wanted him.

Paul watched as she languidly swam towards him, her flaxen hair washing around her head, his eyes watching her breasts move. She reached the side and lowered her feet to the bottom of the pool so she was standing eye to eye with him. Paul allowed himself a final glance at her erect nipples and waited for her to open the conversation.

“Will you stop staring at my tits?” She spoke loudly, deliberately attracting everyone’s attention. “Jesus, it’s bad enough having to do my morning swim in this ice-cold swimming pool without having some sleazy short-arse ogle me constantly.”

 

[Alex756]

Alex, Why do you think showing vs telling is a misnomer?

I have come to the conclusion that there is an apt place for both, but I'm open minded enough to listen to your thoughts.

Because I believe it is all telling, the differance it between telling poorly and telling well.

I mean showing ... 'Here look at this!' I mean we don't really 'show' anything. We very carefully chose what we tell to the audience so that it doesn't seem like we have our fingers in the bulls nose ring so to speak, but no matter how gently we tug, we're still tugging

Nothing wrong with telling Its all story telling.

YAA
Yes Another Alex
Alex756

And PS, G ... love the frog *giggles*

 

[Guest]

Earl, love the "peanut smuggling credentials." A+
Pear

Gauche: do it, good idea.

La Femme Perdita, I like her.

Purr

 

[Quasimodem]

I think Alex756 is close to the right of this question. Some things can’t be shown.

For example, how do you show that a girl has red hair?

You COULD employ the following dialogue:

“Hey, Red!”

“It’s auburn, damn it! Auburn.”

Both times you have (different characters) “tell” her hair colour, but through the dialogue, you have “shown” the reader that she is sensitive about her hair being red.

Actually, the only way to “show” hair colour would be with an illustration.

 

[Octavian]

How to show her hair is red?

Don't forget my couple in the health centre, Quasi.

"Do you know," he said, "your hair has a similar hue to that capsule of rhesus negative blood over there!

Octavian
Who may be flogging a dead horse!

 

[wildsweetone]

Octavian: that is one strange comparision!

Quasi: Actually, the only way to “show” hair colour would be with an illustration.

Right, so what's wrong with using an illustration?

- a head of fire
- a crown of blood

etc

Maybe it would be worthwhile detailing the uses of 'showing' over 'telling'...

 

[Quiet_Cool]

In a thread on the SDC Muffie asked of the differences and values of 'showing and telling'.

I gave what I thought was an example of same:

Telling;

'She was five feet six inches with blonde hair and he was six feet two with broad shoulders and big hands.'

Showing;

"Standing silently, her dyed hair swaying and tickling the backs of his pianist fingers, his arm draped carelessly across her shoulders, she snuggled into his side and glancing upwards noted the fact that she could see right up his nose."

I thought I had managed to convey facts in the first sentence by suggesting them in the second.

Interestingly the 2nd para has just more than double the words of the first.

The exercise:
In the manner of the above example convert the factual paragraph which follows (in quotes) into a passage which shows instead of tells.

No more than two paragraphs and in nearly double the word count of the original. 120/130 words

"He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

Gauche

(That was an amazingly difficult paragraph to write)

Sorry to

the entire statement, but I didn't feel like editing it to make my point. Here's the gist of what I want to say:

In the examples (both the one you re-wrote on your won, and the one you want us to re-write), neither one is "telling," to use your term. Truth is, they both show, but in different degrees. "Showing" means giving the reader an image. "She had red hair." I can picture that, hence it has been shown. Writing doesn't have to be flowery to be effective, and in fact, a lot of the time, it can get in the way. Most detail is better off said plainly and allowed to sink into the readers mind on its own.
The difference between showing and telling in most cases deals with situations where the words can't create an image. "She was angry." Angry is a feeling, not something that can be seen. Here it becomes necessary to show anger. Add detail to the situation, something the reader can see.

Compare:
"She was angry."

"Her lips pursed together, going pale and seeming to shrink into a thin line, barely visible. Her fingernails dug into her palms as her hands curled into tight fists. She stared at him, her eyes appearing as though they might begin to sprout tears. Her chin bobbed slightly each time she exhaled a shallow, shuddering breath. She was angry, but she hadn't given in to her feelings just yet."

Not my best writing (not by a million miles--hopefully those who've read me agree), but the reader has something to visualize that brings her anger closer to life in the second version.
My apologies if I distracted from your point, Gauche, but I didn't quite understand what you were trying to teach.

 

[Alex756]

Re: Re: Show and Tell Exercise

Sorry to

the entire statement, but I didn't feel like editing it to make my point. Here's the gist of what I want to say:

In the examples (both the one you re-wrote on your won, and the one you want us to re-write), neither one is "telling," to use your term. Truth is, they both show, but in different degrees. "Showing" means giving the reader an image. "She had red hair." I can picture that, hence it has been shown. Writing doesn't have to be flowery to be effective, and in fact, a lot of the time, it can get in the way. Most detail is better off said plainly and allowed to sink into the readers mind on its own.
The difference between showing and telling in most cases deals with situations where the words can't create an image. "She was angry." Angry is a feeling, not something that can be seen. Here it becomes necessary to show anger. Add detail to the situation, something the reader can see.

Compare:
"She was angry."

"Her lips pursed together, going pale and seeming to shrink into a thin line, barely visible. Her fingernails dug into her palms as her hands curled into tight fists. She stared at him, her eyes appearing as though they might begin to sprout tears. Her chin bobbed slightly each time she exhaled a shallow, shuddering breath. She was angry, but she hadn't given in to her feelings just yet."

Not my best writing (not by a million miles--hopefully those who've read me agree), but the reader has something to visualize that brings her anger closer to life in the second version.
My apologies if I distracted from your point, Gauche, but I didn't quite understand what you were trying to teach.

And pardon me for not seeing what you are trying to explain Both (if you ask me) are telling. One is just telling she was angry one is telling the various signs of anger that we as human beings have come to recognize. For all we -know- she is acting angry, or maybe she is actually nauseous and just shows it weird? In some situations one would work better and in some the other. Short of illusrations it is all just telling. Just with differant skill ... and did you notice in your second example you said she was angry Otherwise ythe cues are able to be mixed up

YAA
Yet Another Alex
Alex756

 

[KillerMuffin]

Actually, there's a huge difference between telling and showing. We are all familiar with the characters, protagonist, antagonist, everyone else in the story. There is one "character" that most people either don't know about or don't pay any attention to. It's in all of the stories. That's the narrator.

It doesn't matter which POV you use, either, there is always a narrator. The narrator is the critter who is presenting the story to the reader.

Now, in most stories, the narrator isn't speaking directly to the reader, the narrator is just speaking for the purpose of getting the story out. This makes more sense in a minute.

When the narrator "tells" something, eg, "she was angry," we call this "telling" because the narrator--not the character (even in the I POV)--is "telling" the reader what she was. She was angry. "Showing" is different. The narrator is still speaking (that never changes), but the narrator isn't telling the reader what she was, the narrator is illustrating what she was and reader must draw the conclusion on his or her own. He didn't think it was all that bad, but she turned a curious shade of red before going all Linda Blair from the Exorcist on him. He ducked just in time to miss the VW Bug-sized rock she threw at his head.

The narrator is describing the character, what she did, how she looked, perhaps what she sounded like, but the narrator doesn't tell you what she is. They both accomplish the same thing; they both explain to the reader that she was angry. The difference is that telling the reader is passive and showing the reader is interactive.

Why the big deal? Why is showing better than telling if they accomplish the same thing? Passivity v. interactivity. The reader isn't just along for the ride, the reader also wants to feel a part of the story. When you tell the story, the reader cannot think for himself because there's nothing to infer, nothing to think about. The writer is supplying all of the information. When you show the story, the reader has to use his imagination. He has to think about what's happening and interact with the story. If you "tell" the story, you'll bore your reader because there is no imagination or thinking involved in telling.

Scotty x has an excellent example of telling in the Story Feedback Forum. https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167568

Our own Weird Harold has an excellent example of showing that's been here for a while. http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=384

 

[gauchecritic]

I'm not taking the piss Alex756, I really do hope that Muffie has cleared up your 'confusion'.

I've been trying for ages to think of a way to explain it to you like KM did above.

Perhaps the phrase should be "Illustrate don't tell."

Gauche

 

[Alex756]

Cool .. I don't even know what I'm not taking the piss is ...

But seriously,

"He didn't think it was all that bad, but she turned a curious shade of red before going all Linda Blair from the Exorcist on him. He ducked just in time to miss the VW Bug-sized rock she threw at his head. "

It's still telling, beautifully crafted, subtle, but still telling. Why were THOSE particular aspects shown. There is no clear distinct line between 'showing' and 'telling' Yes we can all come up with 'examples' of extremes. We 'know' what is right in a certain area and what isn't.

Its like showing and telling makes it all black and white, show good tell bad, but all I see is a huge expanse of grey

And everyone is always like 'let the reader come to the conclusion' .. is this really 'letting' the reader come to a conclusion? Its like the concusion to a math problem, there is only one right answer, she was mad, because it was artfully constructed so that was the only thing a person could think when reading it.

Alex756
Sorry but if you ask me its buzzwords

welcome to how to piss people off in less than 100 posts.
Seriously this is what I feel, and I'm just being honest here. And yes, GC, I know what people MEAN when they say show don't tell, I just think thats the wrong way to express it so I don't know why show not tell.

 

[champagne1982]

SHOW

TELL

You're right Alex! They do seem to relate closely to each other -- different sides of the same coin -- In the spirit of it though, do pretend you'd like to play the same game as every one else and show us those shimmering pale tresses as they blew against the dark wool of his gaberdine.
When she turns to smile we would like you to draw us a word picture that explains how his warm, earthtoned eyes reflected her cool sky coloured ones as she met him, toe to toe, nose to nose and eye to eye.
Illustrate, for your avid public, with your skilled use of the language, how his swarthy, Gallic good looks contrasted with her statuesque, Swedish ones. It's certain your readers would like to see the movement of his strength, rippling under his skin, as he swung her into his arms and how she'd shiver deliciously in response, goosebumps raising all over her body and tightening her skin, even under the chenille of her grass coloured sweater.
Or, you could tell us -- "He was five feet eleven and had muscles like a film star with dark brown eyes and darker brown longish hair. Then he saw her and she was like an angel with a body to match. Her hair was golden and she was exactly the same height as he was. He could tell that she was hot for him because her nipples were poking out beneath her green top."

Carrie
My Scribbles