Beth’s Reviews > The Wolf of Winter > Status Update

show, don't tell is the biggest piece of misunderstood bullshit advice. the actual art/skill is knowing what to tell, what to show, and what to leave out entirely.

Exactly. I get the impression that "too much telling, not enough showing" is a shortcut reviewers use when they're having problems with a book's pacing, but when you see it hundreds of times without anything to substantiate it, it feels like a lazy shortcut.

Honestly, I think a lot of reviews parrot stock phrases like that without any real thought going into it or sometimes even any apparent understanding of the phrase being used. I've defaulted to viewing "well written" as a consolation prize for authors when the reader didn't enjoy the book.

But then a lot of real life language use is like that. Set phrases and exchanges blurted out on autopilot, where the literal meaning of the words isn't the point. IRL it's not necessarily a bad thing, though in book reviews it's led me to view some perhaps surprising phrases as red flags. "Thought provoking," for example.

Hm, "thought-provoking" in reviews hasn't caught my attention at all. What makes it a red flag for you?

Well, for starters, "thought provoking" isn't something I want out of fiction. I don't process fiction in that way, so anything "deep" or symbolic, or whatever is just lost on me. You got something to say, spit it out. I will accept indirectness only from those living under an oppressive state, etc.

But, you'll also note "thought provoking" is deceptively neutral. For instance, I could have the thought, "what a piece of shit!", or "how the hell did this get published", or "I don't understand a word of this".

It's also avoiding the topic. If you mean it made you think about deep meaningful stuff, why don't you share with the class? Why not tell us what it made you think about, instead of just giving us some vague bullshit like "thought provoking", eh?

I prefer things to be more elliptical in fiction. But when it comes to reviews, I do appreciate it when the reviewer tells me what themes they thought the author was exploring in the book, or whatever, rather than dropping a "thought-provoking" and leaving it there. :)

For me the phrase "show don't tell" applies mostly to characterization. Don't tell me, "Beth was highly intelligent." Have her say something intelligent. Don't tell me, "Daniel was compassionate." Have him do something that demonstrates compassion.

That doesn't bother me all that much unless the character's behavior runs counter to what the narration is telling us they're like. Beth sure does some boneheaded things for somebody who's supposed to be intelligent.

Even with non-fiction, depending on the book, a "thought provoking" can lack enough context to give the slightest clue.

As for elliptical, yeah, not me. There's enough indirectness and ambiguity in real life communication, I don't need some author being deliberately obtuse unnecessarily.

I mean presumably, if they write decent characters and dialogue I'm already processing indirectness, ambiguity, and deception between the characters, which is fine. Fun even. But I can't deal with another meta level on top of that.

Beth wrote: "Beth sure does some boneheaded things for somebody who's supposed to be intelligent."

Ah, but intelligence is not about not doing boneheaded things. Everyone does boneheaded things. Intelligence is about doing intelligent things, if only occasionally.

One of the best examples of "show, don't tell" characterization that I know is in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Near the beginning, you have all these apparently interchangeable Chinese warlords telling you how great they are. Guanzhong never tells you what their character traits are, or how they are different from each other. But they behave very differently, and so you learn.

L wrote: "Beth wrote: "Beth sure does some boneheaded things for somebody who's supposed to be intelligent."

Ah, but intelligence is not about not doing boneheaded things. Everyone does boneheaded things. I..."

From The Long Game: "There’s something about great wisdom and learning that unlocks a person’s vast latent capacity for doing really stupid things, when the opportunity presents itself."

My biggest problem with "show, don't tell" isn't usually telling when stuff would be better shown, it's the showing of loads of irrelevant, uninteresting, and unnecessary stuff because writers have been beaten over the head with the "show, don't tell" hammer too much. Though plenty of books (fantasy is terrible at this) spend/waste lots of time telling irrelevant, uninteresting, and unnecessary stuff too.

One example of "show, don't tell" that was brought to my attention recently is "exposition through dialogue." Not in the sense that it exists--I've seen it in Laurell Hamilton's and Kate Elliott's books, among others--but that it can mean the author's had "show, don't tell" bludgeoned into them so hard that they tie themselves into knots to avoid exposition in the narrative.

I do need to be in a particular mood for a big fat fantasy wallow full of cultural details and all that other good stuff that doesn't necessarily add to the story. When I'm up for it, though, I have a great time.

L, that is a fun way to handle characterization. :) Mismatched perceptions--in all their different forms--are a favorite of mine.

Yeah, much as I enjoy dumping on Tolkien for his long winded description at least he knew better than to jam the Silmarillion into the Hobbit as a prologue. Can't say the same about anybody writing now. Group goes on a quest fantasy is pretty much dead to me, I'm only here for UF and the weird stuff like Parker.

I don't read "group goes on a quest" fantasies as a general rule, either, and prefer stories where the most important stakes are personal. There's plenty of that to be found in both UF and category fantasy.

L said

>For me the phrase "show don't tell" applies mostly to characterization.

Yes. Precisely. And what is worse when the author tells us a character is good or smart and they are just not, not by their own actions.

But I am pretty Ok with being told about worldbuilding.