By nature, we see what happens in a story and hear some of it in the dialogue. But every reader also wants to feel the story in the emotions, to also hear the footsteps in the attic above in the empty house, to smell the oncoming rain in the ozone, then smell the difference in the rain caused by geosmin and petrichor, to taste the old, over-perked coffee, and then emotionally respond to all these sensations.
‘Show, don’t tell’ is not a trite old workshop cliché. It’s a principle that inspires emotional engagement.
‘Show, don’t tell’ turns information into experience.
When you master showing, you stop reporting what happens and start creating a world that lives.
Telling gives readers data. Showing gives them intimacy.
A writer who tells writes, “She was angry.”
A writer who shows makes us feel her anger through her reddening face, her clenched fists, and her quickened breath.
One gives us a label. The other gives us a living life.
Readers are particular this way. They don’t want to be told what to think. They want to live inside the scene, discovering emotion through what they sense.
As writers, how do we achieve this?
Showing is rooted in sensory awareness. When you write, ask yourself: what does this moment look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like? The human brain, by design, processes sensory detail faster than logic. That’s why a single image, such as mud splattering on a white dress, light flickering through the blinds, or the creak of the attic floorboard, can anchor a reader in a real place. When readers can smell the smoke before they know there is a fire, you’ve made a real world.
People (and characters) reveal themselves, not through explanation, but through behavior. What you do makes a greater impression on me than what you say. If you replace emotional exposition (telling) with action or sensory information, you reveal living truth. Instead of writing, “He was nervous about talking to her,” write, “He wiped his palms on his pants three times before knocking on the door,” you’ve used body language through action to impart the emotion viscerally. When you let characters act, you invite readers to interpret naturally, turning passive reading (someone telling them something) into active participation (by making them live and feel it).
Showing thrives on specificity. A “flower” is generic. A “bruised magnolia petal caught in the arms of a windshield wiper” is cinematic and maybe even symbolic.
The more precise your imagery, the more universal your resonance.
Paradoxically, the specific unlocks the universal because it feels true, it feels lived.
As readers, we trust and succumb to the magic of a writer who notices details that other writers miss.
There is a place to tell, but the best storytellers know that balance that exists between telling and showing.
Telling is efficient when used sparingly to move time, summarize transitions, or ground the reader in context. You might tell us the day passed uneventfully to set us up so we can jump at the moment the phone rings at midnight. Telling is a narrative bridge. Showing is what happens at the destination. The art of the writer lies in knowing which serves the reader best.
Showing isn’t limited to the external. It can also apply to thought and emotion. Instead of writing “she felt lonely,” the writer can show her scrolling through her phone’s contacts, not knowing who to call or if she can. Instead of writing “He regretted his words,” the writer can show him replaying the conversation while washing the plate twice or distractedly checking his alarm clock three times before he goes to bed. The interior life of a character, just like the exterior, has texture. By showing the character cinematically, we give that emotion form.
In dialogue, we can let the subtext carry emotion. What is unsaid and shown between the words carries more weight than a paragraph of dialogue. A cracked mug for a fractured relationship, or an overgrown garden for neglect, allows for emotional shorthand in creating metaphor and symbolism. Short, clipped sentences create tension, whereas long, lyrical ones convey soothing or, maybe, emotional ache. Placing serenity (maybe in words) amid chaos (action) creates contrast. Showing these incongruities often brings the scene to life through juxtaposition.
As an exercise, try some of these things. In your work-in-progress, take a sample page and circle every emotional label (“angry,” “sad,” “happy”), then replace half of those with actions or imagery that reveal the feeling by showing it rather than telling it. Look at that same page and add sound, smell, or texture to just one line in every paragraph. Then look at the page and ask what a video camera would capture if you couldn’t rely on narration or thought.
When you show instead of tell, you stop being a reporter and become the conjurer a storyteller is meant to be. You trade explanation for living embodiment. Readers don’t fall in love with information. They fall in love with an experience. Showing transforms the abstract into the mentally and emotionally tangible. The difference between telling and showing is the difference between telling someone about a dream and instead inviting them to dream it with you. That’s the magic. The more vividly you render your world, the more that world is no longer yours; it is the reader’s. Let them hear the clock tick, taste the dust, feel their heart in their throats. Don’t just tell readers a story. To truly sing, let them live inside it.
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