Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It)
Year: 2016
Author: Janice Hardy
Length: 136 pages
As a writer, I have heard all the little idioms that are meant to help grow us into better storytellers. Unfortunately, while I’ve since been able to grasp concepts like “Kill Your Darlings,” one thing I still struggled with was “Show, Don’t Tell.” I still couldn’t see the difference between “showing” and “telling” because both seemed almost indistinguishable to me. Luckily, someone in my writing group suggested Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It) as a guide to better understand this writing technique. Now I think I finally get it.
Just like the challenge of identifying passive voice, the problem with the “Show, Don’t Tell” idiom is that it asks the writer to find a problem in their writing that they might not even know is there. This book not only has a great section about identifying the different ways writers “Tell” with their words, but it also includes suggestions on how to fix these issues. Because nothing is more frustrating than finally being able to identify the problem but not having a solution for it. I’d recommend this book for these two strengths alone.
My only gripe is that there are so many ways that an author can “Tell” that it was a little overwhelming to wrap my head around everything. Luckily, this book is short enough that it can easily be read in a day as a refresher before editing. After all, it’s not about perfectly being able to excise all the telling from a manuscript, but about improving the ability to identify these problems and know the simple fixes for them.
A great resource for writers who struggle with this confusing idiom of advice, I give Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It) 4.5 stars out of 5.
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