How many times have you been told that when you write, you should “show, not tell”? Is your writing too demonstrative with little experience? Tired of writing a telling narrative and looking for ways to share the experience of your story? First of all, you need to write in a voice that drags your readers into the overall experience. How do you do that? Feed readers with just enough facts so that they can provide their own interpretations. For example: “I was exhausted, so I went to bed.” Why not say, “Every bone in my body ached from over-exertion? I lay down just for a minute and quickly fell into a deep sleep.”

I study the works of some of my favorite authors to get some ideas on how to show, not tell a story. Perhaps one of my favorite authors is Kathy Reichs and her frequent use of bullet points instead of lengthy descriptive narrative passages. With a few words and spartan use of full sentences, she manages to make the reader feel involved in the moment. I’ve tried to incorporate this technique in some of the more recent works, like “Beauty in the Beast” (Tell-Tale Publishing: 2022):

“She had rescued Bear. A puppy tossed in a dumpster. Left to die. The two were inseparable. Now, she was failing Bear. And they would die.

One final scream, “Amell.”

“I’m so sorry, Bear,” she whispered.

As she slipped into oblivion, she felt a fog of confusion slither through her brain. Who is Amell?”

My bullet points aren’t as brief as Reichs’, but it’s enough to build the tension in the moment. I want to make readers feel my characters, the experiences, the setting, and the drama. Here are some tips on how I do that.

Use action-packed verbs to bring some life into the story.

Highlight character emotions with descriptive narrative and effective dialogue instead of merely listing some adjectives to describe the emotions.

Provide enough facts so the reader can assimilate their own interpretation of the scene being described.

Remember, the readers want to feel involved in the story.

Examples:

Telling: Christopher was exhausted after a long day on the construction site.

Showing: Christopher collapsed on his bed, falling into a deep sleep within minutes.

Telling: It was midday and Alice was hot.

Showing: Alice had sweat pouring down her face, all due to the intense midday sun.

And another example from one of my books, “Island of Dreams” (Tell-Tale Publishing: 2023):

Telling: Her legs were cold and the rest of her felt gritty, while something hot burnt her back. She couldn’t see in the darkness.

Showing: “Something cold moved gently over her legs. It wasn’t refreshing. Just cold. Everywhere else her body felt gritty and cold too. In contrast, something hot burned along her back. Her face was half-buried. Suffocating. Where was she? Nothing made sense. Her mind moved with sluggish resistance as she tried to remember. Anything. Her memory was a void. Except for discomfort, she felt only confusion. Trapped in darkness, she struggled to open her eyes.”

Thoughts in comparison? When you’re telling what’s happening, the character isn’t demonstrating any action, and the narrator has taken over the storytelling. There’s nothing there for the reader to assimilate and create their sense of what’s happening. The narrator has the solitary task of describing the scene as in “she felt” or “he saw.” The physical five senses are not there at all.

Never express an emotion, like “she was angry.” Provide a visual depiction of this anger, like “a furrow etched across her brow.” Make the reader appreciate the feelings without naming them.

Use dialogue to effectively show without telling.

That said, stories do need some telling, just not too much. I aim to keep the narrator as silent as possible, use active verbs, avoid the passive voice, avoid overusing adjectives and adverbs, and avoid using the typical overused words like “very” and “really.” In other words, I like to believe that, for the most part, my stories are showing the story, not telling it.