The Horrendous Confusion of "Show Dont Tell" -- Scene mode and Fairytale mode

You aspiring writers have heard this advice. You fantasy readers have heard it, and you’re on the lookout for it. I’ve encountered this dozens of times in the process of writing The Raven’s Tale books.

SHOW DON’T TELL

Hi I’m Erik Goodwyn, I’m a fantasy author, practicing Jungian psychiatrist and lecturer, and this is the Imaginarium where we talk about the psyche, storytelling, science and fantasy–yeah, it’s a lot. But here we are.

So what is ubiquitous “show don’t tell” thing referring to? Let’s give two examples of this writing principle just so you can see what it means.

TELLING

John entered the study. He was clever and quickly figured out the identity of the murderer. He told Scotland Yard and they arrested the killer.

SHOWING

The study opened up before John. The small ink stain on the Butler’s lapel reminded him of something…what was it? Ah yes! The very same rare ink had been spilled on the victim when the killer stabbed him in the throat with a quill! John grabbed the rotary phone and dialed 9…..1.1. “Hello? Scotland Yard?”

THIS is what the writing advice is talking about. The difference in these two scenes (cheesy though they both are) is very different. One feels dull, distant, dry. In short, BORING. The second scene, while still very cheesy, at least is a little more gripping because it puts you right in the scene with John, tracking his thinking process. 

Show Don't Tell - Good Advice But...

So the writing advice goes: show don’t tell. Telling is boring, showing is exciting. But this goodly advice has caused a horrendous confusion: it has muddled the distinction between narrative summary and scene writing, or, as I am defining it for reasons that will become apparent, “scene mode” and “fairytale mode”. See, setting aside the idea of “show don’t tell”, there is another principle at work in any writing process: should I tell my fantasy story using mostly scenes? Or should I use narrative summary? What’s the difference?

Stated very plainly, a scene is where the reader is watching things happen almost in real-time. You follow along with the POV characters every micro-reaction, track dialogue back and forth, conflicts are spelled out blow-for-blow. Strike-counter-strike. This style of storytelling is extremely popular in modern fantasy and sci-fi novels. It has a lot of advantages. When its done well, it’s immediate, it’s extremely immersive, and it’s vivid. Since almost all modern fantasy is written almost exclusively in scenes, I don’t need to provide an example. Just pick up pretty much any Malazan book, or Brandon Sanderson book, and you’ll get plenty of examples because these two authors write almost nothing but scenes. This style of writing is very popular for another reason–the influence of TV shows and movies. TV shows and movies are the main way most people consume fictional content these days, and it’s been this way for a while. Many have commented on this fact, of course, and movies and TV are not new, but it has taken a while for this effect to really sink into fantasy writing. And it has gotten now to the point that hardly anyone writes any other way. This is what readers have come to expect, what agents and publishers want, and almost ALL of this is in the service to the almighty “show don’t tell” writing principle.

The Horrendous Confusion

But here is where I assert that the principle “show don’t tell” has caused a horrendous confusion. Ready? Here it is: Show don’t tell does NOT mean you should only write scenes. Because in writing, there is another tool you can use: narrative summary. A narrative summary describes “the way things are” in a less time-immediate manner. It’s not immersed in a particular scene as it unfolds in real time. It can span a large swathe of place, time, and character. So, you might think: isn’t this….BAD? Isn’t this a violation of “show don’t tell”? No. Because “Show don’t tell” also applies to narrative summary. 

Now, I said earlier that I make a distinction that I call “scene mode” and “fairytale mode”. This is what I’m talking about. Narrative summary just offends my artistic sensibilities. It’s so boring and does NOT do this technique any justice at all. It’s like describing Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece Julius Caesar as “some Roman guy gets killed and the killers feel guilty about it”. Its boring, reductive, and does not encapsulate the incredible power that this kind of storytelling can provide. 

Note, of course, that plays are written entirely in scenes. So are movies. It’s because narrative summary, which needs a much better name, so I’m calling it “fairytale mode” is NOT available to either screenwriting or movies–generally. Yes, you can have narrators in plays and movies, and some very creative directors can give you the same time-bending, theme-setting-and-atmosphere-trickery in movies using purely imagistic filming, but for the most part, plays and movies have to move scene-by-scene. There’s no “fairytale mode”.

"Fairytale Mode"

So what do I mean by “fairytale mode” or artistically crafted narrative summary? It’s what the author uses narrative summary to establish mood, character, setting, and feeling in an incredibly efficient and powerful manner that does NOT involve slogging through a dozen scenes designed to “show don’t tell” what a beautifully crafted and lyrical summary can do. In order to find examples of this in action, however, you have to go back in time to older works. Tolkien is an obvious example, but here’s another one from David Eddings’s Belgariad series. 

“THE FIRST THING the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor's

farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and

those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed somehow to combine into a

bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security

and, above all, home. No matter how high Garion rose in life, he never forgot that

all his memories began in that kitchen.

 The kitchen at Faldor's farm was a large, low-beamed room filled with ovens and

kettles and great spits that turned slowly in cavernlike arched fireplaces. There

were long, heavy worktables where bread was kneaded into loaves and chickens

were cut up and carrots and celery were diced with quick, crisp rocking

movements of long, curved knives. When Garion was very small, he played under

those tables and soon learned to keep his fingers and toes out from under the feet

of the kitchen helpers who worked around them. And sometimes in the late

afternoon when he grew tired, he would lie in a corner and stare into one of the

flickering fires that gleamed and reflected back from the hundred polished pots

and knives and long-handled spoons that hung from pegs along the whitewashed

walls and, all bemused, he would drift off into sleep in perfect peace and harmony

with all the world around him.”

This goes on for the whole chapter, with Eddings weaving in and out between fairytale mode and scene mode seamlessly. THIS is what I’m talking about. This is NOT “telling”. This is narrative summary, but you can see why I prefer to call it “fairytale mode”. What you lose in immediate immersion in a character’s head you gain immeasurably by how efficiently and lyrically you put the reader into another world, another time, and another place. This is what “once upon a time in a far away land” does for fairytales, only Eddings embellishes and elaborates this to a high degree, giving this story a beautiful, magical, dreamlike feel right from the beginning. 

Now, imagine that you were a modern author, and you were told that these paragraphs were “just all telling” and so you then set off to chop it to pieces and try to “scene-mode” it up. How difficult would that be? Extremely difficult because Eddings gives you so much feeling, setting, and impression with these short paragraphs. 

Not only that, he is still showing. In these passages, he is showing us why this world feels the way it does, it just isn’t by way of immediate scenes, but little snippets over long periods of time–those things that just linger in an area and give it the ineffable feeling. You almost feel like you grew up on this farm yourself because he gives you specific details, not in the service of a scene, but in the service of narrative summary. So “show don’t tell” is still good advice, you just have to remember that it applies to BOTH modes in a different way. 

Two Kinds of Immersion

Moreover, you don’t really lose “immersion” with well-written narrative summary--the immersion of fairytale mode is just of a different flavor from scene-mode immersion. Rather than bury you in a character’s head with immediate, blow-by-blow action in real time, you immerse the reader in another world, making everything oriented, while providing just enough to unlock their imagination. See, another drawback of scene mode is that it spoonfeeds the reader. It doesn’t tickle the imagination and make it work for you. He hints and evoke

s, but he never spoonfeeds. This is powerful narrative summary! And you can see, hopefully, why I so dislike the banal, dull, and clinical “narrative summary” term for this beautiful writing style.

In my own writing, by necessity, I lean pretty heavily into scene mode, but I have not forgotten the power of fairytale mode. It is a powerful technique, particularly if you are adept at switching back and forth between modes and you remember that “show don’t tell” hits different depending on what mode you’re in. 

And most of all, you must not find yourself captured by the horrendous confusion out there about “show don’t tell”: the narrative summary of fairytale mode is not automatically “telling”. That’s a different, entirely separate quality of a given passage. If you’re writing a narrative summary, make sure it includes “showing” bits and pieces. Don’t just say “Faldor farm was nice”. Show us what little things, spread across long swathes of time, make it “nice”. 

So, that’s what I’ve got. If you liked this, click like. If you want to subscribe, click subscribe, and check out my novel King of the Forgotten Darkness, link in the description. 

See ya next time.

EG