Show, Don't Tell: 20 Before-and-After Examples for Fiction Writers

The advice arrives early in a writer's life: show, don't tell. It sounds like a rule, which is why so many people either ignore it or apply it like a blunt instrument, hacking out every sentence that dares to state a plain fact. Neither approach gets you far.

Showing is a lever, not a virtue. It controls pace and distance, and how much work the reader has to do. Sometimes you want them pressed right up against a character's panic. Sometimes you want them three streets away, being told what happened so the story can move on. Knowing which is which separates a draft that works from one that merely obeys instructions.

Telling gives a verdict; showing gives evidence

A telling sentence hands the reader a conclusion. She was angry. They nod and file it away. A showing sentence hands over the evidence and lets them reach the conclusion themselves — which is far more persuasive, because it feels like their own discovery.

That's the whole principle. Here it is applied to the three places it matters most.

Emotion: let the body and behaviour speak

Feelings live in what characters do, notice and avoid. Don't name the fear; show what the fear makes them do with their hands.

• Telling: She was furious. Showing: She set the mug down so carefully it made no sound at all.
• Telling: He was nervous. Showing: He read the same line of the form four times before he found his name.
• Telling: She was exhausted. Showing: She answered on the third ring and couldn't remember who she was speaking to.
• Telling: He was lonely. Showing: He made tea for two, then poured one cup away.
• Telling: The boy was proud. Showing: He walked home the long way, past the bus stop where his friends were waiting.
• Telling: She felt guilty. Showing: She started on the washing-up before anyone could ask where she'd been.
• Telling: The house felt sad since Mum left. Showing: The calendar in the hall still showed March.

Notice how little each showing sentence explains. Leave one detail unexplained and the reader will build the rest of the room themselves.

Emotion is also where the strongest telling hides in plain sight. A character who says "I'm fine" three times in one scene is telling you something the dialogue can't say on its own — and the reader hears it every time.

Setting: the version of a place one character notices

Setting isn't a list of objects. It's what a particular person would see on a particular day.

Telling: The pub was quiet. Showing: Two men played dominoes by the window, and the barman wiped the same stretch of bar three times.

Telling: It was a freezing morning. Showing: The car doors were stuck fast, and Dad's breath hung in the air while he pulled.

Telling: The office was depressing. Showing: Fluorescent light on grey carpet tiles, and a laminated hand-washing sign curling at one corner.

Telling: The high street was dying. Showing: Three shops in a row carried the same letting agent's sign, and one still had its blinds up.

Telling: The campsite was unwelcoming. Showing: The only flat pitch was behind the bins, and the owner watched us from the doorway without waving.

Telling: The flat was expensive. Showing: The kitchen had no kettle, and the agent apologised for the parking before we'd asked.

Action: sequence beats adverbs

Weak action writing leans on adverbs. Strong action writing uses order: what happened first, what it cost, what got knocked over.

• Telling: She ran quickly. Showing: She took the steps two at a time and hit the bottom door with her shoulder.
• Telling: They argued. Showing: "Fine." He put her keys on the table, not quite gently, and left.
• Telling: The dog was excited. Showing: The dog went round the kitchen twice, nails skidding on the tiles, and stood by the door with its back end shaking.
• Telling: The car crashed. Showing: The wing mirror came off first, then the back end swung round and stopped against a lamp post.
• Telling: She searched the room. Showing: Under the bed, behind the curtain, then every coat pocket on the rail.
• Telling: He attacked the man. Showing: He grabbed a fistful of collar and swung; both of them went over the low fence together.
• Telling: She cooked dinner. Showing: Onions into the oil, radio up loud, tea towel over one shoulder.

When telling is the better choice

Showing everything is as wrong as telling everything. Telling is quick, and speed is sometimes precisely what a scene needs.

Reach for it whenever the moment isn't the point:

• Bridging time: "Three weeks passed, and nobody mentioned it again." Two sentences of summary can carry the reader across a gap you have no reason to dramatise.
• Covering familiar ground: Nobody needs to watch a character lock a door and take the bus unless the bus matters.
• Delivering backstory at a distance: "His mother had run the shop for thirty years before the lease came up." Fifteen words, no flashback required.
• Regulating pace: A paragraph of summary between two intense scenes gives the reader somewhere to breathe — and makes the next shown moment land harder.

The test isn't whether a moment could be dramatised. Almost anything could. The test is whether it deserves the reader's full attention. If it does, show it. If it doesn't, tell it in one clean sentence and get out.

Telling is a summary of a scene you've decided not to write. That's a craft decision. It only becomes a failure when you didn't notice you were making it.

The middle ground: filtering, and why it flattens a scene

Many writers who have successfully banned she was angry fall straight into a subtler version of the same problem. They stop naming feelings and start narrating the act of perceiving them.

• Filtered: She noticed that the door was open. Direct: The door was open.
• Filtered: He felt the cold reach his fingers. Direct: The cold reached his fingers.
• Filtered: She realised he was lying. Direct: He'd said Tuesday. It was Wednesday.
• Filtered: He watched her walk to the door. Direct: She walked to the door.

Words like saw, felt, noticed, realised, watched and heard slide a pane of glass between the reader and the scene. In a close point of view the reader is already inside the character's head. You don't have to announce the perception — only the thing perceived.

The exception is when the act of noticing is the event. "She noticed he wasn't wearing his ring" earns its filter, because the noticing is the story. "She noticed the kettle was boiling" usually doesn't.

A revision pass you can actually run

None of this helps until it reaches a draft. Here's a pass you can do in half an hour on a single chapter, in this order.

1. Search for your emotion words — angry, sad, nervous, afraid. For each one, ask whether a gesture, an object or a decision could carry it instead. Keep the ones that mark a beat you want to glide past.
2. Search for filter verbs: saw, felt, noticed, realised, watched, heard. Cut what you can. In close point of view, most of them are already implied.
3. Search for -ly adverbs attached to verbs of speech or motion. "He said angrily" and "she walked quickly" are almost always tellings wearing a costume.
4. Mark every telling sentence you intend to keep and check that it's doing real work — time, transition, summary. If it isn't, dramatise it or cut it.
5. Read the scene aloud. If you can't picture what a character is doing with their hands, neither can the reader.

Then stop. A chapter with two or three telling sentences in it isn't a failure; it's breathing room. The goal was never to eliminate telling. It was to make sure every verdict you hand the reader is one you chose to hand them — and every piece of evidence you lay out is one they get to weigh for themselves.

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