show vs tell
Feb. 19th, 2004 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Ever since I started to read 'how to write novels and short stories' books and read fellow slashers' rants and musings on this topic, I have been uneasy about the
show vs tell
dichotomy. And just now, on the loo, I read Gérard Genette's thoughts on the matter and got very excited!
Genette, from Narrative Discourse (1972), pp. 162-4:
First, he talks about Plato's contrasting of two narrative modes:
1) pure narrative or diegesis: reported speech
(the poet himself is the speaker)
2) imitation or mimesis: direct speech
(the poet delivers the speech as if he were such-and-such a character; borrowed from the dramatic convention of theatre)
Then Genette goes on to write this:
We know how this contrast [between diegesis and mimesis] ... abruptly surged forth again in novel theory in the United States and England at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, with Henry James and his disciples, in the barely transposed terms of showing vs. telling, which speedily became the Ormazd and the Ahriman of novelistic aesthetics in the Anglo-American normative vulgate.
(Ormazd and Ahriman: the Zoroastrian good and evil principles, respectively; the first created and governs the world, while the second seeks to destroy the other's beneficent work)
Don't you just love it??!! The aesthetics in the Anglo-American normative vulgate! *falls over with glee* (Now I know the perfect retort to anybody who appears and goes on about show not tell. "You aesthete of the Anglo-American normative vulgate school, you!" *squeals*)
OK, Genette goes on to explain why the show vs tell is up the garden path:
... the very idea of showing, like that of imitation or narrative representation (and even more so, because of its naively visual character), is completely illusory: in contrast to dramatic representation, no narrative can "show" or "imitate" the story it tells. All it can do is tell it in a manner which is detailed, precise, "alive", and in that way give more or less the illusion of mimesis -- which is the only narrative mimesis, for this single and sufficient reason: that narration, oral or written, is a fact of language, and language signifies without imitating.
God, I love good, clear theory. *falls over with hyperbolic love*
What I love here is that Genette debunks and describes. It makes me realise that what I don't like about the show-not-tell dicta is that they are so prescriptive. And I do not like being told what to do in my writing. I like much better to read descriptions because they present you with options, and then I can choose what I myself prefer to do.
Just to finish off with Genette (continued from above):
Unless, of course, the object signified (narrated) be itself language. [me: that is, you can imitate direct speech] ... But what happens when we are dealing with something else: not words, but silent events and actions? How then does mimesis function, and how will the narrator "suggest to us that ... he is someone else?" ... How can one handle the narrative object so that it literally "tells itself" (as Percy Lubbock insists) without anyone having to speak for it? ... The truth is that mimesis in words can only be mimesis of words. Other than that, all we have and can have is degrees of diegesis. So we must distinguish here between narrative of events and "narrative of words".
Yes! *punches air* There is no show vs tell! There is only tell! Tell, tell and more tell, and different degrees of tell some of which give the illusion of show.
OK, I do have some quibbles with Genette but on the whole, I find his dissection of the whole show vs tell business very liberating. And it's interesting to me as well because of the book I'm writing on visual narrative, because paintings do nothing but show, of course. So it's something I think about.
I am plotting a narratological analysis of slashfic. I will take one or two short fics and do a narratological exegesis of them, using Genette's and others' terminology and methods. *rubs hands* This will be fiendish fun. The only thing is: whose fic to pick? If I pick one of mine, nobody will take offense but I may be biased or blinded.
Will anyone offer themselves up as willing guinea pigs?
dichotomy. And just now, on the loo, I read Gérard Genette's thoughts on the matter and got very excited!
Genette, from Narrative Discourse (1972), pp. 162-4:
First, he talks about Plato's contrasting of two narrative modes:
1) pure narrative or diegesis: reported speech
(the poet himself is the speaker)
2) imitation or mimesis: direct speech
(the poet delivers the speech as if he were such-and-such a character; borrowed from the dramatic convention of theatre)
Then Genette goes on to write this:
We know how this contrast [between diegesis and mimesis] ... abruptly surged forth again in novel theory in the United States and England at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, with Henry James and his disciples, in the barely transposed terms of showing vs. telling, which speedily became the Ormazd and the Ahriman of novelistic aesthetics in the Anglo-American normative vulgate.
(Ormazd and Ahriman: the Zoroastrian good and evil principles, respectively; the first created and governs the world, while the second seeks to destroy the other's beneficent work)
Don't you just love it??!! The aesthetics in the Anglo-American normative vulgate! *falls over with glee* (Now I know the perfect retort to anybody who appears and goes on about show not tell. "You aesthete of the Anglo-American normative vulgate school, you!" *squeals*)
OK, Genette goes on to explain why the show vs tell is up the garden path:
... the very idea of showing, like that of imitation or narrative representation (and even more so, because of its naively visual character), is completely illusory: in contrast to dramatic representation, no narrative can "show" or "imitate" the story it tells. All it can do is tell it in a manner which is detailed, precise, "alive", and in that way give more or less the illusion of mimesis -- which is the only narrative mimesis, for this single and sufficient reason: that narration, oral or written, is a fact of language, and language signifies without imitating.
God, I love good, clear theory. *falls over with hyperbolic love*
What I love here is that Genette debunks and describes. It makes me realise that what I don't like about the show-not-tell dicta is that they are so prescriptive. And I do not like being told what to do in my writing. I like much better to read descriptions because they present you with options, and then I can choose what I myself prefer to do.
Just to finish off with Genette (continued from above):
Unless, of course, the object signified (narrated) be itself language. [me: that is, you can imitate direct speech] ... But what happens when we are dealing with something else: not words, but silent events and actions? How then does mimesis function, and how will the narrator "suggest to us that ... he is someone else?" ... How can one handle the narrative object so that it literally "tells itself" (as Percy Lubbock insists) without anyone having to speak for it? ... The truth is that mimesis in words can only be mimesis of words. Other than that, all we have and can have is degrees of diegesis. So we must distinguish here between narrative of events and "narrative of words".
Yes! *punches air* There is no show vs tell! There is only tell! Tell, tell and more tell, and different degrees of tell some of which give the illusion of show.
OK, I do have some quibbles with Genette but on the whole, I find his dissection of the whole show vs tell business very liberating. And it's interesting to me as well because of the book I'm writing on visual narrative, because paintings do nothing but show, of course. So it's something I think about.
I am plotting a narratological analysis of slashfic. I will take one or two short fics and do a narratological exegesis of them, using Genette's and others' terminology and methods. *rubs hands* This will be fiendish fun. The only thing is: whose fic to pick? If I pick one of mine, nobody will take offense but I may be biased or blinded.
Will anyone offer themselves up as willing guinea pigs?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-19 09:56 pm (UTC)*grins*
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Date: 2004-02-19 09:58 pm (UTC)n.x :)
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-19 10:12 pm (UTC)If you want to analyze any of my fanfic, you may feel free. We don't really know each other and I just read your journal because, well, you have a habit of posting great stuff like this, so hopefully you wouldn't be biased, and heck, nothing really offends me. (So feel just as free not to pick my stuff. :D)
My stuff can be found as follows:
http://ubiquitously.gr33nsl33v3s.com/archival/viewuser.php?uid=4 (Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, One Piece, Lord of the Rings)
http://www.fanfiction.net/~calicokat (One Piece, X/Tokyo Babylon, Guilty Gear, Lord of the Rings)
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=calichan (Sharpe's, Lord of the Rings, Equilibrium)
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Date: 2004-02-19 10:41 pm (UTC)But what I liked about Genette, actually, is that he argues that there *aren't*, in fact, two modes. There *is* only telling. So when you say that you wrote a fic in only tell-mode or that Pat Murphy's book is in tell-mode, I don't think that's quite Genette's point. Because what I loved is that he gets *beyond* that restricting dichotomy.
I don't want to take sides. I think that's been bothering me. That either you do the show (good) or you do the tell (bad, or perversely good if you feel stroppy). I just like getting beyond the whole "vs" thing.
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Date: 2004-03-23 09:51 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/lobelia321/257093.html#cutid
:-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-19 10:29 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-23 09:52 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/lobelia321/257093.html#cutid
:-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-19 11:21 pm (UTC)aesthetics in the Anglo-American normative vulgate
I love this, am memorizing and will use it as often as possible.
Tell, tell and more tell, and different degrees of tell some of which give the illusion of show.
Of course, in the end it's all just words on a page. And words can paint the most fabulous and detailed pictures and actions, which I suppose is a form of showing, but it's all fundamentally, still telling.
I had a similar epiphany today, probably around the same time you were writing this. mindmeld, omg I was working on getting back in touch with my "original" Sue, and in doing so, I had to illustrate a few things about the character that could only be accomplished by "telling." Now it's possible that I'll be able to go back and find some other way to illustrate these thoughts and attributes more dynamically, but it will still just be another form of telling.
The more I write, and the more good fiction I read, the more I resist all of these "rules." They may have their place as a way to avoid common mistakes and cliches, but when a story really takes flight, they just get in the way.
Yes of course; how can writing ever be anything but telling?
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Date: 2004-02-19 11:55 pm (UTC)I know! Isn't it just great?!
Also the scathing remarks one can imagine smiting people with: "Oh, show and tell? That tired old Ormazd and Ahriman..." *cackles fiendishly* Another good bit which I didn't copy down consist of criticizing that neo-Aristotelian valuing of the mimetic. However, nothing beats the vulgate!!!
mindmeld, omg *falls over*
The more I write, and the more good fiction I read, the more I resist all of these "rules." They may have their place as a way to avoid common mistakes and cliches, but when a story really takes flight, they just get in the way.
Yes, yes, that's so well put: 'when the story takes flight' (a real Memphis Belle metaphor!). I like knowing and reading about the "rules" but then it's good to get away from them. I also liked the way Genette historicised the rule for me. Instead of this grand Truth, the show vs tell turns out to be a particular mode of talking about fiction, invented by particular people at a particular point in time, and turned into normative Golden Rule by later how-to advice book authors.
how can writing ever be anything but telling
There's only good!telling and bad!telling. And some of it's terse or descriptive and feels like 'show', and some of it's introspective or summarises events and feels like 'tell'.
Now I want to read Henry James and Percy Lubbock who started all of this. Die haben uns das eingebrockt!!
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Date: 2004-02-19 11:55 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 01:50 pm (UTC)This is the great thing about narratology: there always is something to analyse, no matter how involved and complicated or how pwp and omg-liek-elijah111 any one fic is. Because analysis is not criticism or beta: it's not evaluating for good and beta; it's just describing and joining dots and figuring out the effect of any one thing.
it's more about how I'm "feeling" a story than about how I want to write it.
One thing about all these theorists is that they pay little attention to the writing process. Even how-to books spend surprisingly little time on that. This is what the fandom has been so wonderful for: we can actually get down and talk about the nitty-gritty of it. And it's why I love (possibly need) to write fic: the *feeling* part.
But then I do re-read whatever's gushed out of me, and if my feelings at time of writing don't quite match up to the feelings generated by re-reading, the analytic part of my brain kicks in and I start to revise and think about things such as show-not-tell.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-20 12:09 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 01:51 pm (UTC)*snort*
Well, I still see the *point* of what's behind the show not tell; I just don't like the exclusivity and the prescriptiveness.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-20 02:07 am (UTC)I'm in waaay above my head, and have not studied literary theory or anything close to it. I'm just a wanna-be writer who has taken a writing class, and has read umpteen books on writing, and have heard the advice "show don't tell" a thousand times (or so it feels). Critters of my writing have pointed out "tells" in my writing and I have done the same for other writers when critting their work. I've worked my butt off at times to "show" rather than "tell" when warranted, and tried to know when to do both.
I don't claim to be all that comfortable with this kind of discourse, but I'll give it a try. What Genette says is, in essence, that all is "tell", just that some tell has more of an "illusion of show" than others. That it has become fashionable in modern American literary works to go heavy on the side of the "illusion of show" rather than the more straightforward "tell".
Does he explain why it has become fashionable in "Anglo-American normative vulgate"? Do non-Anglo-American works follow a different course? Is work that strives for the illusion of show better than writing filled with straight-forward telling?
I'm wondering what implications your read of Genette has for someone like me ...
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Date: 2004-02-21 01:59 pm (UTC)Well, *smiles sheepishly*, I can't really answer that because I'm not sure I know you well enough to know what "someone like you" is like.
But your point about Genette and Anglo-American criticism is interesting. No, he doesn't explain *why* the show-not-tell was developed. Which is what, after pondering it for a day-and-a-half, makes me think I might want to go back now and read the horse's mouths: Henry James and Percy Lubbock. I will report back dutifully on my findings!! :-)
But what you say, the ramming down of our throats with the 'show-not-tell', is precisely what made me look for antidotes to this Golden Rule to begin with. Because I get suspicious of anything that's touted as the be-all-and-end-all and that's handed round as a prescriptive pill. Especially when it comes to writing.
So could I ask you: the people who have encouraged a show-not-tell approach to you, how have they justified and explained it? *Why* is 'show' supposedly "better" than 'tell'?
What Genette says is, in essence, that all is "tell", just that some tell has more of an "illusion of show" than others.
Well, this is my interpretation of what he's saying. And put like that, one might quibble and say, well, so what's the difference between "show and tell" and "tell that is an illusion of show and tell that is an illusion of tell"? Except, as far as I can gather, Genette doesn't think the "tell" is an illusion, only the "show".
Is work that strives for the illusion of show better than writing filled with straight-forward telling?
I can't answer this. Because I am not entirely clear now what in fact the differences are. I know the general examples and the general rules that are always given, but what are *actually* the differences? Also, e.g., the classical 19th-century novel (Genette explains elsewhere in his book) is structured by the alternation of scene and summary (scene with action and dialogue, summary of the type "ten years passed"). Now, summary seems to me to be all telling and no showing, and it is absolutely necessary for the rhythm of any writing longer than a brief fic to work. So it's the ruling out of court of so-called telling I think is limited and limiting. Fiction needs both. And more besides. :-)
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-20 04:32 am (UTC)sexuallinguistic favours?Like all the "rules" of writing, "show don't tell" is horrifically simplistic and doesn't cover all the bases and, in fact, once the author reaches a decent level of skill, can be gleefully cast aside in the pursuit of further experimentation and excellence. But it's a damn good guide for beginners.
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Date: 2004-02-21 02:01 pm (UTC)in fact, once the author reaches a decent level of skill, can be gleefully cast aside in the pursuit of further experimentation and excellence. But it's a damn good guide for beginners.
Being an educatrix myself, I cannot but agree! Although I'm not sure I ever cleaved to this rule when "beginning" myself, nor even knew about it until I'd already written a good many fic .
Meandering off topic, not that you'll be suprised.
Date: 2004-02-20 02:55 pm (UTC)1. This phrase you would use against people talking about show not tell. I know you are only joking, but I do actually think people saying things like this happens quite frequently, especially on the net. I have no idea why people do it. 95% of people don't understand what it means, so the speaker is only communicating meaning to 5% of their potential audience. A further 90% just mentally shrug and carry on thinking whatever they thought before, and the remaining 5% believe it because they are so thick they'll believe anything if it said by a clever person, even if the thick person has no idea what the clever person is talking about. What the world needs is more people like you posting, who will actually take the time to give a proper explanation of what the terms they are using mean, as you have done above.
2. Show and tell. Does what this Genette saysactually change anything? i mean, it is not as if when I think, right I'll show in this bit, I'm actually going to go around to each of my reader's houses, push Ewan through the door, and tell him to get his cock out so that everyone thinks, hmm, Cordelia really showed Ewan's cock well in that fic. Of course it is all just language, different ways of using language. Genette's not getting rid of the terms really, he's just redifing what we mean by them slightly.
3. Who actually follows the show and tell rule completely anyway? You'd have to be a very good writer to produce anything readable that relied exclusively on this show mode of telling or the tell mode of telling. I have to use both for any fic to make sense.
Made up example.
Orlando first person:
Ewan lit a cigarette, and sighed. He was clearly very tense.
Or with no Orlando first person:
Ewan lit a cigarette, and sighed. Orlando thought about how tense Ewan was at the moment.
Well, so from we can gather that either Ewan is tense, or that Ewan isn't tense, he's just having a cigarette and sighing, possibly in a relaxed manner, but Orlando is so neurotic that he presumes Ewan is tense.
Isn't that how most people write? The 'alive' descriptions don't describe very much without the 'dead' descriptions, unless you're using 'alive'descriptions as analogy, like maybe there's a wilting pot plant in the room that is about to die.
I suppose there are exceptions to this; in slash some people have partialisms or fetishes, so if you had a partialism for curly hair, the alive description of the hair doesn't have to have any meaning whatsoever, it is there purely and exclusively for the reader to interpret in line with their own perversions (I feel that it is leading into the other debate I had with you, so I'll stop at that point).
Re: Meandering off topic, not that you'll be suprised.
Date: 2004-02-21 02:12 pm (UTC)But then whom would I rant against??? Don't take away my toys!
Does what this Genette saysactually change anything?
After my first enthusiasm mellowed, this is also what I've been wondering. I now want to go and read the horse's mouths, Henry James and Percy Lubbock, who appear to have started the show-and-tell craze and who are cited by Genette, and then I will report back on my findings!
Basically, I just don't like it if critical angles are presented to me as a Golden Rule and as prescriptive pills. The opposition of show and tell is interesting to think about - does it even exist? if so, what effects do the different modes conjure up? and so forth. But *not*: You must do this, and only this. Which is what, regarding show not tell, I have been reading in both LJ and in published how-to books.
You'd have to be a very good writer to produce anything readable that relied exclusively on this show mode of telling or the tell mode of telling.
I don't think you have to be or can be a good writer to pull it off. You'd have to be someone doing a conscious experiment and then you would end up with an experiment fic and not with a real, live bit of narration. That is the irony: if you followed the show-not-tell completely, you would end up with a ridiculous and possibly dead-in-the-water fic. Ernest Hemingway often gets cited but I've never read any Hemingway all the way through so can't judge whether there are or are not exceptions. Anyway, I suspect Hemingway is more about objective vs subjective storytelling, and that the show-not-tell is a red herring.
Orlando first person:
Ewan lit a cigarette, and sighed. He was clearly very tense.
Or with no Orlando first person:
Ewan lit a cigarette, and sighed. Orlando thought about how tense Ewan was at the moment.
I stared at this for a while and realised that I didn't know the answer because I am not in fact sure what exactly show vs tell *means*. And have decided it may be the wrong question / opposition to set up and gets us nowhere (encouraged by Genette's musings). I think the difference between your two examples is primarily a difference in point-of-view. The first sentence is an example of free indirect speech (many say that this was pioneered by Jane Austen), a mode where somebody's views are presented without quotation marks. Instead of writing 'Orlando thought, "Ewan is clearly tense"', the author writes 'Ewan was clearly tense'. Both sentence 1 and sentence 2 are, I think, telling. This is what Genette means when he says you can really only show (that is, make language be mimetic) when dealing in direct speech, and that is how Plato talked about it. As soon as you get to thoughts, you cannot ever "show" them. Whatever you do with thoughts, report them as if they were direct speech, use free indirect speech, use indirect speech -- you will be using diegesis, not mimesis. That is, you will be telling, not showing.
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-21 03:41 am (UTC)I think the trick to "show don't tell" (when taken with the assumption that all narrative voices are telling) is to find a balance between telling to inform the reader, and telling to recreate (scene/atmosphere/emotion/etc) for the reader. Is a better way of phrasing dear old "show don't tell" perhaps 'don't just tell, show through telling'. It's an interesting point to consider, because I think sometimes 'show don't tell' can be a useful criticism, so long as both parties understand the problem is more there's too much dry informing without enough recreating or demonstrating - I suppose it goes back to active narrative vs. passive narrative.
I'm sure once I've slogged my way through honours, Genette will make for much easier reading than it does right now.
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Date: 2004-02-21 02:17 pm (UTC)I think if we replace 'show don't tell' by another opposition like 'tell-as-show and don't tell-as-tell" or "do lively tell, not dead tell" we're not changing anything. Then it's just a matter of labelling. If that's all that Genette is doing, then there is a problem. (And in the day and a half since I posted this, I have pondered this possibility!) But I think what I like to do is get out of this whole show/tell opposition altogether because it's a false opposition and just look at other aspects of writing.
But the Platonic opposition of mimesis/diegesis (which is, Genette seems to be saying, where Henry James got his show/tell from) I find very interesting to think about.
there's too much dry informing without enough recreating or demonstrating - I suppose it goes back to active narrative vs. passive narrative.
I'm not sure I know what active or passive narrative is. And dry informing sounds to me to be more of an evaluative criticism rather than an analytical category. Because (if we move to evaluating) I think there can be good-show and bad-show and good-tell and bad-tell. If you see what I mean. The actual categories are descriptive, and what I don't like is when prescriptions are made out of them.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-21 05:16 pm (UTC)Now all is clear.
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Date: 2004-02-21 08:59 pm (UTC)Er, it is? Because I've no clue who Percy Lubbock is -- I assume a member of the Anglo-American normative vulgate (buwahahahha) or, to be more specific, a much-read how-to-write-a-novel maven. But I actually don't know.
So you've read Genette???!!! And what did you think???? I like him *a lot*. He writes really clearly and insightfully.
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-22 08:13 am (UTC)Well, bullshit. A good writer can do anything, and if she wants to tell, by god, she'll tell. And as you point out, we can't really "show" anything in writing; writing is telling, otherwise we'd all be using webcams and playing charades to share our stories.
Thank you. Very much. I have bookmarked this, and look forward to reading your analyses.
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Date: 2004-02-23 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2004-02-23 03:15 pm (UTC)Re:
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