The secret to mastering “show, don’t tell” in fiction.

Mar 6

***Can’t wrap your brain around “show, don’t tell?” Don’t worry. I got you!***

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Are you struggling to wrap your brain around “show, don’t tell?”?

Maybe you understand the concept but putting it into action has proved elusive.

Don’t worry, I know that struggle. When I first started writing, I had a baffling problem. My writing sessions felt great—I’d type furiously, convinced I was writing the next Great American Novel, only to find bland, lifeless prose when I went back to reread.

I knew what great books felt like when I read them…

I could recite plenty of rules about showing, not telling…

I just couldn’t capture that magic when I sat down to write…

I was sooo frustrated.

Then, I discovered a writing technique that literally changed my life. [Want to read the book that changed everything for me? You can find it here.]

What was it?

Writing in scenes.

But wait, isn’t this a post about show, don’t tell? Yes, yes it is.

Here’s the thing: Writing in scenes is the foundational technique that underpins all the other techniques that cumulatively add up to “showing” instead of “telling”. Literally, it’s the bedrock.

Today, I’ll break down the difference between story telling and story writing, the definition of a scene, and how writing in scenes helps us avoid some of those pesky “show, don’t tell” sins.

Why “show, don’t tell” is so difficult in the first place.

Writers here “show, don’t tell” everywhere. And yet, for many, it’s a skill that eludes them. Why? Because it’s the opposite of the way we naturally tell stories.

Think back to your childhood…

You came home from school and dropped your backpack on the floor. Your mom or dad or babysitter, asked about your day. How did you respond? Well, assuming you were young enough to eagerly talk to your parents, you started in on a laundry list of things that happened to you during the day.

Maybe something like this…

“First, we sang a song. Then, we sat on the carpet for story time. But then Jimmy threw up on the carpet, so we got to go to recess early. It was awesome. Then, it was naptime, but I wasn’t tired, so I just stared at the ceiling. And then…and then…and then…”
- child you (mmm…just me…okay)

Bringing childlike wonder into your writing sessions? Great!
Bringing childlike storytelling into your writing sessions. Yeah…not so much.

Someone who really, really loves you will happily listen to that story. A stranger? A paying stranger? Not so much. And they are not going to pay to read 300 pages of story like that.

As a child, you learned to tell stories. That’s what we’re used to. It’s how we share our experiences with the people around us on a daily basis.

When you sit down to write fiction, that method doesn’t work anymore. We have to unlearn our default story telling mode and figure out how to switch into story writing mode. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a novel that sends readers to sleep. And we don’t want that.

So, how do we flip the switch from story teller mode to story writer mode?

We learn to write in scenes. Let’s dive in…

What is a scene?

In Make a Scene, Jordan Rosenfeld describes scenes as “the individual ‘cells’ of information that shape the essence of the story in which sympathetic characters undertake significant actions in a vivid and memorable way on the journey toward a compelling plot goal”.

Confused? Me too. Let’s try again…

In The Scene Book, Sandra Scofield says that “scenes are those passages in narrative when we slow down and focus on an event in the story so that we are ‘in the moment’ with characters in action”.

That’s a better but still not totally clear.

Here’s the definition I give my high school students:

A scene follows a character through one event or situation in real time until the event/situation ends or gets interrupted by a new event/situation.

The key is to follow characters in real time.

That means we follow the characters as they take action, interact with others, and react accordingly.

We don’t jump in with irrelevant background information. We don’t reduce a juicy, tense conversation into two flaccid sentences. We don’t pause to describe the centuries long history of the narrator’s family.

Instead, we occupy a little camera in the POV character’s brain. We see what they see, hear what they hear, sense what they sense. And because we’re in a novel, we get to think their thoughts and feel their emotions as well.

But wait, won’t narrating in real time make my story super long and boring?

Sometimes, people hear about this scene writing concept and think that they’re going to have to write 1,000 pages as they detail every single moment of their characters’ waking lives.

NO! STOP! Do not do that!

Writing in scenes doesn’t mean writing everything, everything. It means homing in on the important moments of the story. The moments when something changes, a relationship develops, key information is revealed.

Everything else gets skipped or summarized.

But wait, isn’t summary what we want to avoid?!? Yes, but only when it comes to the key, conflict laden moments of the story.

When it comes to the boring bits of life—breakfast, brushing your teeth, a normal workday—you can skip right past that stuff with a line or two of summary (if that) and move on.

You’ve seen professional authors do this. Think about the number of chapters that open with some version of “We waited for three days before…” or “After two weeks of grueling travel we arrived in the great city of…”.

When we’re writing in scenes, we have the freedom to skip over huge chunks of time. You could reduce ten years to one sentence. Then, jump us right into the next exciting moment.

And I can’t have any backstory at all?

Of course you can have backstory! We need to know parts of your character’s history—that’s what will make them come alive. You just have to make sure the backstory is actually relevant in the moment.

Ask yourself: would my character think about this right now? If the answer is yes, then you can probably keep the information there.

For example, your character isn’t going to spend pages contemplating their high school nemesis while they’re being chased down a dark alley by an assassin. But they might spend a paragraph thinking about their nemesis if they’ve spilled coffee on their white blouse and then run into said nemesis on the sidewalk outside Starbucks.

See the difference?

Rather than dropping in information when you think it’s important, writing in scenes forces you to add in information when it matters to the characters (and, therefore, your readers).

Does this writing in scenes thing actually matter?

Writing in scenes forces you to stay focused on the present of the story. It’s much easier to eliminate pages of irrelevant backstory when we’re firmly grounded in the present time of your story. All you have to do is ask yourself: would the character think about this now? Does it make sense for them to do this next? How will they feel about what’s just happened?

We can also eliminate the boring bits of our stories by deciding if something is worthy of page time or not.

If readers don’t care about getting the play by play, you can probably skip it.

So, what’s next?

Flipping the switch to story writing mode is easier said than done. But don’t worry, I’ve got you—I’ll be writing about scenes for the next eight-ish weeks.

There’s a lot to unpack—so I’m taking things slow and doing a deep dive on each aspect that goes into a scene.

Next week, I’ll introduce you to the essential elements of a scene and talk about the most important aspect of all—character!

Until then, happy writing!

References

The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer (2007) by Sandra Scofield. Available here. This is my go to resource for writing scenes—seriously, this is the book that changed my life!
Make a Scene Revised and Expanded Edition: Writing a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time (2017) by Jordan Rosenfeld. Available here.

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