A Telling Example

Camy here, talking a little about Showing and Telling today.

I was thinking about it the other day on my run (I don’t really know why I think about writing craft when I’m running … hmm, is there some deep meaning behind that? LOL). I had a line from my story that was pure telling, and I was thinking how I could change that to showing.

Now don’t get me wrong, Telling Is Not Bad. Yes, say that again: Telling Is Not Bad.

There are lots of reasons why you should Tell instead of Show in a manuscript. I wrote a few examples here. And another really good reason to Tell is if your editor tells you to insert some telling in order to make the story make more sense to the reader.

But you also should have as little Telling in the manuscript in the first chapter or three because it really makes your writing look much more professional. If an editor tells you later to add telling, that’s so much better than being rejected because you have too much telling in the first chapter.

So I try to avoid telling as much as possible. Even if I’m tight with my word count (sidebar: I had to cut 15,000 words from my last manuscript before turning it in! Yikes!) I will still cut other words or tighten my prose rather than transforming my lovely Showing into Telling. Because darn it! I spent a lot of time writing that Showing and I’m not going to trash my hard work! :(

Anyway, I thought this example might be useful/helpful/mildly entertaining for you guys today.

My heroine Monica is at a posh business banquet and she’s just met Mr. O’Neill again, an old acquaintance who grew up with her father.

Monica turned, but the light from the chandeliers above glinted on glass right under her chin a microsecond before she felt the touch of a champagne flute at her throat. “Oh!” She recoiled, hoping it didn’t spill.

“Miss Grant! I’m so sorry.”

The low voice made her smile and look up rather than look down for champagne on her dress bodice. “Mr. O’Neill, how nice to see you. I didn’t realize you were back in Sonoma.” Patrick O’Neill was a modern-day hotel baron—he bought struggling hotels and turned them in raging successes before selling them to hotel chains and moving on to his next project. He’d been working on his latest hotel, the Fontana, for the last five years and it was rumored he was raring to sell it and buy another one.

Camy here: Boldface is Telling. I’m pretty sure most of you realized that, right? It’s as if you were watching a play, and the actor suddenly stopped acting, turned to the audience, and “told” you what’s going on as opposed to showing the information through dialogue and action on the stage.

So I thought, How can I change that into Showing?

The low voice made her smile and look up rather than look down for champagne on her dress bodice. “Mr. O’Neill, how nice to see you. I didn’t realize you were back in Northern California.”

His light blue eyes creased deeply at the corners. “I’ve only been back for a few days, spending time with my new grandson.”

“I heard rumors you’re about to sell the Fontana Hotel to buy a new project.”

A smile hovered around the edges of his mouth. “Would those be the same rumors that your father’s going to expand his spa and add a hotel?”

“And why would you be interested in Dad’s project? After all, it’s not a struggling hotel you can sweep in and buy up, transform into a raging success, and then resell to the Hyatt.”

Camy here: Better, right? But even that last paragraph of dialogue is kind of like Telling, don’t you think? It’s like a character saying to her husband, “Charles, Mrs. Smith, the woman who stole your father away from your mother and ran away with him to the Bahamas, has called asking to speak to you after fifteen years of silence.”

Uh … a little obvious, no?

Let’s try this again:

The low voice made her smile and look up rather than look down for champagne on her dress bodice. “Mr. O’Neill, how nice to see you. I didn’t realize you were back in Northern California.”

His light blue eyes creased deeply at the corners. “I’ve only been back for a few days, spending time with my new grandson.”

“I heard rumors you’re about to sell the Fontana Hotel to buy a new project.”

A smile hovered around the edges of his mouth. “Would those be the same rumors that your father’s going to expand his spa and add a hotel?”

“You stay far away from Dad’s project.” But there was a teasing note to her voice. “I thought you were only interested in struggling hotels.”

He winked. “So I’ll come back in five years. O’Neill to the rescue.”

Monica laughed. “No way would Dad let you buy his hotel and make it a raging success where he couldn’t do it himself. It’s a matter of pride.”

“I’ll sell it back to him,” he offered generously.

“You wouldn’t sell it to Hyatt? I heard that’s who’s interested in the Fontana.”

His mouth worked, but he didn’t answer her.

“Hmm, not the Hyatt. Hilton, maybe? I heard another rumor that they edged out the other buyers for your Monterey hotel by offering double your asking price.”

Camy here: It’s a little long, I’ll have to think about if I want to keep it or make this information come out in some other scene or section of dialogue. But I’ve included all the important information, and even used the dialogue to imply the hotels are raging successes rather than saying it outright.

Your turn! In the comments, copy a line of Telling from your manuscript, then rewrite it!

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. You can now preorder her September romantic suspense, Formula for Danger! She runs the Story Sensei critique service, is a staff worker for her church youth group, and leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she ponders frivolous things like knitting, running, dogs, and Asiana. Sign up for her newsletter YahooGroup for giveaways!