Too Much Showing, Not Enough Telling

I've spent the past week reading manuscripts from writers all over Australia and overseas. Fabulous historical fiction from Florence, spot of memoir, quite a bit of climate fantasy, and a bit of women's fiction. The usual wonderful mix that lands on my desk!

And this week I noticed something curious. Everybody is showing. Everyone seems to have grasped the showing not telling aspect of writing but there’s not enough telling.

'Show don't tell' has become almost biblical. But somewhere along the way writers have become terrified of telling us what a character is thinking.

Those poor characters spend pages opening doors, making cups of tea, staring out windows, driving cars, gazing at sunsets and fiddling with necklaces while I sit there wondering, 'Yes, but what's actually going on in your head?' What are they feeling? Really?

Imagine watching someone in a café. She stirs her coffee. She glances at the door. She sighs. She folds her serviette into tiny squares. She checks her phone. She sighs again. Wonderful! Beautifully shown! But readers connect with and need thoughts too.

In fact, I think the most interesting place in any novel is not the castle, the spaceship, the courtroom or the windswept cliff. It's the six inches between a character's ears.

As a writing coach, editor and teacher I often find myself scribbling the same note in the margin: 'What is she thinking?' Sometimes all it takes is one sentence. Not a paragraph. Not a page of introspection. Just give me a little glimpse behind the curtain! It really helps tell the story.

If we spend three pages watching someone walk through a forest noticing every fern, bird and blade of grass but never hear the dread building inside them, what’s the point? Where’s the tension?

The trick isn't choosing between showing and telling. Great writers use both. They show us the shaking hands and if the reader isn’t really sure why, we go inside the character’s head and know why those hands are shaking. Show us the slammed door and then let us hear the immediate regret. Show us the kiss and then reveal that all the character could think about was somebody else.

So, this week, as you're writing, ask yourself…have I actually let my reader go inside my character’s head? And if you'd like to spend three days talking about exactly this sort of thing, that's precisely what we'll be doing at the Sydney Art of Writing Story Workshop in August. We won't just talk about plots and structure. We'll talk about why readers fall in love with characters, how suspense is created and why sometimes the smallest thought in a character's mind can be more powerful than the biggest explosion on the page.

I'd love you to join us! It’s going to be fantastic.

The Sydney Storytelling Workshop at Woollahra Library, Double Bay, is running August 21–23. There will be eight different lecturers/writers/speakers teaching across the weekend. Ashley Kalagian-Blunt, Petronella McGovern and structural editor Laurel Cohn (the backstory queen), as well as an author panel featuring Adam Courtenay (memoir, autobiography and biography), Meg Kenneally (editing) and Larry Writer (niche writing).

There are 9 sessions over the 3 days. Write to me for the program clifford.lisa@hotmail.com

On the final afternoon, Benython Oldfield from Zeitgeist Literary Agency joins us for a Q and A about publishing, submissions, and what agents are currently looking for. Writers can optionally submit a paragraph describing their story beforehand if they feel ready, though many participants simply listen and absorb the Zeitgeist Literary Agency discussion.

Let’s do this!