First, let me just say that I do not condemn “telling”. There’s a place for it in every story, and that’s mainly in the interstices between scenes, those things we call “summaries”. Those moments can serve to elide through things, and/or maybe to very briefly take a beat or a pause or a rest in the action.
But beyond that, when you hear “show, don’t tell”, what do you imagine?
I see this in many beginners’ works: two people are having a conversation but the dialogue is not on the page.
Or your character is reacting in a scene but we don’t understand in what way because the emotion is not on the page.
Or two people are interacting (a fight, a love scene, a heist, a whatever) but we really can’t tell what they want or need or expect.
The reason we must show things on the page is that readers are a needy lot. And they need to be shown what’s inside your head when you are imagining what is happening on the page because believe it or not they can’t read your mind. There are three ways to change up how you present things to really get to the heart of a scene: through dialogue, interiority, and gesture.
Because there’s a lot to each of these I’m going to approach it over a few posts. Today I’d like to highlight dialogue.
Dialogue
It’s a common thing in dialogue written by beginners, to think that you need to tell your reader information by having one character convey it to another.
For example, take teen friends and competitors Harry and Paul.
“Hey, Harry,” Paul said, “I heard you have an appointment tomorrow at 10 AM with Dr. Brown so he can take an x-ray of the knee you twisted yesterday when we were playing pickleball.”
“That’s right, Paul. This knee really hurts. When you pushed me, I couldn’t believe it. Dr. Brown said he’d take the x-ray and he’ll tell me if I’ll ever walk again, much less play pickleball.”
We feel removed from the entire relationship between the two boys as Paul dispassionately reiterates things that Harry already knows. We can’t feel anything for Harry because he’s telling us it really hurts; if the author showed Harry on a stretcher, his face contorted in pain, we’d get it without being told. And if the author showed Harry’s anger about being pushed by Paul by using spare and antagonistic dialogue we’d really feel it:
“You SOB. You meant to do it.”
Paul shrugged. “You’re a jerk on the court. You had it coming.” “Damn you. Never again.”
“Got us another pickleball date in two weeks.”
“Not happening! Dammit, I can’t even feel my foot.”
“Brown’ll fix you up.” Paul waved his hand. “See you in two weeks.”
There’s something else about dialogue used in this way: it creates conflict between characters. And conflict, when it strikes the reader, also creates an emotional response.
Subtext in Dialogue
Another aspect of dialogue that beginners need to learn to use is subtext. Subtext in dialogue is the stuff that not only isn’t said (but is instead implied), it is also the stuff that is contradictory and even dishonest to either one or both characters. In other words, one of them is lying (even possibly to herself).
The best example (ever, in my opinion) of subtext in dialogue is Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”. Here’s a sample:
"The beer's nice and cool," the man said.
"It's lovely," the girl said.
"It's really an awfully simple operation, Jig," the man said. "It's not really an operation at all."
The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.
"I know you wouldn't mind it, Jig. It's really not anything. It's just to let the air in."
The girl did not say anything.
"I'll go with you and I'll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it's all perfectly natural."
"Then what will we do afterward?"
"We'll be fine afterward. Just like we were before."
"What makes you think so?"
The lovers are discussing the fact that she’s pregnant, but Hemingway never mentions the words that go with their situation. Everything is implied: the subject matter, the girl’s feelings, the guy’s feelings. The emotional response in the reader is that with every passing second in this super short story the tension between the couple ratchets up and up until she says...
"Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?"
And with that the reader’s tension is just about at a breaking point, too.
So, to use dialogue effectively:
Show the speaker’s emotions by your choice of what she says
Don’t have anyone “tell” things to other characters, especially things they would already know
Use subtext to convey emotions and heighten conflict
Next week we’ll look at more “show don’t tell” techniques.
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