Telling vs. Showing

Like all apprentices, I've been drilled to show and not tell--in fairness, there's always been a comment or two along the way about knowing when to show and when to tell, but the emphasis has always been on the showing part. And the more attention I paid to the showing, the more I saw its power: dramatic, draws you in, you feel the emotion, you empathize, the fictive dream begins and on it goes.

The trouble is I focused on it so much I lost track of the telling aspect. This week I got refocused on it when Nancy McQueen, one of the members in a mystery/thriller writing group I belong to, referred me to a book by Laurie Alberts called Showing &Telling. Here are some things she said that got my attention, at page two.

Creating only scenes can rob a work of context and meaning. A work comprised of scenes alone ... can be a welter of dramatic renderings, many of which provide information that doesn't deserve to take up that much space If everything is written as a scene, how does the reader know where the emphasis lies? And how does the writer move between scenes without enormous gaps? ... Summaries ... may contain background exposition, description that doesn't occur in a specific scene, interior thoughts, events that happen repeatedly or that are being recounted in a compressed fashion, and narrative commentary and reflection.

I consider interior thought that is in-the-moment part of a showing vs. telling, so I was already convinced of the importance of that aspect of telling, but all the rest, I have not paid attention to. And it shows in my writing.Today, I decided to see what some of my favorite mystery/thriller were doing, and I began with Marcus Sakey's The City's Edge. Here's how the book starts:

When the man pointed a gun at him, Jason Palmer was cooling down after his daily five and picturing the first beer of the day, a sweating Corona-and-lime that he figured he'd drink in the shower. Happy hour had been coming early lately, but he'd decided not to worry about it. To pretend this was summer vacation. Spend it running along the lake, scoping the bikini-girls that hit North Avenue Beach every afternoon like rent was a concept they weren't familiar with. He pushed sweat-damp bangs out of his eyes, laced his fingers overhead, and turned into the pedestrian tunnel beneath Lake Shore Drive. The change from blast-furnace sun to cement-cool shadows left him blinking, but when his eyes adjusted there the guy was, standing like he'd been waiting. [underline added by me]

 Wow, right there in sentence two the narrator tells us happy hour has been coming earlier--background, events repeating, not occurring in the scene, compressed fashion just like Alberts said. And I--the apprentice-- had missed it. Thinking about a beer after a run is something I do, and it's something I might have my character do. But Sakey adds to it with this character, and tells us he's been drinking earlier and earlier--hmm!

Two pages later the gunman is moving the protagonist along:

[The gunman] gestured to the stairs. Jason climbed, mind working furiously. What could possibly connect his brother and this man with the killer's eyes? He tried and discarded a dozen explanations with every step, but couldn't make the pieces fit. It had to be a mistake. They reached the second floor and started down the row of cars. The whole thing was funny in a dark sort of way. Used to be that every time the squad hit the street, someone might have been watching, sweaty finger on a radio detonator, waiting for Jason to step a little too close to death. It was a feeling he'd grown used to, that proximity to nothingness, the way he might just disappear in a roar of flame. [underline added by me]

 Arguably the first highlight is in-the-moment, but the second reached back to an earlier time. Note here that both highlighted portions are very directly connected to what is happening to our protagonist.

The telling segments help develop the character of Jason, a veteran who is drinking more than normal. Good stuff.