This month’s expert advice from tutor Lesley Cryer covers the all important concept of Show Don’t Tell, Ten Top Tips shows you how to quadruple your chances of being published and double your fees, plus there’s the usual mix of student successes, useful websites and inspiration.

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EXPERT ADVICE

SHOW, DON'T TELL

by Lesley Cryer

When writing fiction, it’s vital to fully engage your readers’ attention so they keep turning the pages. One of the most effective methods of doing this is to show rather than tell. If you tell, you’re simply reporting what happens, which tends to distance the readers – they feel they’re learning about something second-hand, through a dull summary of the events. If you show through dialogue and action, it’s more immediate and has much greater impact. The readers feel as if they’re there, watching and listening, rather than getting a lacklustre, second-hand account. Consider the following example of telling.

Louise’s ex-husband, Jake, had arrived at her house angry because she’d told him he couldn’t see their children that weekend. He’d hammered on the door demanding to be let in. She’d told him to go home, but he’d continued to bang until he’d disturbed her next door neighbour, Bill, who’d asked him to stop making a noise and go away. Jake had turned on Bill, so Louise had warned him she was phoning the police.

This simply relates the facts, but it comes across as a watered down narrative. The readers barely make contact and there’s no real sense of tension created. Consider now the same scenario shown.

‘Open the door - I want to see me kids!’ yelled Jake, hammering on it so hard that Louise was terrified he’d break it down.
‘Ive already told you - they’re visiting my parents for the weekend,’ she called in a trembling voice.
Jake continued to bang on the door bellowing,
‘Let me in - I want to see them!’
‘Excuse me, but could you possibly stop making that racket,’ came a voice. ‘You’re disturbing the entire neighbourhood.’ To her relief Louise realised it was her next door neighbour, Bill.
‘Get lost you little runt. This is nothing to do with you,’ snapped Jake, turning round to tower threateningly over Bill, who blanched, but didn’t retreat.
‘If you don’t go immediately, I’m phoning the police!’ Louise shouted, knowing that Jake was more than capable of starting a fight.

Dialogue brings the scenario to life. For the readers this is the next best thing to being present at the altercation, virtually able to hear the fury in Jake’s voice, feel Louise’s fear and sense Bill’s determination not to be intimidated.

Speech can also subtly indicate other aspects of a situation. For example, Jake’s dialogue indicates that he’s rough, probably uneducated and is quite prepared to be verbally abusive. The more middle class Bill is polite, if a little pompous, even when annoyed.

In reality, most people’s speech isn’t usually crisp and concise – it’s vague, rambling and full of pauses. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that realistic dialogue should be an accurate reproduction of the way people actually speak.

In fiction, speech should distil the essence of what someone would say in real life, a précis which conveys the crucial information only.Don’t have characters exchanging greetings and enquiring after each other’s health, cat or elderly relative and avoid commonplace exchanges about the weather. Ask yourself if what they say moves the story along, and if it doesn’t, use the delete key.

Another thing to bear in mind is that most people abbreviate when they speak – eg ‘I’m’ for ‘I am,’ ‘we’ll’ for ‘we will’ etc. Only have a character saying, ‘I do not believe we have been introduced,’ instead of, ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ if you want to indicate that this person is formal, with a deliberate and rather pedantic way of speaking.

Some writers try too hard to avoid using the verb said and come up with every possible alternative, most of which jar the readers. Verbs like opined, inferred or expostulated serve only to slow the pace. It’s better to repeat Paul said or stick to simpler alternatives like replied, asked, or shouted. You don’t always need to state who’s speaking, because if you’ve laid your dialogue out correctly it’ll be obvious, as in this example.

‘Are you being forced to go to that boring concert like the rest of us?’ George asked.
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Jess. ‘I’m dreading it.’
‘Me too. Would you like to go for a drink afterwards?’
‘That would be lovely.’

You don’t need to add George/he said to the penultimate sentence or Jess/she said to the last one, as it’s obvious who’s speaking. It’s important that you learn to lay out and punctuate dialogue correctly, not only because it makes your meaning clearer, but because editors find it irritating if you don’t. Most of them are busy people who don’t have time to correct erroneous layout – they’ll simply reject your work instead, however good it is. Luckily, the guidelines are fairly simple. You should begin a new indented line for each character each time they speak. The punctuation around speech goes inside the inverted commas.

‘That’s my chair,’ he told her.
‘No it isn’t - it’s mine,’ she said.

If you have a character making a long speech, you can continue the speech into a second paragraph. This is a device to be used sparingly because if one person talks for too long, another will interrupt. When doing this, you shouldn’t close the inverted commas at the end of the first paragraph, but you should open them at the beginning of the second. This makes it clear that it’s still the same character speaking.

‘Honestly, Liz, he talked about himself for the entire meal and managed four courses, all without apparently drawing breath.
‘By the time we reached coffee ... well, let me put it this way, I ordered espresso because otherwise I’d have been face down in the after dinner mints snoring gently.’

Showing rather than telling makes your work much more vital and alive. Well-written dialogue should not only carry the plot forward and add drama, it should also define the characters by what they say, how they say it and how other characters react. As you sweep the readers along in the world you’ve created, they’ll feel as if they’re actually there.

Lesley Cryer is a freelance writer and part-time university lecturer with a General Arts degree in English and American literature. The author of fourteen contemporary novels, four period novels and a humorous book, she has also written for children’s TV and the BBC. She has been a regular contributor of short stories and features to national publications and produced scripts on a wide variety of subjects for independent film and video production companies.