Writing Prompts

3 Ways To Show And Not Tell

1. Write about motivation.

Orscon Scott Card says one of the best ways to characterize is by talking about motivation. Instead of writing specifically about feelings, write about why your characters are doing the things they're doing.

Here's an example from "Gómez Palacio": " I don't know why I accepted. I knew that under no circumstances would I settle down in Gómez Palacio. I knew that I wouldn't stick to running a writing workshop in some godforsaken town in northern Mexico."

2. "Show, don't tell" action that reveals the mood.

Throughout the story, Balaño's narrator reveals how paranoid he is. However, he never explicitly says, "I was so paranoid." Instead, he builds the mood through action.

Here's an example of how Bolaño brilliantly shows the author's paranoia:" I found it hard to sleep at night. I had nightmares. Before going to bed, I would make sure the door and the windows of my room were securely and tightly shut.... Then I went back to bed and closed my eyes, but having drunk so much water I soon had to get up again to urinate. And since I was up I would check all the locks.
This works so well because instead of using the word paranoid, he shows the author doing paranoid things. And later, it says:

When we came out of the classroom, the director was waiting with two guys who turned out to be civil servants employed by the state of Durango. My first thought was: They're policemen, here to arrest me.
3. "Show, don't tell" through description.

This is probably my favorite part of the story. And you'll notice there's a little bit of telling in this, but it works because there's so much showing as well:

On the horizon I could see the highway disappearing into the hills. Night was beginning to approach from the east. Days before, at the motel, I had asked myself, What color is the desert at night? A stupid question, yet somehow I felt it held the key to my future, or perhaps not so much my future as my capacity for suffering.