Timeline for Third Person POV: What level of telling is acceptable for character motivation?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
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| Aug 8, 2018 at 22:44 | comment | added | Ben | There are also internal physical signs of someone's emotional state - a shiver down the spine, a fast beating heart, a lump in the throat (and many more). You could also describe those - to give a more privileged insight into the characters emotions, still without explicitly telling what they feel. (commenting because I don't think this makes an answer in itself, but could be a way of expanding on yours) | |
| Aug 8, 2018 at 15:16 | history | edited | Chris Sunami | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Aug 8, 2018 at 15:07 | comment | added | Matthew Dave | 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' isn't a 'tell' in the novel-writing sense, however. By saying 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times', Dickens isn't making a blunt statement. He's saying 'this is the present, when everyone will say it's both the best of times and the worst of times' (as further confirmed by the full paragraph's content). There's a lot more commentary on how people perceive things in general, and tbh the meaning is a lot richer than any simple 'telling' would be. But yes, on a technical level, being a novel, it is a 'tell' of sorts. | |
| Aug 8, 2018 at 15:03 | comment | added | Chris Sunami | I tend to think it's largely a newer rule, that came out of screenplay writing and got absorbed into the world of novels. Movies are a visual medium, so you almost always want to show, not tell there. But many great older novels do use telling very effectively. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Really, to be technically accurate, you're always only ever "telling" in books, unless there are illustrations. | |
| Aug 8, 2018 at 14:56 | comment | added | Matthew Dave | Interesting. I'm not a hyper-stickler for show don't tell myself; I believe it's useful, but not universal. What makes you disagree/lukewarm on the idea, out of curiosity? | |
| Aug 8, 2018 at 14:54 | history | answered | Chris Sunami | CC BY-SA 4.0 |