Timeline for Is straight-up writing someone's opinions telling?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
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| Apr 27, 2020 at 19:23 | comment | added | DM_with_secrets | @Amadeus-Reinstate-Monica That's interesting - I would say the HH quote is definitely telling (and also brilliant), so I think we're just using different definitions. I'm happy to agree to disagree :) | |
| Apr 27, 2020 at 18:23 | comment | added | Amadeus | @DM_with_secrets It evokes imagery, so it IS showing. All writing is echnically telling. But if it builds specific images in your mind, it is showing. Telling is like "Sally looked sad." No specific imagery is given, you are on your own to interpret what makes Sally look sad. "They came to a mountain." No further details, generic images come to mind, but nothing specific to distinguish this mountain from any other. If a passage brings non-generic story-specific images to mind it is showing, otherwise it is telling, and instead of aiding your imagination, leaving it to struggle by on its own. | |
| Apr 26, 2020 at 17:23 | comment | added | DM_with_secrets | For example, would you consider this showing or telling? “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) | |
| Apr 26, 2020 at 17:19 | comment | added | DM_with_secrets | @Amadeus-Reinstate-Monica That's not a definition of showing and telling that I've seen before - I would say that telling can definitely evoke imagination, the difference is just that we are being told by the narrator (who may or may not be a character) instead of having to infer from watching. Sorry, that's not a great explanation of what I mean. But I don't think it's at all obvious (or true) that showing is always superior. | |
| Jul 18, 2019 at 21:04 | comment | added | Amadeus | @ChrisSunami "Technical" doesn't make a difference. Some writing evokes imagery, feeling, an imagination of what is happening. Writing like that is "showing" by evoking the reader's imagination. "Telling" is writing that does not evoke any reader imagination, it just imparts facts and nothing else. Since the objective here is entertainment through imagination, obviously "showing" is the superior method. It is true that it is sometimes awkward and immersion-breaking to try and "show" something, but there is definitely a difference between writing that shows, and writing that tells. | |
| Jul 16, 2019 at 17:27 | comment | added | A. Kvåle | The last one is technically "showing", but figuratively, not really. Puffing one's chest has become synonymous with trying to look confident, dominant and strong, due to its overuse, so therefore it's really just the same as saying "he tried to look confident". | |
| Jul 16, 2019 at 15:08 | history | answered | Chris Sunami | CC BY-SA 4.0 |