I am reading Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood. I am only a short way into it, but it’s very good, and I should say, very well written.
The thing is, there are great slabs of text, weighty paragraphs, in which she does absolutely nothing but tell you directly what characters are feeling, how their personality works, and what their inner perceptions and experiences are.
Does she lose us? Do these passages lack an essential vividness? No, they are clever, interesting and skilfully done, like good portraiture. Is the book a failure? No, it’s the Sunday Times Bestseller by the Booker Prize Winning Author. Maybe, though, reviews pick up on her weak writing style? On the contrary. The Guardian says Technically, it’s another virtuoso performance.
Yet you and I know that if I presented anything like this to a writing tutor or an editor, either of whom would charge substantial fees for their expert advice, I’d be told Oh dear, Peter! Let me explain the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’. Here are a couple of remedial exercises to help you grasp it.
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Interesting! There is a writing course style that can be entirely inhibiting if it’s pushed as the only way to write. Earlier this year I read some of Emma Darwin’s posts on writing. She places show and tell at either end of a continuum and talks about being more showy with your telling for instance. That made a lot of sense to me. She didn’t prioritise show over tell but described the different functions of both and gave lots of examples of different types of writing.
I’ve read the first Poldark book this holiday – not my sort of thing at all but have thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of show and tell! (As well as lots of head hopping, but that’s another story!)
Yes, I’ve heard that Emma Darwin is sensible. I think the best guidance on writing is generally positive, showing you things you can do.
Poldark, eh? 😀