What are the tricks to "Showing" action?

[mariah]

Here is a link on the subject that may be helpful to you. http://www.institutechildrenslit.com/rx/ws01/webindex.shtml#Show,_Dont_Tell_
You can also find other useful information in the "Talk about" Section at the student center. Both have great information!

Mariah

[Dodo Bird]

Thank you~ I have done alot of reading about this and it all is really clear on the differance of Showing and Telling. I'm just not sure HOW to. Are there any tricks you all use? Or is it just a work at it till you find your way of showing? Thanks for the links. I will keep trying.

[jfields]

Showing is a function of closeness and specificity. The more action sounds like a report, the more you're telling. But action that sounds like you're there seeing it is showing.

For example, if a soccer game is not important to a scene, you might say, "He played soccer most of the afternoon, and came home dirty, tired, and grumpy."<-- that would be "telling" but it might be okay to tell since the soccer might not be important to the plot EXCEPT as an excuse for him being dirty, tired and grumpy.

Now, when you have action that IS important to the plot, you want to squish really close and use sensory specifics to make us feel right there watching it. Let's look at some showing with my hypothetical soccer player.

Joey let his backpack slide off his shoulder to thump to the floor next to the door, then shrugged out of his jacket and tossed that on top of the backpack. When he swung the door closed, the corner of the backback caught, keeping the door from making a satisfying slam. So he kicked the backpack a few times until it was clear and slammed the door hard. The picture hanging on the wall rattled and Joey smiled.

Do you see the difference? The soccer game is told because we aren't there and it's just a report for the passing of time. His interaction with the backpack is shown because we feel like we're right there and because we not only see the action, but we get more than just action out of the moment -- we get a sense of Joey's mood and we learn how he handles it.

When you write your action, do you make the reader feel "right there" in that specific moment in time? If you do -- you're showing. If you don't -- you're telling. That's really the difference. Strong verb choices help a lot...very specific action verbs make us feel more "in" the scene than more general ones so we'll feel like we get more showing if you say: "He stomped into the kitchen" than we will if you say "He moved angrily into the kitchen" or "He went angrily into the kitchen." The more generic "moved" or "went" don't give as much sense of specificity and the adverb propping them up just doesn't help that much.

Sensory specifics in the action will also make us feel more "there" but use them judiciously because they can also slog you down and make the sentence feel wordy. So it might benefit the sentence to say, "He glared around the crowded room." But might not benefit the sentence to say, "In the crowded room, he glared at the crowd of tall neatly dressed men with a variety of drinks in their hands and a variety of expressions on their faces." The second sentence might be good or it might just be wordy -- it depends upon how much we NEED to know exactly who is in the room. If we already know it's a formal party, we might not need the detail of clothes and drinks and expressions and they might make the sentence just feel wordy with detail we already know.

So use very specific verbs
Use other sensory detail judiciously -- when it works, it's great...but don't bump it in just to be there or your sentence will feel wordy and slow.

[sharonda]

Glad I could help! Good luck!