"Show don't tell" is just advice for people who haven't written at all before and need prodding to write anything
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It's like telling an actor "Emote!" Past the literal beginner stage of "Do something, anything, don't just stand there" it's meaningless
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Recently saw a tutorial for "showing" that was in fact just a list of statements about a character's behavior. I... that... fuck's sake.
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Yep. It's useful advice for novice writers and a helpful editing tool. Treating it as a rule shows lack of understanding.
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Counterpoint: Great actors can establish a bond in a single scene of dialogue more effectively than 15 minutes of happy-fun-times montage
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Adam Sandler's movies expend a great deal of running time -- a shockingly expensive amount -- on how much fun Adam Sandler has with his pals
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"show, don't tell" equals "know when to show or tell" equals "direct the reader's attention w/pacing & focus" equals "be good, not bad"
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One other writer who favored telling over showing was Aristotle, in the Poetics.
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I'd argue the problem with the rule is that those aren't clearly defined terms
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Sure, but there are any number of ways to evoke emotion, direct or indirect
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There's lots of ways to get things across—body language, expression, tone, *demonstrative* actions/dialogue. "Telling" averts all of them.
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