Bad Advice Explained, and Other Nonsense

Nico (she/her)  
A deep dive into showing vs. telling, when to summarize vs. when to expand, talking heads, body beats, dialogue tags, adverbs, eliminating "was," and other random nonsense.


Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. —C.S. Lewis


⭐ What does "show, don't tell" mean?

In the most basic sense, to show is to elaborate, while to tell is to summarize.

Example:

  • Showing (elaborating): Nico greedily devoured the carton of sweet and sour chicken. Her husband stepped into the kitchen, his stomach rumbling. "Any left?" he asked. Nico finished the last bite and shook her head. Eyes narrowed, her husband opened the fridge. Beverages, beverages, all the way down...
  • Telling (a summary): Nico hogged the Chinese food, which annoyed her hungry husband.

When you want to show, visualize the emotions/thoughts of your characters. It allows a scene to be more immersive. There are times to show, and there are times to tell. And both are valid, and both have their place within every written work.

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Pro-tip: Never describe what's not there; describe what IS there. Telling your reader what is not there immediately makes them picture the thing not there, which is completely counterproductive to your goals as a storyteller.
Reminder: Narration, action and dialogue are the three building blocks that make up a novel.

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⭐ Summarizing vs Expanding the Scene

When to "tell" and when to "show" is always your choice as the writer. Certain scenarios and important elements of the story deserve more space.


🍫 Narration/Summarization/Telling

You say the thing and move on. Great, we're done. It saves space in the manuscript (as it requires the least amount of text). It's clear and straightforward and got the point across, and the lexical density is at its peak. It may not be remembered by the reader later since it was such a small blip, but it's there.

Example:

Norwegians love chocolate.

Words: 3


🍫 Quick tell — Fake kinda-showing by "hiding" details in dialogue

It takes longer because you need a natural way to introduce the sentence. It doesn't usually add much more than narration would, but it takes more lines/beats. Often, it's information "for the reader" rather than natural to the scene, so if you aren't mindful of integration, it can feel stilted.

Sometimes a character (and the reader) has been left in the dark about something, and we need another character to tell them the thing quickly and then we can move on. A "quick tell" effectively gets the information across while feeling natural. But the dialogue in this case should be short snips and should include a body beat so we understand the character’s reactions to learning the thing.

Example:

“Do you like chocolate?”

“Of course, I love it! I'm a Norwegian.”

Words: 12


🍫 Expanding/Actually building out a scene and really showing the love of chocolate

Elicit the reader's senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.

Example:

Cassie sits at the counter, her elbows perched on the granite.

I open my snack cabinet, revealing the pound of chocolate I picked up this morning. First-date perfection.

“Do you want any Toblerone?” I ask, pulling out the yellow package and placing it in front of her.

She shrugs. “Sure.”

Not the reaction I was hoping for.

I grab the chilled bottle of wine from the fridge. “Not a big chocolate person?” 

“Mint chocolate chip ice cream is better.”

“That fake-green monstrosity? Blasphemy!” I shoot her a look of mock-horror. “My people would be outraged.”

Her light laugh fills the kitchen as I fill two wine glasses with a healthy pour of chardonnay.

“The average Norwegian”---I point to myself---”eats thirteen pounds of chocolate a year, so you better work on your taste buds if you want to fit in around here.” And I better pick up a carton of ice cream at the store tomorrow.

Words: 157

In this scene, we're interacting with a specific kind of chocolate (starting small), sharing our feelings about chocolate and connecting the excitement with a specific Norwegian character, and then we're building up to how much is eaten by all Norwegians, really hammering the love home and putting it on full display. Because it was a longer, more immersive experience, readers are more likely to remember it.

Did we need to go all-out? Maybe, maybe not. Which one is "right" depends on you and your story. But in all three cases, I got the point across: Norwegians love chocolate.

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⭐ Talking Heads

Using a lot of dialogue can result in talking heads---where it's just lines of dialogue with nothing else around them.

My own note for myself is "at least one body beat/tag or inner-monologue for every three lines of dialogue." If I don't have this or can't achieve this comfortably, I focus on trimming the dialogue to what's important. I also check if I'm repeating something or can narrate instead.

Make sure your body beats aren't repetitive, and be conscious of the text as a whole. It's possible to over-do it, making conversations feel stilted/cluttered/lost due to the surrounding narration.

Keep in mind, you don't have to write out "everything." For example, when a new character enters a room, we the reader intuit there's some sort of hello happening, whether it's on the page or not.

"Balance!" Nico screamed into the void.

Narration vs expansion:

  • Sometimes it's better to just tell the world-building fact/detail in narration, saving us from the lines of dialogue and action that it took to get there, which eliminates talking heads (because no dialogue...). 
  • Sometimes it's better to show a scene fleshed out that builds naturally. But the body beats help keep the dialogue moving forward and make the world come alive, eliminating the talking heads.

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Narration brings your story to life. Beginning writer advice includes don't info-dump, and I hate reading info-dumps, so I never questioned it. The result? I was so conscious of leaving out any unnecessary narration that my draft read like a screenplay consisting of dialogue and action beats, rather than a fleshed-out story. Secret: It's not an info-dump if your reader is interested. Make them interested in your world, in your story, in your characters, and you can write whatever you want. Your readers will eat it up and still ask for more.

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⭐ Body Beats

Body beats are small snippets of a character’s physical action, facial expression, or inner thought that go along with their dialogue.

“I hate body beats,” she said. <- dialogue tag

“I hate body beats.” She smashed her fists on the keyboard. <- body beat, which makes it clear who is speaking and replaces the need for a dialogue tag.


Basic Body Beats

  • Angry: clenching fists, gritting teeth, stomping
  • Cold: shivering, shaking, teeth chattering, rubbing hands together
  • Embarrassed: blushing/cheeks heat
  • Excited: clapping hands, jumping, smiling wide
  • Frustrated: rolling eyes, tapping foot, crossing arms
  • Nervous: fidgeting, lump in throat
  • Proud: chin held high, standing tall
  • Sad: head hanging, quiet voice, fighting back tears
  • Shocked: jaw dropped, hands covering mouth
  • Worried: mind racing, pacing, heart racing

Selection from The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression

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⭐ Dialogue Tags

Use "said" or "asked" unless trying to convey a specific change in how it's delivered.

Useful Dialogue Tags

  • Volume: bellowed, crooned, hollered, mumbled, murmured, muttered, roared, screamed, screeched, shouted, squeaked, whispered, yelled
  • Emotion: begged, cried, choked out, exclaimed, groaned, growled, grumbled, gushed, hissed, moaned, mumbled, snarled, sneered, sobbed, wailed (or consider punctuating with an exclamation point and removing the dialogue tag altogether)
  • Tone: admonished, announced, articulated, boasted, cooed, declared, demanded, encouraged, enunciated, heckled, huffed, lectured, jeered, joked, mimicked, quipped, scolded, snapped, taunted, teased, urged
  • Speed/Rhythm: drawled, droned, rambled, stammered, stuttered
  • Action: babbled, blubbered, blurted, called, chanted, commanded, coughed, croaked, gasped, hiccupped, interjected, lied, panted, rasped, recited, sang, slurred, sputtered, wheezed


Never arbitrarily avoid said/asked. They're your glue that helps hold your story together, and readers skim over these two words. To actively avoid for the sake of avoiding is the mark of an amateur writer.

The rule to "avoid said" came about specifically because of talking heads, covered above. Overuse of said can highlight a lack of action beats and narration (talking heads), which is a separate problem that will NOT be solved by exchanging said for another dialogue tag.

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“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” ~ Stephen King

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⭐ Adverbs — "Never use them"?

Adjectives and adverbs are both modifiers. However, adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify everything else---verbs, other adverbs, adjectives, phrases, even entire sentences.

  • Adverbs of Manner: describe how an action is performed. (gracefully, happily, etc.)
  • Adverbs of Place: describe where an action is performed. (upstairs, downstairs, etc.)
  • Adverbs of Frequency: describe when or how often something happens. (frequently, tomorrow, etc.)

Clearly, they're useful! (Except for really and very. Avoid those.)


The "problem" with adverbs stems from overuse, which leads to redundancy and weaker writing.

Examples:

  • It’s intensely hot outside. -> It's scorching outside. (Trimming two words in exchange for a stronger word that means the same.)
  • The car drove quickly. -> The car accelerated/sped/raced. (Choose a better verb that allows for more specificity.)
  • She screamed loudly. -> She screamed. (This is redundant. Of course, a scream is loud.)
  • Her dress is dark blue. -> Her dress is navy. (In this case, "dark" modifies "blue" which is the adjective, so "dark" is an adverb---though were "dark" standing on its own, we'd consider dark an adjective.)
  • She hugged me the way a grandmother would, and it was a comfort. -> Her grandmotherly hug was a comfort. (Adverbs for the win.)

Tips to reduce:

  • Never use an "adverb + verb combo" when you can use a stronger verb instead.
  • If the verb works well without the adverb, or if the adverb is not helping modify in a substantial way, consider removing or replacing the adverb with a stronger adverb.
  • Keep adverbs where they're needed.
  • In general, any unnecessary words should be removed from your writing. This will keep your manuscript tight.

Don't be afraid to use adverbs. Just use them with intention, like all the other words of your story.

🐉

⭐ Eliminating “Was”

First, using "was" (or any other form of "to be") is not wrong. It is perfectly acceptable to use "was." Tell us the thing, move on, done. It effectively does the job. It adds narrative distance, which can be an effective tool in storytelling.

If overused, it can make sentences repetitive and boring. To reduce usage, it basically comes down to stronger verbs and better descriptive words. It depends on the situation, what you're trying to do, what's going on around it, and how you can combine. (Note this doesn't apply if you are using the progressive verb tense specifically to show a continuing action.)

Spoiler: it doesn't help to change out was for similar words like had, seemed, appeared, felt, or other filtering words.


Potential Options to Reduce

You can possibly just cut it.

  • Birds were chirping while I was singing a melody. -> Birds chirped while I sang a melody.


Choose a stronger verb:

  • He was going to the store. -> He raced to the store. He meandered to the store. He strode to the store. He drove to the store.


Make it more active and let us intuit ourselves:

  • He was tired. -> Exhaustion coated his features. Eyes barely open, he leaned against the back of the couch. His eyelashes fluttered shut. Unable to keep his eyes open, his breathing slowed.
  • She was nervous. -> She fidgeted with her shawl. Her heart pounded in her chest.
  • The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression - This is super helpful in terms of body beats that help replace “was.”


Create a complex phrase with the adjectives, then add to action:

  • He was wearing blue pajama pants. -> Pulling on his well-worn blue pajama pants, he crawled into bed. Dressed in blue pajama pants, he trundled down the stairs to open Christmas presents.
  • The dog was brown. -> The brown dog lapped at the water bowl.


Combine it with why it matters (ask yourself "why do we care"): 

  • He was 6'2". -> At 6'2", he towered over the other school children.


Use active voice instead of passive voice.

  • The donut was eaten by me. -> I ate the donut.


🐉

⭐ In conclusion...

  • You have to do what's right for you and your story
  • Don't be afraid to break arbitrary "rules"
  • Everything is situational
  • Every style is different
  • Never let anyone overwrite your voice—it's what sets you apart and makes you special



Kind reminder: Nothing about writing is one-size-fits-all; and you can always, ALWAYS take what you want and leave behind the rest. ❤️



Other blogs by author I want to write a blog

19+ Comments

Nicolaysen

Kind reminder: Nothing about writing is one-size-fits-all; and you can always, ALWAYS take what you want and leave behind the rest. :heart:

— :dragon: —

Edit: Clarity on our Pro-tip (Never describe what’s not there; describe what IS there. Telling your reader what is not there immediately makes them picture the thing not there, which is completely counterproductive to your goals as a storyteller.)

Describing/saying what’s NOT there vs what IS:
:deciduous_tree: Giant oak trees were absent across the landscape. First, you’ve made me picture giant oak trees, then said they aren’t there, so pop! My mental image is blank. You’ve told me nothing. There are no oak trees—but are there other trees? Flowers? A river? I don’t know, because I know nothing, because you’ve described nothing, only thrown words at me.
:deciduous_tree: The landscape was barren. That tells me everything I need to know. No trees, no flowers, no rivers, dry and bare. Probably rocky, brown, expansive. A desert. Done and done. :+1:

And as always, there are exceptions to everything :sunglasses: The following describes what’s not there to great effect — but we’re explaining the importance of it first, and we’re walking down memory lane:

As a child, the park had been her respite—her home away from home. Giant oak trees surrounded a playground, and a path snaked through the forest. But now, the giant oak trees were absent across the landscape; they’d been razed by the builders of a new condo complex. The world was changing, and not for the better.

However, this is a very specific narrative technique meant to inspire emotion and longing in absence. This is very different than simply setting the scene.

Jul-08 at 00:08

Wundur

OMG you said that adding narrative distance is OK sometimes. Not only that, but that telling is OK too?! CANCELLED! :wink:

Jul-08 at 00:24

Nicolaysen

:grimacing:
I did. I totally did. :rofl:

Jul-08 at 00:34

Crazyli825

A great time to add narrative distance is if you’re writing a story in omniscient. There’s supposed to be distance between the reader and an omniscient narrator. If you’re trying to right close 3rd from the POV of one of the characters or 1st person, you want less distance in those cases. Make the story immersive and connect with the POV character.

Jul-08 at 01:29

Nicolaysen

If you haven’t heard of her, Gina Denny is a great resource for writers. She’s an admin at a literary agency, so she sees EVERYTHING. :rofl: One of her videos is all about perfect times to add narrative distance. :slight_smile:

Jul-08 at 01:54

Ellearre

Thanks for writing this! There are some great tips here!

Jul-08 at 02:26

Vidyut

I like that you mention not describing an absence. Many people don’t realise this and you can have a seemingly descriptive situation without any actual description.

There’s more to telling that serves as the backbone of a story. The ability to generate curiosity, and then resolve to much satisfaction or even better, immerse the readers enough that they figure it out NEEDS telling for the density of information readers would need to form their own “arc” of sorts solving the plot before the MC. One or two should succeed and the vast majority should be at the “I KNEW IT” stage at good reveals. You can’t do complex reveals without telling. It’s a pity it isn’t developed as an art the way “how to show” is. But then I guess “how to write” IS “how to tell” so…

Disclosure: I had a preview of the article, so I already knew I was going to do this rant. :rofl:

I hate body beats. Mostly because they are done so often, it is like watching a surveillance camera or something. As I told @Nicolaysen, I was absolutely horrified that there’s actually a book of those bloody “forget removing unecessary words, expand one feeling to twitching body parts”. This does not bode well for my satisfaction levels with modern writing.

I maintain that if a body beat says nothing about the character or plot and is just “showing” the character, it should be deleted. No, moving a hand in a restless gesture doesn’t say anything new if the context already tells us she’s restless or if the movement changes nothing. And if every dialogue is escorted by a body beat, even if it changes something, that’s too many changes. Delete. There should be a law against more than five body beats per thousand words. The only thing worse is PoV character describing own body movements (to whom?). Yeah, that’s my book for “please don’t read” recommendations…

This isn’t to say body beats shouldn’t be done, but they should be specific to the character and scene as far as possible. If anybody can do that movement, the best thing you can do for your character is not make them do it and be like all the other characters. Fuck descriptions, write distinctions to make characters alive. The occasional smiles and nods and shakes and mouth widening to reveal teeth is not an issue, but if you’re escorting dialogue to the page like an animator keying frames… “raise eyebrows for this scene, frown for next…” just don’t. You’re undermining your own story by distracting from the scene. The reader’s attention will go where you take it. Focus it on the plot, not body part twitches.

To be fair, @Nicolaysen isn’t a body twitcher, but the idea of body beats being listed out there as stuff people can do… yeah, needs a warning. lol.

Jul-08 at 03:48

Zznewell

I have a different take on showing vs. telling. Simply adding more detail is often still telling, but even more of it.
All language has both explicit and implicit meaning. In art(including poetry and fiction) what is implied(shown) is more important than what is told. But the language still included telling. You can’t get away from it. The art comes in with deciding what to show and what to tell.
if you are advising someone on this, you should understand what the author is trying to communicate, what it is that the author is showing.
I came across this problem when trying to show the time of day, noon, by saying that a character was hungry. The critic wanted me to show the character was hungry by telling that the character’s stomach grumbled. This to me is wrong because a grumbling stomach can just as easily show that the character is about to barf–not my intent. My stomach doesn’t have to grumble for me to know I’m hungry.
Point of view is important, also what did the character notice and how did this character know the information. Time of day is something that is too often told instead of shown. A time of 11:53 is would require looking at a clock, a digital clock at that, so comes off a narrator intrusion, the bad kind of telling.
Body beats can also come off as narrator intrusions. It depends if the POV character would notice body beats.The narrator may be intruding to tell about body beats instead of showing what the POV character notices.

Jul-08 at 05:36

Jcgreen

Great blog.

Pro-tip: Never describe what’s not there; describe what IS there. Telling your reader what is not there immediately makes them picture the thing not there, which is completely counterproductive to your goals as a storyteller.

Yes, but as with all rules, this is not an absolute. Sometimes what isn’t there is the important thing.

What’s there: The house was full of air
What isn’t: The house was bare

What’s there: Mark walked into the bookshop. Books were all over the place.
What isn’t: Mark walked into the bookshop. The shelves still hadn’t arrived, and the books were all over the place.

Jul-08 at 08:12

Wendyg

Great blog for summarising a lot of points in one place.

Except I have a complaint. You should have added an advisory!
For those that haven’t read it yet, note that this blog contains multiple mention of the swear word ‘chocolate’ !!! :rofl:

Jul-08 at 08:26

Goldspoon

To me the stomach grumbling is a cliche and if I saw this written I would roll my eyes. I would rather somebody state they are hungry. I have been hungry a thousand plus times this last year and have not heard my stomach grumble - heard it make strange orchestral noises though ;-).

I also wanted to say my character was hungry whilst writing recently. He was in a seaside town and so I thought of options: “he could murder a pasty”, “he glanced across to the queue at the bakers” or “if he wouldn’t be in a shed full of trouble he’d swipe that kid’s pasty right from his little pink fingers”. That sort of thing.

Jul-08 at 08:33

Clarissak

How DARE you say that telling is okay from time to time! Are you some sort of hack?! :upside_down_face:

Jul-08 at 10:51

Nicolaysen

As a notorious underwriter, I constantly have to add in more body beats and narration after the fact. :rofl:

Too literal, my friend. “The house was bare” is actively describing what’s there—the house. And it’s bare. No bookshelves graced the entryway, no tables waited in the kitchen, no rugs muffled the sound, no… That would be describing what’s not there, which is the thing to avoid, unless you’re literally trying to show the complete and utter despair at the lack of all the things, in which case, sure. Whatever. :rofl:

Edit:
There was this great explanation I read on this tangent that—while I’m completely failing to do it justice, it was basically like:

  • Giant oak trees were absent across the landscape. - well, first you’ve made me picture trees, then said they aren’t there, so pop! My mental image is blank. You’ve told me nothing. There are no oak trees. But are there other trees? Flowers? A river? I don’t know, because I know nothing, because you’ve described nothing, only thrown words at me.
  • The landscape was barren. -that tells me everything I need to know. No trees, no flowers, no rivers, dry and bare. Probably rocky, brown, expansive. A desert. Done and done.

Jul-08 at 11:52

Lvocem

Being dyslexic I am confused. Are you saying this is good or this is bad?

I am going to disagree. You can use in your description what is not there to create a sense of lost by either a Limited Third or a first person narrator. To me, the house was bare, is emotional. While the house was full of air, sounds to me ridiculous. Of course is full of air. If you say, the house is full of smoke, or the house smelled of cigarettes, or smell of fried empanadas, than that is a different story.

Jul-08 at 12:24

Nicolaysen

Yep! And “The house was bare” is describing what’s there, because the house is, in fact, there.

Jul-08 at 12:31

Lvocem

What I consider bad advice.

In a story I read the other day, a critter said what’s the purpose of the story. It was all about losing her boyfriend. Big deal. In other crits I’ve seen reviewers say that nothing important is going on and they are bored. I read the same paragraphs and there was tension and enough to keep me reading.

Another annoying one is when they tell you that the story didn’t have enough of a plot. Sure, the protagonist achieved X but that was not enough. Another one is that they didn’t like the story because several of the events in the story never arrived at a resolution, as if everything needs to end in a resolution.

My own pet peeves.

The white room syndrome. I used to call it the fog scene, but this is better. I see this a lot. The writer throws us into dialogue and his descriptions become stage directions, so you have no idea where they are or where they are going.

This is usually followed by bad choreography. Yes, you have to choreograph your scenes. Or cut them.

POV violations. I would say that about 80 percent of the stories I read have a form of this issue going on.

Jul-08 at 12:33

Jcgreen

Precisely. You’ve misinterpreted what I was saying.

I was disagreeing with the blog, which said that you should only describe what is there. Well, in an empty house, the only thing in the house is air, which is a pointless thing to say. Sometimes the thing that isn’t there is the relevant thing, and you should concentrate on that. Namely, in this example, the absence of furniture.

Jul-08 at 13:10

Jcgreen

So, how would you relay that the house is empty of belonging by only describing what is there?

Jul-08 at 13:13

Nicolaysen

The house is bare. That’s it. “The house” is physically there, and you described it as “bare.”

Edit:
Are you asking how I’d explain “what’s not there”? In answer to that, I wouldn’t… if a house is bare, there’s nothing in it. End. We move on. “The house is bare” is more than sufficient.

And this is why I’m an underwriter. :rofl:

Jul-08 at 13:17
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