Most of the techniques we learned are very helpful, but this one just doesn’t intrigue me, both as a reader and writer. I want to figure out if this is simply a matter of personal preference, or if Im not thinking about it correctly.
This opposition came to me last class when we were discussing Rose’s essay on the passing of her grandmother. Almost unanimously, the entire class adviced Rose to show and not tell. Instead of telling the reader the various tones of emotion she is experiencing, she should instead use examples which will induce that feeling in the reader.
I disagree. Personally I love an eloguent translation of abstract states, such as thoughts and emotions. I can read pages of that. This is in fact probably the biggest reason why I read. Its pointless to induce someone to feel sad. I (as a reader) have felt sad before. The motivation in reading someone else’s words is they present another’s perspective of such hard to deal with and hard to articulate states of mind. Since we often avoid deeply poignant subject matter in polite conversations, we live life aware of only a single perspective–our own–on the very issues that are hardest for us to deal with.
It seems such an intrinsic preference to me–that I like to be TOLD versus “shown.” I skim the articles for the point. Even when not strapped for time, I seek out the author’s final analysis on the situation. More so than a vital depiction of the situation itself. The overriding general preference, however, is the opposite. What I want to know is, am I missing something? Am I just a minority opinion, or did I grossly misunderstand what you were talking about?
on May 12th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Olya,
Thanks for your post. I have some thoughts, of course!
To some extent, you present one reason why showing is so important, in my view:
“The motivation in reading someone else’s words is they present another’s perspective of such hard to deal with and hard to articulate states of mind.”
Because abstract emotional states are, indeed, hard to articulate, it’s often imperative to find a way to articulate them through more concrete emotional experiences and/or images that capture some “essence” of the emotion.
I don’t think it’s so much about inducing some feeling in a reader as it is about showing how the writer felt in order to communicate that feeling more powerfully to the reader. To say, “When _____ happened, I felt numb, I felt frozen in time, I knew my life would never be the same” may not be as effective as giving a visual image of oneself or the scene at the moment _______ happened.
If you have an example of something you really like that you find to be an “eloguent translation of abstract states, such as thoughts and emotions,” post a snippet of it. Maybe we can discuss how it works.
on May 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Thank you for your response.
Perhaps Im so uneasy with this concept because it suggests that visual mediums like film, photo, or drawing are better mediums for communicating an intangible state than are words.
I realize that here I’m assuming a vacuum which wouldn’t stand the test of real world application. Its true: probably if I located my favorite prose which I thought communicates well by telling, I would discover that it, too, relies on use of imagery.
Also, I often tend to speak and write in metaphors. Is this also an example of incorporating imagery into language?
on May 13th, 2009 at 12:57 am
So last night when I saw this post I wrote a whole long response. Of course, my internet crashed right at the end and I was honestly too lazy to retype everything. But basically I asked what prof Smith asked… I was curious to read a sample of what would be “eloguent translation of abstract states, such as thoughts and emotions”.
on May 14th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Oh no–I don’t think showing and not telling means that visual mediums are better communicators than textual ones. For me, this is definately not the case; I’m a text-based person; it’s all about the narrative for me.
Yes–I think metaphors often do fabulous work of showing. Henry David Thoreau just jumped into my mind. In his most famous book, Walden, he uses TONS of metaphors. I recall in one chapter he describes the ice on Walden Pond in great detail–the bubbles and cracks, the depth and thickness, the clarity and opaqueness. The ice becomes a metaphor for the complexity, messiness, and beauty of nature. But he doesn’t say the natural world is beautiful and complex; he shows it, and subtly suggests it, through the intricate figure of the ice on the pond. It leaves this lasting image in your mind and impresses itself upon you much more powerfully. He has another chapter called the bean field where he tends, well, a bean field, and his work in the earth, growing and harvesting beans (and sharing them with squirrel thieves), is a metaphor for how we should live our lives: slowly, methodically, meditatively, and deliberately.
He’s brilliant with the metaphors. (He does a lot of telling, too, by the way. He pulls it all off, in my opinion.)