[Article originally published in Italian. English translation made by Spectrethief, with the additional revision of JoSeBach.]

Is showing always better than telling?

Let's take some examples.

A not-so-uncommon cliché is the one where, in many poor and young adult fiction for a female audience, it is said that the generally-female protagonist "reads a lot", that she is "full of books" to the point that she "lives in a library", and so on, in order to present her to us as intelligent and cultured. A real good girl.

How do we recognize a person who reads a lot?

Think about it, then move on.

In the first place, they have, or at least should have, a quick and reactive mind, but above all he is, or should be, capable of discussing various topics.

If you tell me that they have a very vast culture, then they should have different passions related to it: history, geography, literature, and so on.

Moreover, from a person cultured in the most disparate fields one would expect at least a vaguely refined language.

If, on the other hand, you're telling "they explained everything to me with their high-sounding lexicon", you are not showing anything.

Also pay attention to one thing: saying "[they] read Shakespeare" (which I have seen) does not make the character automatically intelligent. If you say that he reads those works and make two quotes, but the character is acting stupid, you will only give the impression of a silly character who prides themself of reading famous authors in order to appear intelligent, thus achieving the opposite effect.

Let's move on to another important part of this rule on interactions and moods.

If you write "dude is angry", you are showing very little.

How would anger manifest in someone who is about to burst in fury? Accelerated breathing, sweating, muscle stiffness and much more.

It is better to describe its expressions: in case you need it, there are specialized pages that list the various signs of several emotions, even the eyebrows' position can say a lot.

Another example: imagine that a parent has a degenerate child, and, before giving the kid a lecture, the parent places their own hands on the table and puts them together. This is a sign of frustration: in providing this description, you do not say how the character feels, but let the gestures speak.

Let's add descriptions: if we write that a man is handsome, it will mean something up to a certain point. Here, too, we don't have to describe every single detail, but, if an important character is beautiful, we should describe what makes their appearance so, what feelings it brings, and so on.

Of course, if you were to expose all these details every time, you would write a longer book than The Lord of the Rings. If sometimes you just want to say the emotions, no one will take it. Maybe try to start by "showing", and only then limit yourself to saying a few times, so everyone will see that you know these rules.

Because you don't have to always show, but remember that what you say must match what is shown.

If one were to say "my mother hates me" and yet we see this sweet and loving parent, we would be a little perplexed.

Here too, however, there is a trick: you could use this system to show the character has a distorted view of reality; however it is not that easy and you will have to deal with this problem in order to not be misunderstood.

The rule also be applied to the surrounding environment: we can hastily say that it's hot, but this will become clearer if it's said that the character has a short-sleeved shirt soaked in sweat. Or again, if you want to involve the five senses, say that there is a stench of sweat in the air, that your hands are wet ...

Or: let's assume the character has to pass a practical exam, like cooking something. Would you really like to describe the procedure step by step? Explain how he chops the herbs, what temperature does he put on the fire, how does he put on the gloves? It would quickly turn into a infodump. The "right" amount of information to show does not exist, because each reader is unique. The advice I give you is to expose only the basic information, just to understand what it is. Focus more on the emotions of the character (what they feel, why they are doing it, why they like it...)

Let's expand to another category of examples: vagueness and precision.

Just as "strong" and "weak" have sense only when related to something, even "numerous", "large and small" and quantities make sense only if contextualized.

Let's use army numbers as an example:

in The Lord of the Rings, an army of ten thousand men was something impressive;according to my middle school history book, Alexander the Great left for Persia at the head of a "small army of thirty-five thousand men";on the contrary, Darius III replied with "a mighty army of one hundred thousand men";also according to this book, in Waterloo, Napoleon had "only one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers".

As you can see, what would have been scary for one context is ridiculous for another.

The same thing goes for heights: according to Wikipedia, an average Vietnamese man is 162cm tall, a Greek man is 180cm.

Now I'm going to ask you: imagine reading that "some men" appear in a scene. How many would there be?

You may not know: in this context "some" can lead to disorientation, however it can be perfect in horror and detective stories' scenes.

If the protagonist is lost in a forest and knows that "some men" are on their trail, after having killed three and been seriously injured, the reader could feel anguish: did they kill them all? And if not, how many are left?

I conclude by telling you that the tell-approach has also been used by capable authors: I have to mention George Martin because he is extremely famous. In the second chapter of Game of Thrones, page 27, it is said that it is unusual for Jon Snow to refer to Ned as "Lord Stark". In order to show this, we would have had to put several scenes, set at different times, in which Jon is shown as more confidential. This would've required, like, five more chapters, but it would have been a waste of time, for what is basically a detail (which instead serves to show us the relationship that Jon has with Eddard Stark).

fanwriter91