definitely info dumping vs. flashbacks.

The time between heavy blinks would soon disappear and knock Chad out for the night. Of the hundreds of ‘Show don’t Tell’ videos he already viewed, only one was ever worth a click of his nearly blistered scrolling finger. A roll-over accompanied the next blink. “Why should his one be any different?”Chad reached out to place his phone on top of the mini-fridge beside his bed. “Thank God I didn’t put that phone down last night,” said Chad, waving his manuscript like a white flag surrender. He squinted at the glow of the sunrise through the bedroom window. “No … thank Kate and Abby!” Now he could sleep.

My fingers fidgeted, my right hand tightened around my passports and boarding pass. I drew them to my chest. My carry-on, held by my supposedly freer hand. As immune as I thought I was, his words caught me off-guard. I had to reorient. NOW BOARDING, still flashing, I scanned anew for my gate-my portal.

@@chadsimmons4496 HA, I love that!

Showing vs. telling. My advice: save the important, interesting parts of your story for showing. Intersperse that with descriptions of the less interesting parts, to keep the momentum, to keep the reader interested. If used appropriately, telling can be very useful.

Yes, so true. Good call aix83!

As an introvert, i can be both

Yeah, I think that the specific example here is no good, because being slow to talk and quick to listen isn't automatically introverted. If anything, it should be extroverted. Overall, though, I think that the main thrust of the suggestions were good.

I agree you

Yeah, I agree. Also, at a fundamental level, every phrase is telling something...but the phrases are engaging, and the things, which are being told, are showing something.

For me it's word paralysis, because I have billions of ideas but can't find the words to use them.

Those are all telling….

​@@PeNGuiNZoMbiEUYAGoes to show how hard it is😅

​@@PeNGuiNZoMbiEUYAas if to prove the point it's hard to notice show between telling sentences

Yeah, I agree with your overall thrust, but I disagree with the specific "Kal-El" example. That shows me how she behaves, and not the name of the Superman. It shows me how they talk to each other. If she says, "Wow! It's so beautiful today. It's perfect for a walk in the park.", then are you going to judge the author for telling you the weather and telling what you can do that day? To me, it sounds like the author is showing us how they get along, and that she is willing to spend time with him in the park.

I agree that there are times for telling! I really enjoy fairytales and fairytale like stories and often that disembodied voice narration is a sort of it, and some times I love narrator descriptions: “he was a middle aged man, but he had the practiced immaturity of a much younger one. It was not a charming combination.” sometimes I like being told who a character is with a short, quick description. You get a good chunk of personality in 1-2 sentences, perfect for a relatively unimportant side character. I wouldnt like it for a main character though! I want to get to know them more organically

I agree 🌹🌹🌹

Tell me about my novel

Keep going!! I'm sure you got this

by the way, I am a patreon customer of yours

I watched this twice or more. I think that I agree with the end about practising showing and telling. I would go so far as to start off telling, and the trying to show ...and then trying to show even more what you showed. Also, it might help to go into the other extreme, where you take what you told, and use more telling to make it more engaging.

That’s a great question. I’d love to know as well

One could assume overshowing would be showing things that weren’t important

Yes, Jenna Moreci has a video that tells you when TELLING is better than showing.

I was wondering the same thing, about Kate and Abbie's eyes. So, genetically here is what I know about what you have said above. One parent of yours is Bb, which is Brown/hazel dominant eye colour(B), with a recessive gene of blue (b) in their family line, Crossed with one parent of yours is most likely to be (bb) which is blue eyes recessive and blue eyes showing, which would mean their family line is also only blue, your grandmother and grandfather, at least on one side. So, If you put these letters in a table with each letter crossing an x and y graph, (Bb) (Bb) you have a 2 in 4 chance of having Brown eyes, with the blue gene recessive hidden till you have children of your own, and 2 chances in 4 of recessive blue eyes showing, and only being able to have blue eyed children of your own. (bb) (bb) The only other option, is both of your parents have brown eyes showing, (Bb x Bb) carrying the recessive blue gene (Bb) in their family lines, which would only give a 1 in 4 chance of blue eyed children, and a 3 out of 4 chance of having brown eyes, carrying the hidden blue gene. This could still be the case, but it is far more likely to be the first example! (Bb Bb Bb bb) Apparently, some mammals are born with blue eyes and they change as an adult. Green eyes are even rarer in recessive genes. Hazel and brown eyes are common and dominant. The same goes with hair, with Brown and Black are dominant, while blonde and red hair is recessive. This was figured out with an experiment of tall pea plants crossed with short ones, all plants will be tall as it is a dominant gene. (This is telling, it is a teacher thing!) Hey, Kate and Abbie, back to your video that I just watched. Thanks for the discussion on telling and showing from a year ago. So then, to clarify, does a narrator TELL the story if it is in third person? Eliza Most Beautiful Day, is Today! 17th of November 2023, 11:36pm, bed office (Nanowrimo words 24,000) ;) Dulwich Hill, Sydney Australia xx

Very astute......Father, almost certainly Bb, since he inherited his brown eyes from his mother (he had an African-derived dominant color) while his father ha beautiful blue eyes (so said my mother). My mother was bb.....both her parents were blue eyed. My paternal grand mum (she of the brown eyes), was one of four SISTERS, two blue eyed, an two with brown. We can reason that HER father (perhaps we can confirm this from census records) was a blue-eyed Turner, and her mother from New Orleans, was ALSO likely to have been Bb. It's interesting that recessive genes can hide for generations, but dominant genes, once lost, are gone.@@michemman

Good call Lucky_Owl. Agreed.

I think at each point in time, the culture will have a set of ideas that say what to do vs. what not to do. But it’ll continue to change/evolve! Culture is just culture, which is a collection of perceptions that multiple people agree upon, as they have every right to :). I also don’t relate to certain rules writers lean on (I actually like adverbs, for instance XD, when it isn’t redundant, and telling also). When there is a culture that involves personal preference, there will always be ideas that get filtered down as the “right vs. wrong” and “good vs. bad”. But it’s nothing to worry about, no such thing as intrinsically special writing, the connections we have with it are what make writing special. You just do your thing and write/read what makes you happy. I wish you well on your writing journey -^^-

I agree with you. In my openion. You don't have to 'Show' everything. Especially when you want reader to get the same clear message. Showing is not effective for that. Also, sometime it's annoying, and slow your story down. It's so subjective. Also, Abbie is pure Character based author, reminds that when listening to her advice. Maybe Showing suits romance novel and emotional scene, but not fantasy or sci-fi. Those type of story already have so much info already, reader won't please if they have to interprete every single thing the character think or do, Just 'Tell' the reader directly. For me, sometime I use showing, sometime I use telling. Not Showing or Telling everyting. Just write as you want your story flow, that's all. I've read some author work that always use telling, and that's not bad at all. P.S. Apologize for my English, I'm not native speaker