Though I am prone to slipping into this literary behavior myself, I find it annoying when creative author’s of fiction ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’.

If you haven’t been introduced to the idea that ‘showing’ something (in a novel, for example) and ‘telling’ something are two different things, allow me to explain.

I could write a paragraph stating all of the characteristics of a particular entity in my story that I want you to know. It might sound something like this:

Shazelle was a hard-working woman who was patient and kind to everyone she met. She grew up on the south side of Louisville, fell in love with her high school sweetheart, had 6 children with him, all of whom were born over the course of only 5 years. She drives a scarlet Ford Mustang, regularly eats at the Japanese bakery down the street from her house, and works at a medical supply warehouse. She is about five feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds. She has caramel-colored skin and very dark brown eyes.

The author just told me a hell of a lot about Shazelle, but they didn't show anything. 

Versus (if this is a murder mystery, let's say):

Shazelle slid her excess belly fat from the underside of the steering wheel of her blood-red Ford Mustang. She managed to make it up the police station stairs without falling, all the while cursing her missing stiletto heel. She clenched the uniform of the first officer within reach and with a desperate "I need to CONFESS!" wiped her oozing, caramel cheek on her sleeve. 

Here, it was SHOWN that Shazelle is overweight, drives a Ford Mustang, has a broken shoe and an injured cheek, has skin the color of caramel, and really needs to say something to a law enforcement officer.

Don’t misunderstand. I can relate to the tendency to want to get these “minor” details out of the way so that you can start writing about all the exciting things that are going to happen to Shazelle throughout the course of the novel. However, constructing a paragraph such as this, in my humble opinion, is boring, lazy, and shows a very low level of skill and craftswomanship (totally made that up on my own, thanks). Could you image watching a film like this? The narrator just stands in a spotlight and tells you everything that you should be seeing on the screen, but aren’t. I’d want my money back.

My preference as a reader would be to be shown these things throughout the novel. Each page, I would love to learn a little bit more about my protagonist, just as I would with a real person in real life. I haven’t heard of too many people getting to know each other well by simply giving an hour-long, fact-filled autobiography to one another. Even then, you may tell me something about yourself that doesn’t meet the criteria / definition I have for that characteristic. For instance, if you tell me you’re rich, you might mean that you have $100,000 in your savings account. But, “rich”, to me, may mean that you have a million dollars in your checking account, and not a penny less. So, in this example, if you were to simply SHOW me your bank statement, I could come to my own conclusions about how to describe your finances.

I think that the same goes with writing fiction. Write a scene in which Shazelle does something that you think a hard-worker might do. Or a person who is patient, kind, in love, a mother of six, a Ford Mustang driver, a Japanese pastry connoisseur, etc. SHOW me who Shazelle is, don’t just tell me.

Now that I think about it, I’m also afraid that some readers may even be offended by the lack of sophistication on the part of an author who writes in such a way. Do you really think that you’re reader isn’t intelligent enough to interpret the actions of the characters for themselves? Must you truly spell out every aspect of the character’s personality for the reader?

Something to think about.