A Field Guide to Telling: From Flat Prose to Living Scenes
Last time, we began our expedition into the wilderness of telling. At the head of the trail, we met an author I once worked with. They’d written a space opera that sounded incredible, but was suffocated by telling.
A few weeks after I sent them my feedback, that author reached out to arrange a follow-up discussion. At the same time, they shared a revised first scene they’d been working on, and the difference was incredible.
Suddenly, the opening of their story felt vibrant and alive.
It sang.
As I read, time disappeared. I was fully immersed. Now, instead of saying “the spaceship was falling apart,” the story began with explosive decompression—the whole crew fighting for their lives, scrabbling to patch up the old ship with whatever scrap they had.
That simple shift, from telling to showing, transformed a dull opening into a story that burst onto the page and pulled the reader along for the ride.
This week, we’ll be going deeper into the woods: exploring how to capture that lightning in a bottle for ourselves.
No form of telling is wrong.
Sometimes, it’s absolutely vital. And in the right hands, it can be a powerful tool. However, most writers use it without realising, and without understanding the cost: that they’re distancing the reader instead of drawing them in.
Quick Guide to the Seven Species of Telling
Here are the seven key forms of telling we met last time:
Telling emotion, where we state exactly what a character is feeling.
Characterisation, when we tell the reader who a character is.
On-the-nose dialogue, when a character says exactly what they’re thinking (or what the reader needs to know) without nuance.
Plot explanation, telling the reader exactly what’s happening, or what will happen next.
Backstory, where we leave the present to delve into a character’s past.
Exposition & infodumps, sharing (often lengthy) explanations of our world, its people, technology, etc.
Telling in summary, when we skim through time on fast forward.
As an important reminder: none of these are bad.
However, they all add distance into a story, and so they need to be handled with care.
In the Field: Techniques for Showing Each Species
It’s often better to show, especially when it comes to the most important parts of our story. And each form of telling requires a slightly different approach.
Telling emotions
Here’s the beautiful thing about feelings: every character will react to them differently.
Take anger, for example. While one person bottles it up, another explodes. A third might turn cold and calculating, planning out their revenge.
Whenever you find a sentence that directly names an emotion, ask yourself:
What is this feeling?
Who is this character?
What unique response would this person have to this specific feeling?
What happens next is glorious.
Suddenly, our prose doesn’t just convey the emotion, it also shows the reader who this person is—letting our audience get to know them naturally, through what they say and do.
To make use of this magic, we can use a few different approaches:
Action. What the character actually does. If they’re humiliated at a dinner party, they might get blackout drunk, and smash up their own car with a baseball bat on their way home.
Train of thought. If we’re inside the character’s point of view, we’ve struck gold. Don’t have them think, “I’m angry,” instead show them thinking angry thoughts.
Dialogue. As with train of thought, have the character speak out of anger rather than saying how they feel. Do they lash out verbally? Give one-word answers? Look for their unique fingerprint of action and emotion.
The filter of perception. Another one for our POV characters. If they’re miserable, everything they see is filtered through misery. Do they only focus on the negative? Does everything suddenly seem grey?
In a perfect world, we use a mixture of these things: the character acts, thinks, speaks, and sees the world through the veil of whatever they’re feeling.
And if we’re writing for adults? That’s often all we need.
Trust your readers. They have read many books and felt many emotions in their lives. If a character picks a fight over something small, drinks to excess, thinks nitpicky thoughts, and focuses on every annoying little detail, we don’t have to say the character is angry or frustrated. The reader will already feel it.
Key takeaway: We’re not telling the reader what to feel, we’re weaving a spell that draws them into that emotion, and forces them to feel it too.
A note on bodily reactions: It can be tempting to reach for physical expressions of emotion—the tightness in a character’s throat, racing heart, or fluttery feeling in their belly. Unfortunately, this is just another form of telling. We’re not causing that reaction in our readers, we’re explaining it to them. Since action is the language of story, what the character does will always be more powerful.
Less is more: There’s a well-known piece of acting advice that says, “If you want the audience to cry, act like you’re trying not to.”
This is true in writing, too.
The more a character cries, blows up, or dwells on their worries, the less the reader will feel. The trick to casting the spell is showing the character fighting against the feeling.
When a character won’t let themselves cry and forces themselves to keep going, their grief leaks out sideways, through maladaptive coping mechanisms and things they can’t control. That’s what closes the magic circle and forces the reader to feel it instead.
Characterisation
To show who our characters are, we have to start with their unique strengths and flaws.
The Positive Trait Thesaurus and Negative Trait Thesaurus are incredible for this.
Remember that flaws are just as important as strengths. It’s what makes our characters relatable. What makes them human.
Once we have 3-4 strengths and 1-2 flaws, we can start showing them.
How does this specific character express this trait? Are they outwardly, excessively kind? Or do they hide their kindness behind a tough exterior? Everyone’s different, and the more nuanced the character’s behaviour, the more interesting they become.
Then we can use the same mixture of action, dialogue, train of thought, and perception to convey those traits to the reader.
Say we have a judgmental character. How does that seep into what they do? Would they...
Refuse to help another character, and find ways to rationalise that to themselves?
Constantly pick at and belittle the people around them?
Think viciously judgmental thoughts—not just towards others, but also at themselves?
See the world through a lens of judgment, constantly dwelling on how they’re being perceived?
Let the character shine through what they do, rather than telling the reader about it.
On-the-nose dialogue
Even though the reader knows dialogue isn’t real speech, we still need it to ring true. And the foundation is always the character who’s speaking.
Who are they?
What do they really want?
What are their unique strengths and flaws?
How are they feeling in this particular moment?
And how can we use that to flavour both what they say, and how they say it?
So, after losing a competition, rather than having a character say something like:
“How dare you cheat me out of first place! I earned it!”
Ask yourself how this particular character would react to feeling cheated. Would they lash out (verbally or physically) at the other person? Take the moral high ground and look down their nose? Be overly, even sarcastically, polite?
“Oh, well done, Julia. No really, you earned it. It must feel good to be proud of yourself for once.”
Notice how much more interesting that is—how much more loaded with emotion the words feel when we aren’t bluntly stating everything.
Depending on what the dialogue is for, we might need to use other forms of showing, too.
With spoken plot explanations: Consider the character’s agenda. What do they want? How would that influence how they speak? If a character has been tasked with infiltrating a rival space station, but their goal is to get home to their family, perhaps they’d suggest running away instead. Or maybe their fear and lack of enthusiasm shines through how they talk while everyone else is planning.
With spoken backstory: Work out what’s most important to this character. People rarely disclose their life story in one smooth, unbroken chain. They pick and choose what matters most, and don’t always tell the truth. For example, they might exaggerate or minimise their role in something. What do they want to keep hidden? And how would they try to conceal it? What if some details are too personal? Would they deflect with humour, lie, or change the subject?
With spoken exposition: Everyone will have a different take on world history (or political events, or anything else), depending on their own values and biases. What would they minimise, skip over, or “forget” about? How do they feel about the thing they’re explaining, and how might those emotions saturate both what they say and how they say it?
Also: every character will have their own unique way of speaking, and their own unique personality that shines through how they speak.
Don’t be afraid to use it!
Plot explanation
Often, directly explaining the plot is a failure of dramatisation: the making-things-real-through-action that brings a story to life.
If you find yourself doing this, it’s worth asking: do we really need to tell the reader what’s about to happen?
There’s a famous piece of writing advice: Only have your characters explain the plan if it’s about to go horribly wrong.
If everything’s going to unfold as expected, we can usually skip straight to showing it.
We also shouldn’t have to tell the reader “the characters need to get to the sacred mountain if they were going to solve this.” It should shine through everything that’s happened.
What problem are the characters trying to solve, and why does it matter?
Can we dramatise that through events—something that actually happens in the story?
If our characters are going to the sacred mountain to stop an army of the dead, then could the zombies attack the village where the characters are staying? What if they kill one of the protagonist’s companions?
When something is important, we need to honour that by making it real.
Why is the sacred mountain the only solution? And how might we show that? If there’s a monastery there, and they have a spell/magical artefact that will defeat the undead, then could we add a monk character to show this? Maybe the monk has some ability to fight back against the dead, giving the characters hope (and direction) before the monk bravely sacrifices themselves.
Could we make the mountain a powerful symbol, showing it rising clean and untainted above the swarming hordes of undead? What if the characters were actually in that monastery earlier in the story? How might we show it as a sanctuary of safety?
And what if the characters don’t agree on the way? Could one of them have a different idea about what’s needed? What would that character do about that? Would they strike out on their own? And what would happen to them as a result?
The best medicine for this problem is to let our characters’ goals arise naturally, as a result of everything they want and everything they’ve been through.
Backstory
Know this one thing about backstory: less is almost always more.
The more we tell a reader about everything that’s happened, the less they care. The trick is to show the effects of what happened to a character, through their actions (and personality) in the present.
Remember, your readers are smarter than you think. If they see a character who keeps others at arm’s length, avoids social situations, is cold, rude, and does everything alone, they’ll know something happened to make them that way.
The actual event doesn’t really matter, it’s the imprint it’s left on them now that the reader cares about.
And showing the effects (without telling the reader what happened) has three glorious effects:
It makes the reader want to know more.
That creates tension and keeps them turning the page.
They will think about it, and figure out a lot more than you might guess.
As a result, when (or if) we do finally tell them what happened, they’ll be excited to know. They’ll also have figured out a lot of the details by then—reducing our need to tell. A single sentence (or maybe two) is all that’s needed to drop the last puzzle piece into place.
How has your character’s past affected them? If they were rejected by their family, has that made them suspicious of others, or desperate for approval? Are they needy, or distant and cold? Are they dependent on alcohol or drugs, looking to escape the pain? Or have they learned healthier coping mechanisms, like meditation or running? What happens when the story puts them under a lot of stress, and those healthy coping mechanisms start to break down?
The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is an incredible resource for exploring this further, and I’ve written a whole post about tragic backstories if you want to delve deeper.
Bringing the past into the present: The last way to show backstory is by finding ways to make it relevant now. Let’s return to our character who was rejected by their family. What if their parent or sibling shows up during the story? And what if they want something? How would the character react? We can use this as a rich vein of conflict and obstacles to drive the engine of our story.
Exposition & infodumps
If you write a lot of infodumps, you might want to follow the exposition protocol:
Does the reader absolutely need to know this? Do they need to know it now? If we removed this, would the scene still make sense?
If the reader does need to know, how can we show it? Could we transform what is into something that happens?
When we absolutely must tell, keep it as brief as possible. What are the most vital details? How can we share only those, and get back to the story?
If the reader can understand the current scene, those extra details are only getting in the way.
And readers can work out much more than you might think. It’s okay to put the evidence of what is on the page, and let them figure things out for themselves. In fact, most adult readers strongly prefer this. This is another opportunity for increased dramatisation: transforming how things are into what happens.
So, instead of saying “these two planets were at war,” we might:
Make one of our characters a veteran, giving them PTSD, war wounds, and/or prosthetics that create problems and get in the way of their goal.
Force the characters to crash land on a remote colony. What if the locals think they’re enemy spies?
Have our characters stumble into the detritus of a massive space battle.
What if they find an enemy survivor? How would they treat that person? Would there be disagreements amongst the crew about it?
Could those arguments be interrupted by an attack? Maybe they’re bombarded by enemy ships, pirates, or deserters.
What if they lose the battle, and our characters are taken captive? How would the enemy treat them?
Now, the war isn’t just something the reader is told about, it’s viscerally real. And that’s pure storytelling alchemy: taking a distraction that’s pulling the reader away from the story and transmuting it into an integral part of it.
Telling in summary
Repeat after me: the reader doesn’t need to see everything.
A lot of writers think we need to show every moment of a character’s day—from when they get up in the morning to when they go to bed. But the best place to start a scene is when the character takes action towards their goal, and the best place to end it is when that action is resolved.
When you find sections of telling in summary, ask:
Do we really need these long stretches of time when nothing happens?
Could we condense things instead?
What if we skip to the next point something interesting happens?
Could we share a sentence or two to catch the reader up afterwards?
Or better yet, could we show what’s changed in the downtime?
We can skip two months of training, and come back when the character is fighting the bad guys for real—stronger, faster, and more prepared than the last time we saw them.
It’s always okay to skip to the next point when something interesting happens.
In fact, your readers will almost certainly prefer it.
If the story does need a long summary (or time skips): Try bringing the reader back in a moment of action and drama. It goes a long way towards getting things moving again—compensating for the “lagging” effect of downtime and skips.
Can we condense the telling into a single scene? For example, if our detective protagonist spends all day chasing up dead ends, goes to bed, then gets up and goes to work again, we don’t need to show all of that. We might have one short scene where a potential witness slams the door in their face, another when they get back home and open a bottle of whiskey, then cut straight to their hangover the next morning as they go back to work.
Action Plan—From Identification to Intervention
Let’s return to the scene you marked up last time, and transform it with glorious showing.
Start with your Achilles’ heel. What colour dominates your highlights? What type of telling do you rely on the most?
Pick one example of that type from your scene, and paste it into a new document.
Note the core story truth that you’re trying to communicate. What is the telling trying to convey? It could be an emotion, something that happened during downtime, details about a magical artefact—any of the things we’ve been talking about.
Ask: How can I prove this detail through something that actually happens? For example:
Telling emotions: If a character is scared, could we use short, skittering sentences or long and breathless ones? Would they shift their focus rapidly, looking for an escape? What would your character do in this situation?
Characterisation: If your character is arrogant, what would an arrogant character do or say in this moment? Would they try to hide or conceal their arrogance? Or put it on full show?
On-the-nose dialogue: Who is this character and what do they want? Use that to filter what they say.
Plot explanation: Do we really need to explain? Or could we make it real through action instead?
Backstory: What’s the most important thing about their past? And how can we show it through who they are and what they do?
Exposition: Follow the exposition protocol. Does the reader need to know this? If they do, could we show it? And if not, how can we keep the telling short and sweet?
Telling in summary: Again, is this needed? Could we just jump to the next time something important happens? If we’re showing a shift or change, could we write a short scene that encapsulates that instead?
Write a few lines of story, showing these things actually happening—providing the proof of whatever we were telling before.
Delete the original telling. Notice how the facts are still there—buried under what happens. Consider how much more powerful that might be, and how much more interesting it is for the reader.
Final Observations
Let’s say it once more with feeling: no form of telling is wrong.
Sometimes, it’s absolutely vital. And in the right hands, it can be a powerful tool. However, most writers use it without realising, and without understanding the cost: that they’re distancing the reader instead of drawing them in.
Telling makes everything feel less real, and less powerful. And while sometimes that’s a price worth paying, we don’t want to incur that kind of cost without reason.
Remember: stories speak the language of action. And transforming what is into what happens is key.
That’s how we honour our story’s core purpose, and bring it surging brilliantly to life.
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I have an info dump chapter in a draft I was dreading editing but this help put things into perspective. I knew generally that it needed condensing, but didn't know how, so thanks for this guide.
Excellent post. Unfortunately, drives home the fact that I rely too heavily on bodily reactions when trying to convey emotion. Fortunately, you've provided great tips on what I can do instead.