Background: the Sensory/Descriptive Domain of Writing Is That Area Which Deals with The

Showing, Not Telling What does it mean?

You can add force to your sentences by allowing your readers to hear, see, and feel the activities in your essays and stories. Rather than just telling readers what happened, use the following strategies.

1. Show the action Telling: He was angry. Showing: He threw his soda bottle at my head.

2. Use detailed description Telling: The weather was bad, reflecting his angry mood.

Showing: Matching his angry mood, the moon refused to shine that night, the storm clouds swirled in angry circles, and the wind blew icy gusts against his neck.

3. Use dialogue Telling: I made it plain that we needed to leave the party, but he said that he wanted to stay for one more dance. Reluctantly, I agreed.

Showing: “Let’s go home now,” I urged. “Come on, the night’s still young,” he replied. “Let’s stay for one more dance.” “Okay, but that’s all – just one more dance,” I insisted.

4. Give concrete details Telling: On the way home, he drove the car so recklessly that he frightened me.

Showing: On the way home, he raced his Cherokee through the narrow streets, slashed onto Morgan Boulevard, ran two red lights, and squealed to a stop in my driveway. I sat gasping in fear, unable to speak or to open my door.

Show Don’t Tell Examples Telling: The girls were excited.

Showing: Giggles and screams filled the arena. The soft curls were now damp with perspiration and the anticipation of the event. The girls held tightly to each other in a mock effort to contain themselves. Arms flailed upward, and voices echoed in varying tones. The moment was here.

Telling: The room was vacant.

Showing: The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cobwebs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well-worn floor. The light revealed the peeling paint on the walls and the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.

The pizza was delicious.

Steam rising up off the melted cheese made my mouth water. The first bite, my teeth sinking into the cheese through the tomato sauce and into the moist crust, made me chew and swallow rapidly. Even the cheese and tomato sauce, sticking to my fingertips, begged to be licked.

He is angry.

Sitting at his desk, his jaw tightened. His eyes flashed heat waves at me. The words erupted from his mouth, "I want to talk to you after class." The final hiss in his voice warned me about his feelings.

The morning was beautiful.

Behind the mountains, the sun peaked brightly, ready to start a new day. The blue sky remained silent yet showed signs of sadness. The wind whispered through the trees as the cheerful sun rose. The birds sang gently by my window as if they wanted to wake me up.

The coffee was enjoyable.

She cradled the mug in both hands and leaned her head over it in the rising steam. Pursing her lips, she blew softly over the clouded surface and let her eyelids drop. Her shoulders rose slightly as she breathed in, and she hummed with her head low. I lifted the tiny porcelain pitcher and poured a brief rotating arch of white into the black depths of my own cup. She opened her eyes, and we looked at each other across the table without speaking.

Telling: It was raining out. Showing: The rain pelted against my face, stinging my cheeks and eyes. Rivulets of water ran down my back. I pulled my collar tighter around my neck and bent head first into the rain. Telling: She was angry. Showing: Her face reddened as her voice rose to a shout. Her eyes were like slits as she waved her arms in the air, and she screamed and pointed at her brother.

Telling: The old man stood in the grass and relaxed as the sun went down.

Showing: The grass caressed his feet and a smile softened his eyes. A hot puff of air brushed against his wrinkled cheek as the sky paled yellow, then crimson, and within a breath, electric indigo.

Telling: It was foggy.

Showing: The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. - excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

Telling: The trees are bent over from the heavy ice. Showing: When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair| Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. - excerpt from "Birches" by Robert Frost

Telling: The girl is in love.

Showing: She's so happy, this girl, she's sending out sparks like a brush fire, so lit with life her eyes could beam airplanes through fog, so warm with his loving we could blacken our toast on her forehead. The phone rings and she whispers to it "I love you." The cord uncoils and leaps to tell him she said it, the receiver melts in her hand as if done by Dali, the whole room crackles and we at the breakfast table smile but at safe distance having learned by living that love so without insulation can immolate more than the toast. - LoVerne Brown

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." - Ernest Hemingway