Showing, not telling

 If there’s one stumbling block that trips up people who are trying to write genre fiction, it’s the challenge of “show, don’t tell.”  Some people don’t seem to be able to grasp the difference, and so they keep churning out narrative-based stories (“telling”) that editors reject because what they (and the readers) are looking for is scene-based writing (“showing”).

I think part of the problem is that narrative is the natural way we tell each other stories off the page.  We say, for example, “My grandfather was in the merchant marine in World War II and on his first convoy crossing, his ship was torpedoed off Newfoundland.”  We don’t verbally construct a scene, saying, “It was cold on the open bridge of the SS Minerva, two days out of Halifax. The old freighter’s constant dip and climb through the deep-troughed waves of the North Atlantic threw up a heavy spray, most of which froze on the chilled steel of the bulkhead -- but the rest seemed to be aimed directly at the beardless face of young Pete Hammond, making his first voyage into the longest, most murderous battle of the Second World War.  He thrust his fists deeper into the pockets of his sailor’s pea jacket, tucked his wind-numbed chin behind his closed collar button, and counted the minutes until the ship rang four bells, when old Albert would come up and relieve him.”

But if you want to write sf, fantasy, mysteries, romance, westerns – any of the genres – you have to overcome your default storytelling instincts and acquire a set of tools that let you create the illusion of immediacy of action (i.e., of “being there”) in the reader’s mind.  Those tools are:

·         sequentiality – the action happens, step by step, before the reader’s eyes;

·         detail – rather than generic, generalized descriptions, you draw the reader’s eye (and ear and nose and sense of touch) to specific, precise details from which the reader will confabulate the whole;

·         point of view – genre fiction is told from the point of view (pov) of the characters, rather than from the god’s-eye view of an omniscient narrator;  the preferred pov is called third-person-limited, i.e., each scene is anchored in one (and only one – that’s why it’s called “limited”) character’s view and appreciation of what’s going on in that scene, and that character is referred to as he, or she, or it, as the case may be.  First-person pov, where the point of view is that of the protagonist or another character who refers to him/her/itself as “I,” is less common in genre fiction, but is acceptable.  Second-person pov – as in a story that begins “You open the door and ease yourself into the room” – is usually not an easy sell;

·         character sensorium – you deepen the illusion of immediacy by showing the action in the scene through the pov character’s senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and the other lesser senses (balance, hair-raising response, etc.) to vicariously stimulate the reader’s own sensorium;  using the technique effectively requires picking the right sensory details that will best cause the reader to confabulate and identify with the character’s situation;

·         conflict – every scene is built around a conflict, whether major or minor, whether physical, verbal, spiritual, psychological, and the scene begins when that conflict begins and ends when it ends.

Now here is an example of the same action being told in narrative and shown in scene writing.

NARRATIVE

Armored and with sword and shield slung across his back, the brave warrior Arctor scaled the windy heights of Bran Covin.  The way was steep.  At times, on the bracken-covered lower slopes, he stooped to all fours, and at the end he must scale a sheer cliff, clinging by toe holds and fingertips.  All day he climbed until, high up where the air grew thin, he came at last to a wide ledge backed by a dark-mouthed cave.  From within its shadows came the troll Blodmir, roaring and wielding a great club of lighting-blasted oakwood set with stone points.  They fought until Arctor's shield was battered to a shapeless mass and Blodmir bled from a dozen cuts, yet still either might have won the day.  But, though weakened from the battle and the scant air, the hero delivered a cunning stroke that lamed the troll, then thrust him bodily out into the empty air beyond the ledge, to fall to the sharp rocks far below.  Then Arctor entered the noisome cave to claim the treasure he had won.

 

SCENE

The sun was just clearing the eastern horizon as Arctor set a booted foot on the lowest slope of Bran Covin.  The massif reared high above him, its upper heights bare rock wreathed in mist, its steep lower slopes clad in dense heather and clumps of thistle that tugged at his coarse leggings with each step.  The morning air was chill against his face but soon he felt trickles of sweat coursing down his ribs beneath the padded linen hauberk and the tight-ringed mail that covered his torso. 

By mid morning, he had reached ground so steep that he stopped to sling his shield across his back, cinching its carrying strap tight across his chest.  He yanked on the baldric that supported his scabbarded broadsword until it too hung from one shoulder.  Then, bent-kneed and with hands grasping at the bracken, he pushed and pulled himself up the precipitous slope until he came to a field of stones that had broken off and fallen from the heights above.  Beyond the jumble of sharp-edged debris a gray wall of weather-cracked rock rose sheer before him.

It was noon now and he sat on a boulder, drinking from his water bottle and chewing a lump of field bread as his keen eyes sought for a succession of crevices and outcrops that would be his route up the cliff.  An hour later he was high above where he had sat, and higher still above the slope where he had fought the bracken.  Now his face was pressed against the sun-warmed stone, fingertips blindly seeking above him for the next crack while the inner edge of his boots rested precariously on another small imperfection in the vertical rock.

At mid-afternoon, he found his way blocked by a outcrop that bulged out of the cliff face.  Sweat stinging his eyes, his fingers torn and nearly numb, his shoulder muscles afire from the strain of the sustained climb, he worked his way sideways and found the base of a crevice that went straight up.  It was a perfect width for him to climb by pressing his palms and boots against the rock and he made good progress.

Near sundown, he levered himself up onto a ledge three times as broad as Arctor was tall, backed by a wide-mouthed cave.  Up here the air was so thin that the hero must take deep breaths to keep his head from spinning and his sight from blurring.  The inhalations brought him the rank odor that emanated from the cave, a mingling of long-unwashed flesh and the sweet stench of rotting meat.  He kept his eyes on the darkness as he loosened the cinch of his shield so he could swing it forward and slip his left arm through the padded brace, while his sword hand went over his shoulder to grasp the sword's hilt.  The long blade slipped from its scabbard's oiled embrace with a sound like a serpent's hiss.

From within the cave he heard the faint rasp of a claw upon stone, then from the darkness rushed the red-eyed troll Blodmir, half again Arctor's height despite his bent-kneed gait, his lipless mouth sending a roar of red rage past dagger-sharp teeth.  With one clawed hand he raised a length of lightning-blasted oakwood, black and iron-hard, as long as Arctor's leg, its thick end studded with points and blades of razor-edged flint.

Arctor took the club's first blow on his upraised shield, felt the shock race up his arm to his shoulder even as the clash of wood on iron rang in his ears.  He swung his sword in a lateral slash at Blodmir's ribs, the weapon's edge laying open the pebbly skin but bouncing off the stony ribs beneath.  The troll roared again, pain mingled with rage, and brought the club down once more.  The upper rim of Arctor's shield buckled inward, and the force of the impact numbed the hero's shield hand.

He stepped back, feinted to draw his opponent off balance, then tried a straight thrust at the troll's naked belly.  But Blodmir swept the sword away with the back of one great hand, ignoring the wounds the honed edge opened on his fingers, and again he hammered with the length of blasted wood on the shield rim, driving Arctor almost to his knees.

The shield was no use, the man saw.  As the troll came on again, he flung it, edge-on, at Blodmir's red eyes and followed with another thrust that pierced the opponent's hip.  The troll seemed to feel no pain but swept the club in a sideways blow that would have crushed Arctor's ribs had he not leaped back.  Still, it was a near thing -- a flint set into the head of the cudgel scratched across the rings of Arctor's mail, striking sparks.

And now it was cut and duck, slash and spring back, his aim to bleed the troll into weakness while avoiding the long-armed sweeps of the crude weapon.  The ledge grew slippery with Blodmir's blood and Arctor's deepest breaths of the thin air were barely enough to keep the dizziness from slowing him.  His vision grew red at the edges and he labored to draw air into his lungs, the sword growing ever heavier in his hand.

But Blodmir was slowing too, the rage in his eyes giving way first to a look of puzzlement, then doubt.  Limping from a wound in one calf, he blundered forward again, swung his club at Arctor's ankles.  But the man leaped over the cudgel, then tucked and rolled between the troll's bandy legs, springing to his feet behind Blodmir.  The effort caused his head to spin and the red in his vision darkened to black.  But he saw the tendons where they stood out in the back of the monster's knee and thrust his sword's point at them.

The cords parted in a rush of blood.  Blodmir's roar was more of a bleat as the torn leg collapsed beneath him.  He tried to turn, meaning to strike at Arctor but the man went forward, the sword held level before him like a quarter staff, and shoved against the troll's hip.  Off-balance, teetering on one leg, Blodmir staggered back a step and Arctor came at him again, shoving with the flat of the sword.

The monster moaned, tried to raise the club for one more strike, but Arctor stepped beneath the uplifted arm and, panting, his head aswim, he used the last of his failing strength to push the troll back another step.

It was a step that brought Blodmir's splayed foot to the edge of the precipice.  The friable rock split and cracked, and in a moment the troll toppled over and out into the empty air.  Arctor saw him fall, the club swinging at nothing, the lipless mouth open in a roar the man could not hear.  Then the body struck the jagged rocks below and burst like a bladder of blood.

Arctor stepped back, set the point of his sword against the stone beneath him and leaned on it for a long moment until his lungs could get enough from the air to keep him from swooning.  When his vision cleared, he looked to the cave.  In the darkness something glowed with a light of its own. 

On still trembling legs, the hero stepped into the foul-smelling lair to collect the treasure he had won.