Better Writing than Telling or Showing
When you ask writers (or prolific readers) what makes truly great vs. good writing, there are a number of things that people tend to say. Everyone wants to see characters who jump off the page, who are so unique and full of life that they’re unforgettable and become household names. We all want to lose ourselves in a book that has such a great balance of tension and pacing that we can’t put it down. And most of us love prose that captivates and transports us. But few people mention one of the most powerful writing tools there is: the ability to evoke emotion in the reader.
Even fewer seem to understand what that means.
I know what that’s like. I used to think that showing was the highest and best writing. After all, we like to say show don’t tell as if it’s the end of all great writing, when really it’s just the beginning. But then I read Donald Maass’s book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction. I continue to reread it because it’s an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, eye-opening look at the best way to engage readers: to cause them to walk in the main character’s footsteps. Telling doesn’t create that experience. Even showing only sometimes does. But evoking almost always does.
Telling vs. Showing vs. Evoking
Let’s look at an example to see what these three look like. In this example, your main character’s best friend is moving away. They’ve been inseparable since early childhood. Now, as pre-teens, Dani is watching as Mila’s parents load the last of their things in the SUV and drive away. Dani feels a sense of loss that she struggles to understand. She knows that she may never see her friend again. How would you write this scene? I’ll show you three abbreviated examples of what I might do – one for each type of writing.
Telling
Dani felt an emptiness growing in her chest as she watched Mila’s father stack cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets in the back of their Ford Explorer. A desperate desire to scream, to tell them to stay, to grip the car with her fingers and refuse to let go. Instead, she stood and mirrored Mila’s smiling face, and told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, she knew that she had lost something she would most likely never regain.
Comments: Ok. This paragraph isn’t terrible but it isn’t great either. In some ways it might even cause readers to feel something, especially if they’ve experienced something similar. And of course, there’s a place for some telling in our writing. When and how much though is another discussion, for another day.
Let’s try stepping it up a notch.
Showing
Dani clutched her phone, open to the photos she and Mila had taken at camp earlier that summer. She watched Mila’s father stack cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets in the back of their Ford Explorer. A weight pressed down on her chest. She fought against the welling tears that struggled to fill her eyes. She felt her fingers twitch, longing to grip the SUV’s door handle and refuse to let go. Instead, she stood and mirrored Mila’s smiling face, and told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, a deafening roar of static filled her ears. A cold tremor seized her heart, building a wall of ice that left room for nothing else.
Comments: Notice that I haven’t changed the story much. That’s intentional. The story is what the story is, but there are good, better and best ways to say the same thing. In this second example, I think you can see how much better this scene is. Here we see Dani desperately holding onto her memories (the photos on her phone) and fighting against her rising emotions. In the end, we see the death of that piece of her heart that held her friendship with Mila. We see it much better than if the writer tells us that she has lost something precious.
Notice also that there’s still some telling here. There’s a healthy mix of both showing and telling. Great writing doesn’t eliminate the usefulness of occasionally telling (or showing as we’ll see in a moment). We see the cold tremor seizing her heart, which shows us that something in her feels as if it’s dying. And we’re told that she’s building a wall of ice around her heart to close herself off from further pain. But can we do better?
Yes, we can.
Evoking
Dani clutched her phone, open to the photos she and Mila had taken at camp earlier that summer. She watched Mila’s father stacking their last things in the back of their Ford Explorer. But instead of seeing cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets, the leaves that swept around her feet took her back to the prior Fall. To her grandmother lying cold and still at the front of the church. To the once-cheerful yellow kitchen, Oma’s favorite cookbook leaning against the mixer, collecting dust. To her grandfather, seated on the edge of his bed, the quilt no longer draped over the end where it belonged. His expression a smile that no longer creased his eyes. To a quieter Christmas with an empty chair at one end of the table, the easy laughter of former years gone, replaced with a stiff formality.
As Dani listened to Mila’s lilting voice and watched her smiling face, she told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be so fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, a deafening roar of static filled her ears. A cold tremor seized her heart, building a wall of ice that left room for nothing else.
Comments: Notice that evocative writing often requires more real estate than showing, which in turn tends to use more words than telling. However, notice how much richer and more profound this simple scene has become. Now readers are gripped by the same deep sense of loss that Dani is feeling. That’s what we want.
We also learn more about Mila – about her past and the loss that she has suffered and about the changes in her family over the last year. This type of associative evocative writing gives the writer the opportunity to show more of the character’s history and experiences, leaving readers with a richer perspective of the story world.
In addition, if you compare the evoking example with the prior showing one, you’ll see that I haven’t mentioned any of what Mila is feeling. No mention of the weight in her chest, the welling tears, the desperate desire to hold onto something that’s already lost. But did you feel exactly those things as you read the evoking example? Hopefully you did.
The most powerful writing doesn’t need to tell or show readers what the character is feeling if the readers are already feeling it.
Readers know what Dani is experiencing because they’re experiencing it themselves.
Lastly, notice that evocative writing is sometimes executed with allusions that step outside of the immediate scene, those that are more of an association. We’re calling forth some of the images, impressions and memories that Dani might have at this moment. Images that she associates with this experience of loss. We can’t wander off and describe someone else who lost a loved one. But for Dani to suddenly picture a similar moment of grieving in her life is entirely natural and likely to resonate with readers.
Conclusion
Evoking takes your readers on an emotional journey. It causes them to feel. There are a number of ways to do this – more than just the associative method I’ve used above. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend checking out Donald Maass’s book The Emotional Craft of Fiction. He walks through several of these, with great examples.
However, the key takeaway is that neither showing nor telling can cause readers to feel what the main character is feeling as well as evocative writing can. If you want your writing to be the best that it can be, you need to build this skill.
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