McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
First verses Third
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: newtinmpls on August 08, 2011, 01:36:30 AM ---the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh: That would be one of those things that never quite made sense to me at some levels. It's all words; everything is telling.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or serious. It's the difference between:
--- End quote ---
I'm being entirely serious.
--- Quote ---SHOW: "The memory makes McAshlan's hackles rise, but he doesn't fume. His voice drops slightly in pitch and becomes icy calm. His hands rest lightly on the desk top. His eyes focus on a car corner, and his words are trimmed in Scottish. They are precise words, individual, each set apart from the next, call cast in iron and covered with chrome."
and TELL: "I could tell that remembering the situation upset him by the way he spoke."
--- End quote ---
See, one of those is a precise and accurate third-person camera-eye. The other is a first-person description which gives you the information that the first-person viewpoint isn't interested in giving you all those precise details, and that is every bit as much characterisation information for your first-person narrator as the first example is of characterisation of the person you describe.
Different techniques. Different results. Equally valid. Which one to use depends on what you care about conveying to the reader.
newtinmpls:
Me: SHOW: "The memory makes McAshlan's hackles rise, but he doesn't fume. His voice drops slightly in pitch and becomes icy calm. His hands rest lightly on the desk top. His eyes focus on a car corner, and his words are trimmed in Scottish. They are precise words, individual, each set apart from the next, call cast in iron and covered with chrome."
and TELL: "I could tell that remembering the situation upset him by the way he spoke."
"See, one of those is a precise and accurate third-person camera-eye. <snip> Different techniques. Different results. Equally valid. Which one to use depends on what you care about conveying to the reader."
I'm not asking if you prefer one or the other, or what other words you would use to describe the different techniques. My only question is: is this enough information for you to understand the distinction that I (allowing that others may vary) make when I say "Show" vs "Tell".
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: newtinmpls on August 09, 2011, 01:07:56 AM ---"See, one of those is a precise and accurate third-person camera-eye. <snip> Different techniques. Different results. Equally valid. Which one to use depends on what you care about conveying to the reader."
I'm not asking if you prefer one or the other, or what other words you would use to describe the different techniques. My only question is: is this enough information for you to understand the distinction that I (allowing that others may vary) make when I say "Show" vs "Tell".
--- End quote ---
No. Not remotely. I see two different styles of telling. It sounds like you are seeing the information you're leaving out of the shorter one and not focusing so much and the extra information you have added in.
Nickeris86:
Ok I just finished the third person rough draft opening. Like literally I just finished five minuets ago.
If you would like to check it out let me know and I'll send it to you in a PM.
As for the conversation at hand: I too prefer when an author shows rather than tells however some others show to much and get hung up on all the details *cough* Steven King *cough*.
newtinmpls:
I once went on a haunted ... stuff ... tour down in New Orleans. The tour guide went on a cute rant about how "this was the house that Anne Rice mentioned in her books" and how that could be recognized because she described a particular painting "in detail.... in great detail ... some would say in obsessive detail." Had the folks who had read her books cracking up.
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