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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24192
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

### Thought verbs

Chuck Palahniuk, an accomplished master of showing, [suggested an exercise](https://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbs) to learn not to tell. The exercise is to not use "thought verbs". Instead of telling the reader what a character thinks or feels, you have to show them how they behave. Palahniuk calls this "un-packing" the emotion or thought.

Using this exercise and Palahniuks examples, we can understand what the difference between "showing" and "telling" is.

### Incapacitating the reader

When you use thought verbs to "tell" how a character feels or what they think, you **tell the reader what to think**.

# You interpret the world for them.

When you avoid thought verbs and "show" the reader the raw version of the world,

# you allow them to think for themselves

– and to come to a different conclusion than you.

Let's look at an example.

> John loves Joan.

This tells the reader how to interpret John's behavior. While

> Every day John bought Joan a flower and walked to the other side of town to lay it on her door step - then quickly ran away so she wouldn't see him.

shows the reader what John does. And the reader might disagree with you. The reader might think that what you show is not love, but, for example, obsession, and that John is stalking Joan.

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### Hubris vs mastery

A writer who tells claims to understand the world. When I write "John loves Joan", I do not in fact tell you that John loves Joan, but that I know what love is and that I know John's mind better than he does himself.

But different people have different ideas of love. And most people don't know how they feel. They feel sexually attracted to someone, or they care for the wellbeing of someone, or they are afraid of loosing someone's care and attention. Showing means that you do not fob off the reader with an abbreviation of the story but give them the wealth of sensory input that being in the story would entail. Which requires good observational skills and a mastery of language.

* * *

### Show/tell vs point of view

Showing and telling have to be distinguished from first and third person narration. "I love Joan" is telling in first person, "Every day I put flowers in front of Joan's door" is showing in first person.

### Show/tell vs stream of consciousness

Showing and telling must also be distinguished from interiority and exteriority. The examples above take an outside view of events, and just as you can tell or show what goes on from outside, you can tell or show thought processes.

Telling interiority looks exactly like telling exteriority:

> John loves Joan.

Showing interiority can of course not completely avoid thought verbs, because we lack the words (and probably the self-reflective power) to describe the details of our thought processes, but it can "un-pack" the abbreviations and abstain from interpreting more than necessary:

> Laying the flowers on Joan's door step, he strained to listen for any sounds from within. Every creaking or bump sent a jolt of terrified lust through his tense body. John both hoped and feared that Joan would catch him, and he was both glad and disappointed as he walked away from her house.

These examples aren't well written, but I hope you can still understand the idea I'm trying to convey.

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Related questions:

- [What does "telling and not showing" mean?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/9901/what-does-telling-and-not-showing-mean)
- ["Thought" Verbs: A sign of weak writing or a stylistic choice?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/15942/thought-verbs-a-sign-of-weak-writing-or-a-stylistic-choice)
- [Writing techniques or exercises to improve ability to show rather than tell?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/15826/writing-techniques-or-exercises-to-improve-ability-to-show-rather-than-tell)
- [Skipping telling to get to the showing - pros and cons](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/16460/skipping-telling-to-get-to-the-showing-pros-and-cons)
- [How can I implement more show less tell in my writing?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/17316/how-can-i-implement-more-show-less-tell-in-my-writing)

Original score: 17