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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25708
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25708
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Show vs tell is an overblown and misunderstood idea imported into fiction writing from screenwriting. It was originally coined to train novelists to write for the screen. (You can see how novel-like the storytelling was in many early movies. The screen had to struggle to find its own storytelling style, and "show, don't tell" was the watchword of that emerging style.)

Stories, as you say, are told. The novelist does not have any of the visual and auditory tools of the filmmaker. They only have words, and words are the tools of telling.

But it is entirely orthogonal to the issue of description. The amount of description in a story is determined by the importance of setting and of mood to the story being told. What you want is a story that is action oriented rather than, say, oriented to character or place. Many advocates of the "show don't tell" approach actually mean something very similar to this, as they advocate for a style that is almost all dialogue and action sequences.

EDIT: As to "why do so many veteran writers hammer beginners like me to 'Show, not tell.'?" -- Because most writers (not to mention editors and agents) are not trained in the tools of literary analysis, and generally they are not willing to put the work in to deeply analyse your stuff, so they reach for the great catch all: show don't tell. What should you take this to mean? 95% of the time it simply means that your writing is dull.

Original score: 15