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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38209
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38209
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Please understand that "third person limited" and its ilk are categories of analysis applied to works after the fact by those who find it entertaining to categorize everything. They are not rules that you are obliged to follow. You are not obliged to pick one box and stick to it.

Also note that the only means of showing in a novel is telling. In a movie, you can literally show things by filming them without commentary. But on the page, everything is told because everything is words. If show don't tell means anything on the page is means to show the reader A by telling them B. Thus you show them that the character is sad by telling them that tears are running down their cheeks. But telling -- telling that tears are running down their cheeks -- is the instrument by which showing is achieved.

But you can't do this for everything. It would get to be unbearably tedious. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a viewer can take in a picture, and all it tells, at a glance, but it takes quite a long time to read a thousand words. If you want someone to get something at a glance (because your pacing depends on it, or because it is a supporting detail for something else that your are trying to show) you can't spend a thousand words on it, you have to tell it directly. And this includes saying "X felt sad" when that is an incidental detail that leads to something else.

Telling has the virtue of economy. Showing has the virtue of engaging the reader in forming a conclusion for themselves. The economy of telling is essential to setting up the reader to see certain key things for themselves. Showing, on the other hand, creates an incident to which subsequent telling can refer to retrigger an emotional response economically. All teling is a reference to what has been seen or show in the past.

Showing and telling are not opposites; their relationship is iterative and supportive. You need both to write effectively. As there is a time to reap and a time to sow, so there is a time to tell and a time to show, and the only means of showing is to tell.

Original score: 4