fascists and communists are united in their hatred of "degenerate" art, so i'm fine with it. if exposing the citizens of the USSR to Modern American art advanced the fall of the soviet union then w/e, if it also happened to give Rothko money to paint then that's a solid win.— cognitohazard (@bryanarchyNOW) June 3, 2021
I'm not familiar with the usage of "show don't tell" against directly politically ranting (although hell, if it was written well enough -- Grapes of Wrath was so overtly political it was banned for being communist) -- the way I've seen it used is more in the vein of Chuck Palahnuik's article:
From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.
Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.”
You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
Chucky helpfully makes my point for me by giving an example of precisely why it's bad advice and leads to less subtle writing, shallower characterization, inability to make a quick point without needing to set up an entire scene, etc.
But to be fair, I don't think the modern incarnation and those who advise it are influenced by the CIA (as much as the rule may/may not have roots there). It seems to me that since the massive rise of visual media, some people see literature as this sort of sub-art to film & television. It's implicitly lesser to them because they do not see the benefits literature has over every other medium; it does the most liftinwith 'mere' words, not images/audio, the co-imbuement into characters & description is on a level beyond even videogames, poeticism and character depth because it can tell.
Coincidentally, Chuck's novels do not display any of this.
Amateur writing communities & art critics use easy rules to shortcut their own lack of knowledge, and so the rule spreads. They devalue their own craft through this view of it as sub-art, and that literature should only be moving pictures, able to be quickly adapted to a screen in a Netflix movie or Amazon series. After all, what other goal could it have?
I'm not familiar with the usage of "show don't tell" against directly politically ranting (although hell, if it was written well enough -- Grapes of Wrath was so overtly political it was banned for being communist) -- the way I've seen it used is more in the vein of Chuck Palahnuik's article:
Chucky helpfully makes my point for me by giving an example of precisely why it's bad advice and leads to less subtle writing, shallower characterization, inability to make a quick point without needing to set up an entire scene, etc.
But to be fair, I don't think the modern incarnation and those who advise it are influenced by the CIA (as much as the rule may/may not have roots there). It seems to me that since the massive rise of visual media, some people see literature as this sort of sub-art to film & television. It's implicitly lesser to them because they do not see the benefits literature has over every other medium; it does the most liftinwith 'mere' words, not images/audio, the co-imbuement into characters & description is on a level beyond even videogames, poeticism and character depth because it can tell.
Coincidentally, Chuck's novels do not display any of this.
Amateur writing communities & art critics use easy rules to shortcut their own lack of knowledge, and so the rule spreads. They devalue their own craft through this view of it as sub-art, and that literature should only be moving pictures, able to be quickly adapted to a screen in a Netflix movie or Amazon series. After all, what other goal could it have?