But does this mean that, to fight off the malign influence of the military-industrial complex, we must reverse the advice and begin telling instead of showing?
When I think of fiction writers who are infamous for favouring telling over showing, I think of Ayn Rand. I can’t think of any other writer of enduring fame who is so committed to propagating a specific ideology in the pages of her novels. John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged is ninety pages long, and for all intents and purposes might as well be the voice of Rand herself. Yet Rand’s non-communist credentials are hardly in doubt.
What’s missed in the opposition to “Show don’t tell” on this basis is the reason it is so successful. When applied moderately, without stripping necessary telling, it naturally produces more impactful writing. Novels that, in service of communicating a thesis, ignore the sensory and emotional world of their characters do so at the expense of those characters. They prematurely end the life those characters would have had in the reader’s mind.
I think that link agrees with me? They say that show don't tell is good advice, in moderation.
Editing in because, wow, even moreso
“Telling” can also mean “telling the reader what to think”. In my view, this truly is bad creative writing. If it is obvious to the reader that you want them to hate a certain idea, or a certain character, the reader will lose his sense of agency. Reading, too, is a creative process. Ultimately, a novel is a series of collaborations between the writer and each of her readers, the end result of which are interpretations that live on in those readers’ minds. To tell the reader how to interpret one’s novel as he reads it is, put simply, a violation of his boundaries.
It is useful writing advice for modern audiences (in part because that’s what modern audiences, like you,
Who's making it personal again?
have come to expect so it becomes self-reinforcing) but I wouldn’t call it fundamental, considering how the “show, don’t tell” mandate is relatively new when it comes to the very old canon of literature and literary analysis going back thousands of years.
Aristotle, Poetics
If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents…. Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore, which do not make this manifest, or in which the speaker does not choose or avoid anything whatever, are not expressive of character.
Averroes, 12th century Spanish writer
Poetry should not employ the weapons of rhetoric or persuasion. It should simply imitate, and it should do so with such vivid liveliness that the object imitated appears to be present before us. If the poet discards this methods for straightforward reasoning, he sins against his art.
I'm sure I can find more examples, if you like. Isn't show, don't tell, like, the entire idea behind poetry?
My intention is just to discuss the concepts, I still don't see what I said that was personal.
When you said that show don't tell isn't fundamental, I took that to mean that you don't consider it good advice, except in a modern context, because of how it's been pushed. If you agree that it's generally good advice (in moderation) regardless of time and place, then we're on the same page. Of course the specific phrase is relatively new, but as I showed, the fundamental concept has been around since ancient times.
As an aside, like, the CIA also funded Jackson Pollock and I don't think his paint splatters are anti-communist. They also funded psychics and shit. They were just throwing shit at a wall to see what would stick, imo.
Starting off with a :jesse-wtf: and telling me I went off the rails isn’t exactly an invitation for anything but a defensive response.
I said that I agreed with your OP. I didn't understand what the fuck you were talking about so I used the wtf emoji. I apologize if it came across as a personal insult, as that was not my intent.
“Show don’t tell” isn’t new, but the school of thought that started making it more mandatory as an expectation is. Especially if that’s taught in a sloppy and slapdash way, it leads to a lot of author intent failing to get delivered. That doesn’t mean that a bad classroom is necessary for intent getting lost in the “showing” and “not telling.” For example, Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” never actually was intended to be a direct criticism of the meat processing industry but instead a wider-reaching message that culminated in a happy ending with Sinclair himself as governor of California. As the well known quote goes, he aimed for the heart and hit the stomach, and we got the FDA as a result. Still a good thing, at least.
I agree that it's possible for the message to get lost this way, but for the record I'll note that "The Jungle" predates the CIA and "show, don't tell." Language is an imperfect tool of communication, and the intended message can be lost just as easily through telling as through showing. If I write, "John was sad," then I'm basically just hoping that the reader has the same feeling come to mind that I'm thinking of, because sadness can vary greatly in how it feels and in intensity. Furthermore, as words change in meaning over time and across languages, the meaning can easily become lost or changed. If I instead describe how John expressed his sadness, then the reader is much less dependent on shared understanding of specific words. If I write, "John could not be roused from his bed for three days," then you can better understand what I'm trying to convey, and that meaning is more robust across language and culture.
Yes, the CIA funded some slapdash things, but I still disagree about both the intent and success of “show don’t tell” academic reformations. A lot of Marxist theory is very wordy to the point of it being a meme even here (“read theory!”), while by contrast capitalist ideologies and liberalism are very easy to absorb and have been internalized for generations in the United States with very little contest.
It may be that the tell-iness of classic Marxist theory factored in to the promotion of show don't tell. But this doesn't mean that show don't tell is an inherently anti-communist thing, as those works are only one way of expressing the underlying concepts.
Speaking personally, I was raised Catholic. In Catholicism, there is one, exact way to talk about certain things, such as the Trinity. This parody does a good job of satirizing it. The fact that the Trinity cannot really be expressed except by telling proves that it's a weak, hollow concept, really just a series of words to recite. The nature of truth is that it has substance - when something is true, there are many different ways to show that it's true, many different ways of expressing it. Showing is helpful because that sort of hollow dogma cannot be shown. As such, when a concept is shown, it is generally more compelling.
To teach a single dogmatic interpretation and to open things up to the point that all interpretations are equally valid are both extremes which don't require any real understanding of the nuance of the text. The proper balance is one of informed individual opinions. If an interpretation is based on factual inaccuracies, misinterpretations, or bad faith, then that interpretation is not valid.
However, this "proper balance" is not a balance between dogma and modern literary criticism. The balance is between dogma and lazy/apathetic teachers. "All interpretations are equally valid" is a strawman version of The Death of the Author, it is not a serious academic position.
I just think we're on different wavelengths tbh. I didn't understand how I was making it personal and now I don't understand how I'm invalidating your experiences. I'm just arguing that your experiences were the result of bad teacher(s) rather than ideology, I'm not saying that they didn't happen or anything. Honestly I don't really want to continue the conversation.
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Did I?? I thought I just said that I didn't agree with or understand where you were coming from.
I think that link agrees with me? They say that show don't tell is good advice, in moderation.
Editing in because, wow, even moreso
Who's making it personal again?
Aristotle, Poetics
Averroes, 12th century Spanish writer
I'm sure I can find more examples, if you like. Isn't show, don't tell, like, the entire idea behind poetry?
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My intention is just to discuss the concepts, I still don't see what I said that was personal.
When you said that show don't tell isn't fundamental, I took that to mean that you don't consider it good advice, except in a modern context, because of how it's been pushed. If you agree that it's generally good advice (in moderation) regardless of time and place, then we're on the same page. Of course the specific phrase is relatively new, but as I showed, the fundamental concept has been around since ancient times.
As an aside, like, the CIA also funded Jackson Pollock and I don't think his paint splatters are anti-communist. They also funded psychics and shit. They were just throwing shit at a wall to see what would stick, imo.
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I said that I agreed with your OP. I didn't understand what the fuck you were talking about so I used the wtf emoji. I apologize if it came across as a personal insult, as that was not my intent.
I agree that it's possible for the message to get lost this way, but for the record I'll note that "The Jungle" predates the CIA and "show, don't tell." Language is an imperfect tool of communication, and the intended message can be lost just as easily through telling as through showing. If I write, "John was sad," then I'm basically just hoping that the reader has the same feeling come to mind that I'm thinking of, because sadness can vary greatly in how it feels and in intensity. Furthermore, as words change in meaning over time and across languages, the meaning can easily become lost or changed. If I instead describe how John expressed his sadness, then the reader is much less dependent on shared understanding of specific words. If I write, "John could not be roused from his bed for three days," then you can better understand what I'm trying to convey, and that meaning is more robust across language and culture.
It may be that the tell-iness of classic Marxist theory factored in to the promotion of show don't tell. But this doesn't mean that show don't tell is an inherently anti-communist thing, as those works are only one way of expressing the underlying concepts.
Speaking personally, I was raised Catholic. In Catholicism, there is one, exact way to talk about certain things, such as the Trinity. This parody does a good job of satirizing it. The fact that the Trinity cannot really be expressed except by telling proves that it's a weak, hollow concept, really just a series of words to recite. The nature of truth is that it has substance - when something is true, there are many different ways to show that it's true, many different ways of expressing it. Showing is helpful because that sort of hollow dogma cannot be shown. As such, when a concept is shown, it is generally more compelling.
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To teach a single dogmatic interpretation and to open things up to the point that all interpretations are equally valid are both extremes which don't require any real understanding of the nuance of the text. The proper balance is one of informed individual opinions. If an interpretation is based on factual inaccuracies, misinterpretations, or bad faith, then that interpretation is not valid.
However, this "proper balance" is not a balance between dogma and modern literary criticism. The balance is between dogma and lazy/apathetic teachers. "All interpretations are equally valid" is a strawman version of The Death of the Author, it is not a serious academic position.
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Ok then. You are wrong. Show don't tell is good and you should agree with it
Telling is literally so easy wtf
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So I take it you agree with me now, since I told you what to believe? Or was I unclear?
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I just think we're on different wavelengths tbh. I didn't understand how I was making it personal and now I don't understand how I'm invalidating your experiences. I'm just arguing that your experiences were the result of bad teacher(s) rather than ideology, I'm not saying that they didn't happen or anything. Honestly I don't really want to continue the conversation.