Authors are frequently told to show instead of tell. But what does that mean? I mean technically, you are telling a story--right? The standard example is to say:
She felt sad. (telling)
She bawled her eyes out. (showing)
The problem with oversimplifying this is that sometimes, telling is just as important as showing--I know I will probably now be flogged for sacrilege.
This blogger explains it well.
So without any context, "She felt sad" would actually be the better choice above. There are actually a lot of reasons why someone could be bawling their eyes out. If you do not give enough context, your reader may be confused. If for example, Amelia is in the kitchen cutting an onion with her eyes glued to her favorite movie the day after her husband had died, and her son, whom she has not seen in a long time, walks through the door and sees her bawling her eyes out, the reader cannot really conclude why she is bawling her eyes out--even though plenty of showing and setting the scene has occurred. Is she happy to see her son? Is she happy that Scarlett is going to start over again at Tara? Is she affected by the chemicals in the onions? Is she sad because her husband had died?
I've seen someone else advise that instead of saying, "Jim walked into the store," you should say, "Jim skipped/sauntered into the store." Although it is true that you should be more descriptive, this is not really the difference between telling and showing. Bawling someone's eyes out and being sad are not synonyms. Walking and sauntering are. Using more descriptive synonyms is important, but it is not the same as showing. Showing usually turns a single sentence into many sentences because you are creating a mood with your writing instead of just stating a fact.
Some have said telling is giving all the details:
Dad sat up in bed. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stretched. He stood up. He walked to his drawer. He opened the drawer. He pulled out his socks. He carried his socks back to the bed. He sat down on the bed. He lifted his right foot. He slid one sock on his right foot. He set his right foot down. He lifted his left foot. He slid a sock on his left foot. He set his left foot down.
and showing would be:
Dad got up and put on his socks.
However, this is actually removing unnecessary details. It is another important part of writing, but not really the difference between telling and showing. If you notice you are using the same words or phrases at the beginning of several sentences in a row, you might be getting into too much detail about your character's actions.
Another place where new writers seem to do this is with dialogue. If you explained something in detail to one person in the story--for example, what happened while the character was at work, you do not have to repeat the same thing to everyone that your characters proceed to tell the same thing--i.e. he comes home and tells his wife what he did, then his son comes home and he explains it to him, then his friend stops by and he explains it to him. Simply saying, "He explained what he did at work to XXX," is fine. Realism to the point of tediousness is best left for authors like Beckett.
There is a guy on
this Reddit who nails it, even though it doesn't seem that he realizes he has nailed it. In fact, it seems he has completely confused telling and showing:
"Agatha, Jim's mom, handed out packed lunches to Jim and his two younger brothers. 'I'll see you tonight.'" (showing)
Agatha said, "Here is your lunch, Jim, my eldest son of three. Goodbye. You must now leave. I'll see you tonight." (telling)
"...King Vortigen is planning an attack on Willow Creek which, in case you don't know, is in the Earth Realm..."
So, ignoring that the sentence is not punctuated properly and that the author says almost exactly the same thing a few pages later, what makes this telling? You could say that it is in dialogue and that is why it is telling, but it did not have to be in dialogue. One aspect of "telling" is when you "break the fourth wall" as actors say. It is when the way you have worded something abruptly pulls the reader out of the world you have created and reminds him/her that s/he is reading a book.
Saying, "King Vortigen is planning an attack on Willow Creek in the Earth Realm," would have informed the reader of the same thing, but it would not have done it in a clunky way that pulls the reader out of what is happening. Now, there are some authors and styles of writing fiction that deliberately pull the reader out of the book (The Princess Bride comes to mind), but those stories pull the reader out in an almost rhythmic way. When this style is done correctly, the story itself--if read without the deliberate interruptions--keeps you immersed in it.
All the people in the book who are being told Willow Creek is on Earth in the Amazon example should and do already know this. The only purpose for the statement it to try to let the reader (subtly?) know this bit of information in case s/he did not read the first book (although it was probably equally blatant in there).
So, going back to the first example, consider, "Amelia, our main character, was in the kitchen of her house. Yesterday, her husband died and had a funeral, but she did not like him." The wall was broken by directly telling the reader that Amelia is the main character, and she did not like her husband. Although I can think of many reasons why you would have to tell the reader your character is sad, I can think of few reasons why you would have to tell the reader directly that Amelia does not like her husband, but it is a very directional thing. If someone says something and the character responds to it and it is important for the reader to knows how the character feels immediately when responding, "telling" the reader would be appropriate--needed actually. If on the other hand, you are setting up a scene and the reader does not need to know something immediately but can meander around the scene picking up clues, you want to "show."
Showing would be, "Amelia stood in the kitchen cutting an onion--irritated that it was having more of an effect on her eyes than her husband's funeral did, yesterday. Maybe she should have snuck an onion in her purse so her mother-in-law would not have complained about her lack of emotion so loudly in front of everyone. She kept looking over at her favorite movie playing on her iPhone, but her mind just could not get into it. She wondered how she was going to pay off all the debts that louse of a man had run up without him. Suddenly, she heard the back screen door slam shut and turned to see her son standing inside it. "Jimmy!" she said with a smile through her tears and ran to embrace him."
