How to SHOW instead of TELL?

[CJInzana]

We all know one of the first things your told as a scriptwriter is SHOW instead of TELL whenever possible.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of this in a my first feature script I've been writing, but then I got my first response and that was the biggest flaw.

It's frustrating me to no end, because I don't really know how to fix this. I've sat here and looked at the first ten pages over and over and can't figure out how I can get rid of any of the dialogue that I'm using.

Any advice?

 

[rayw]

Ya'll are spending too much effort trying to figure out EXACTLY what CJI (the OP) vaguely posed.
Until he chimes back in we don't really know if he has a legit problem, is his first responder qualified or unqualified, is he getting hit on flowery/novely prose, or if he has the opening sequence to THE BOOK OF ELI.
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Book-of-Eli,-The.html

We don't know.

With great respect to all of you, ya'll outta chill with your speculating.

 

[directorik]

With great respect to all of you, ya'll outta chill with your speculating.

Sorry to come off as anything other than chill. Speaking only for myself of
course, I am rather enjoying this conversation. It's interesting to me to
learn that most people think "show don't tell" means less dialogue while
I have always thought of it as writing what cannot be filmed. To me the
discussion isn't about speculating, it's about learning from my fellow writers.

I'm sorry you feel we are spending too much time and effort on this. I find it
interesting. It seems others might find it interesting, too.

 

[rayw]

I think the OP oughtta step into his own thread and provide additional direction.

It's interesting to me to learn that most people think "show don't tell" means
less dialogue while I have always thought of it as writing what cannot be filmed.

I also find the points made here valid in their own ways, it's just that none of us have any idea if we're "shooting our guns into the correct bushes."
This is just blind wild fire right on our own behalves now.
CJI outta take more participation.

Is he getting critiqued on too little dialog?
Too much action?
Unfilmables?
Novely writing?
Being overly descriptive?
Constrainingly descriptive?
Is CJI going to shoot this himself?
Or is he putting this on the spec market?

We don't know because CJ isn't participating.

It's... unfortunate that other people are spending more time on his work than he is.

 

[baoliun]

I will chip in.

I think it is a fundamental question of cinematography. That is no answer will help you too much,you have to learn,try,read,copy,invent etc. all the various ways to show/tell story through visuals.

All methods can be wrongly used,for example many amateur film-makers,especially short-film makers,film 1 person talking something which is meant to be super philosophy stuff. Bad acting,no directing etc etc and you turn this movie off after 30sec.

Compare simple TELL by Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) - where he speaks about interrogation. Awesome acting as he talks to an empty seat. Shiver. Add some visuals or flashbacks how he beats a guy,lots of blood,screams and the scene is ruined.

100% agree that you should combine TELL and SHOW and combine them a lot during one scene. That requires best actors,awesome director,awesome script yo uget the drift.

 

[Alcove Audio]

My personal take on "Show don't tell" is using dialog to explaining things that can be shown or sounded.

I guess that before we continue the discussion we should all agree on a definition.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

My personal take on "Show don't tell" is using dialog to explaining things that can be shown or sounded.

I guess that before we continue the discussion we should all agree on a definition.

That's my take as well.

 

[Filman]

wikipedia

Show, don't tell is a technique often employed by writers to enable the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. The goal is not to drown the reader in heavy-handed adjectives, but rather to allow readers to experience the author's ideas by interpreting significant, well-chosen textual details.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

wikipedia

Show, don't tell is a technique often employed by writers to enable the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. The goal is not to drown the reader in heavy-handed adjectives, but rather to allow readers to experience the author's ideas by interpreting significant, well-chosen textual details.

For the written word.
Film is different and the same.

 

[directorik]

An interesting take on this discussion, ray. I, personally, am spending no time
at all on CJ’s question. I long ago forgot about it. The discussion has changed
as discussions often do on message boards to a very interesting (to me)
discussion on the old adage “Show, don’t tell”. Regardless of CJ’s answers to
your eight questions, this discussion is interesting. To me anyway. Not a blind
wild fire, but a fascinating conversation between fellow writers and filmmakers.
I’m digging it. Sorry you are not. Crazy how conversations change isn’t it?

My personal take on "Show don't tell" is using dialog to explaining things that can be shown or sounded.

So within your personal take, it would be better to show a flashback rather
than have a character tell their back story.

I’ll use a scene that I’m sure we all know; Obi Wan and Luke sitting in the
hut and Obi Wan tells Luck about his father. Your personal take is this is
telling and not showing? So the adage “show, don’t tell” would mean that
that back story (“A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine
until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi
knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.”) should have been shown
and not just told.

It is interesting. I have always thought that “show, don’t tell” meant something
like, “Bob walks home from work after a long day as an accountant.” That should
never be written in a script because it is unfilmable. Many times a character
saying a few lines of back story to establish a motivation is much better than
showing the back story.

 

[rayw]

Fair enough, Rik.

FWIW, the value of the metamorphosized conversation is a somewhat interesting exchange on what "Show, Don't Tell" actually means, even though it's been done to death.
There's always a fresh crop O' screenwriters to bring up to speed.

Here's a "classic" or typical Ray-approach to researching anything: google "define show don't tell screenwriting" then select a few interesting blurbs.
#1 http://www.writersdigest.com/editor...ts/another-take-on-show-dont-tell-for-writers
"... instead of “telling” the reader that a character is angry, why not “show” it by having him/her pick up the nearest glass and smash it against the wall? The reader will see, by that one action, just how angry the character is.

I think a particularly dangerous area where we’re tempted to “tell” rather than “show” is when we give too much background information (exposition). Sometimes, exposition can read like a boring checklist (also known as an “info dump”)"

#2 http://thefantasynovelist.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/show-dont-tell-or-is-that-the-other-way-round/
"Ask yourself at the outset: do you want to ‘see’ something that isn’t very interesting or important anyway? No? Then why would we, your readers, want to see it?

The solution: if it’s necessary to advance the plot but not that fascinating then don’t show it, tell it – get it out of the way – and do your readers a favour by advancing the story without endless meandering verbiage."

#3 http://www.craftingfiction.com/2010...ve-it-to-your-readers-in-high-definition.html
"Here’s a breakdown of what telling is:

You describe the actions of the character but do not describe the emotions or surroundings to readers. Hm, here I am trying to tell you…that’s no good. I’ll show you instead.

Telling:

Paul stood in the checkout line and watched as the zombie nonchalantly nibbled on the bag boy two lines over.

Okay, do you see the problem here? We know where Paul is and what he sees. Nothing else, though. We have no idea what Paul thinks, feels, or if he is so whacked out on drugs that this is all just a hallucination.

Let’s take a look at what the same scene looks like if we show the reader what is going on.

Showing:

That evening’s dinner fell to the tiled floor, forgotten. A stench of old death assaulted Paul’s nostrils when the automated doors slid open and the fresh air stirred the zombie’s rotting clothes. The casual way it chewed on the screaming bag boy’s arm reminded Paul of last night’s chicken legs."

#4 http://www.screenplayology.com/content-sections/screenplay-form-content/3-3/
"According to McKee’s view, exposition is notinnately bad, but it must be handled carefully:

The famous axiom ‘Show, don’t tell’ is the key. Never force words into a character’s mouth to tell the audience about the world, history, or person. Rather, show us honest, natural scenes in which human beings talk and behave in honest natural ways . . . yet at the same time indirectly pass along the necessary facts. In other words, dramatize exposition.”​

"

Yeah, two of these are about novely writing, which screenwriters should be diametrically opposed to, but the general principle is still conveyed. I think. To most of us. There's no accounting for some people.

If CJI has a pair of talking heads discussing lambs, uncles, fava beans, and a nice chianti then maybe... it is or isn't such a good thing.

I think we need some more evidence.

Personally, I need context.
A little exposition here, a little there, a third party divulgence in the next scene, and it could be done fairly well.

Look at how much has come from Obi Wan's "casual" reference to the Clone Wars.
Not bad for just a spot of tell not show.
Frankly, I never saw the storm trooper tracks in side-by-side pairs instead of single-file to hide their numbers, so, again, tell not show.
Plenty more where that came from.

The telling just has to be done right - if you're h3ll bent on doing it, and sometimes, many times, it's appropriate, IMHO.

 

[JoshL]

Futurama quote of the evening:
"You can't have your characters just SAY how they feel. That makes me angry!"

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

In all honesty, I can't agree with this unless you are making a silent film or maybe for certain parts of a documentary. In fact, I don't agree at all that SHOW or TELL are the only two options. People say they are going to "watch" or "see" a film but that's just an historical legacy and not what they really want or expect for their money. Modern audiences don't want to just be "shown" or "told" what's going on and be reduced to the role of a spectator, they want to identify with, to be involved in and to "experience" the film! All the great modern filmmakers and all the great modern films don't restrict themselves to just showing or telling but frequently "show" only half (or less) of the story and manipulate the audience, through sound, into exercising their imagination to fill in the desired blanks. This is far more involving and far more dramatic and powerful than anything you can do with a camera or dialogue alone and what sets film apart from every other visual art form! In the shower scene of Psycho we are neither "told" nor explicitly "shown" what is going on, yet at the time it was arguably the most shocking and powerful cinematic scene ever realised! Think of the opening of Apocalypse Now, Clarise searching in the dark basement in Silence of the Lambs or countless other examples. In fact, try to think of any great film which doesn't use this filmmaking tool in one way or another. This use of sound doesn't start when the picture edit is locked, it starts in the screenplay!

If you limit yourself to Show or Tell, you might have fun making the film and you might even get plaudits from other indie filmmakers but the public will just see another slow, uninvolving indie film which seems to be lacking something.

G

I think that we are not on the same page here. My perspective comes from being a writer. I should imagine that someone coming from a Director's point of view would have a very different viewpoint. To me, showing includes all of the various things that comprise perception. Sound design is an art form unto itself. There is no way that I, as a writer, in my limited verbiage can do justice to the nuanced work done by a true professional. I can say that Character A hears a particular sound. I can even describe the sound in generic terms. My description is not going to immerse the reader in the scene. I rely on the sound guys/gals to drop the viewer into the scene during the audio process. I relate the show don't tell axiom to the writing process, not the filming. Once film/video/sound starts to roll, everything that you are doing from that point forward IS showing. As I said in my previous post, if you show two people talking, you are still showing it.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Your personal take is this is telling and not showing? So the adage “show, don’t tell” would mean that that back story (“A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.”) should have been shown and not just told.

I'm not a writer, so I'm arguing from thin ice. However...

Your "Star Wars" example is only two sentences. As those sentences are spoken we see Lukes intense interest (he stops his repair work on R2D2) and we feel Obis regrets. Besides, they did three movies to cover that "flashback".

I don't know if anyone has been watching the series "Revolution" on TV, but almost a quarter of each show is flashbacks to show why the characters feel and do what they do. Having them explain - especially when the characters don't want to tell others about their past - is, to me anyway, showing and not telling.

The same sort of thing occurs in "Contact" with Ellie remembering her father; it gives you all sorts of insight into her personality and motivations. In "Casablanca" you get the entire flashback of Rick and Ilsa in Paris rather than Rick telling someone about it - not that Rick ever would. It provides depth into his feelings and motivations.

I guess what I consider "telling" is pages of dialog that can be covered by other means.

 

[CJInzana]

I read a couple of these responses. Thank you so far, I'll finish reading this later. I really appreciate all the advice from all the different sources.

Just a few notes. The guy that reviewed it is a novelist, not a screenwriter. That probably makes a big difference. He isn't wildly successful, but makes a living.

I got a few more responses afterward from others, none of them screenwriters either.

Regardless, I have a few major changes I've decided to make to the plot and a few characters. Right now I have a version that a few people are reading. I'll post the few 20 pages here.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3ahpfhe0cxIYjFZQTNRVnAyaXc

EDIT: or the whole thing, feel free to read as much or as little as you'd like.

 

[AudioPostExpert]

I think that we are not on the same page here. My perspective comes from being a writer. I should imagine that someone coming from a Director's point of view would have a very different viewpoint.

Maybe we should agree to disagree? IMHO a screenwriter isn't a writer, he/she is (or should be) a filmmaker but with a writing speciality. I don't expect a screenwriter to have my level of understanding of sound design but I do expect them to write a sceenplay which allows the director to use the art of sound design as a filmmaking tool. Of course, the same goes for the acting and cinematography for example. In other words, I expect a screenwriter to be thinking more in terms of filmmaking than purely in terms of writing. Maybe this paragraph will explain this and my last post better:

"If a script has lots of references in it to specific sounds, we might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that it is a sound-friendly script. But this isn’t necessarily the case. The degree to which sound is eventually able to participate in storytelling will be more determined by the use of time, space, and point of view in the story than by how often the script mentions actual sounds. Most of the great sound sequences in films are "pov" sequences. The photography, the blocking of actors, the production design, art direction, editing, and dialogue have been set up such that we, the audience, are experiencing the action more or less through the point of view of one, or more, of the characters in the sequence. Since what we see and hear is being filtered through their consciousness, what they hear can give us lots of information about who they are and what they are feeling. Figuring out how to use pov, as well as how to use acoustic space and the element of time, should begin with the writer. Some writers naturally think in these terms, most don’t. And it is almost never taught in film writing courses." - Randy Thom

G

 

[directorik]

I guess what I consider "telling" is pages of dialog that can be covered by other means.

I understand better where you’re coming from, Alcove. Thanks.

I see your examples as more of a personal, creative choice rather than examples
of the axiom. An axiom is something that is almost always true; certainly something
that is generally self-evident. Your example is an artistic choice - some stories work
well with a flashback, some do not. To me there is no universally recognized truth
when it comes to using flashback instead of dialogue.

In “Skyfall” (no spoiler here so no one needs to worry) there is a very nice scene
where Bond tells M about his past. It would have completely disrupted the moment
between them if there had been a flashback of Bond as a child. The “moment” was
between the two people - we needed to see them and their reactions to each other.

That’s why I believe that the axiom means a writer should never write what cannot
be filmed - like the examples I have given. Obviously you and Gonzo understand the
axiom to mean dialogue.

 

[CJInzana]

I have started my 4th big rewrite of the script. There a couple of characters that I'm going to flesh out a bit more, and I am going to try to get rid of as much dialogue as possible (or condense it if it would make more sense in certain places)

It will be interested to see the difference between these two drafts. I may keep it as an example of how to SHOW instead of SAY if it is a successful rewrite.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

I see your take on it too Rik. Makes a lot of sense.