Show, don't tell.

What does that mean? What does anything mean? What is time? What is life?

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Well, these is the standard piece of writing advice everyone encounters at some point when talking about description. It are constantly broken and really hard to nail down to a specific definition. Part of this is because the spirit of what it's trying to say is what matters, not the phrase itself.

And so the question arises – how am I supposed to show when I need to also tell people what happened?

'Show, don't tell' is the classic line here. The spirit behind this is often around emotion, character, depth, and growth.

For example, you can't show an action scene. You do have to describe what is going on (and should consider using impact words and short sentences, or continuous ones when it's all one long motion of an action). The result of the action scene can show you things about the characters involved though. How they react to being hit or what types of actions they choose informs the audience. And, in that sense, you can't tell an emotion.

How much empathy do you have for a person who says "I am sad" compared to when you see someone crying? How much do you believe someone when they tell you about a character trait you've never seen?

For example, how about when someone complains about someone they're dating. You've never met the person, never seen them, but they tell you they're really annoying and lazy, and they aren't committing to them in the relationship. Maybe, if you're close to them, you'll trust them. But, if you're really close, you'll know all their flaws too and you'll start thinking about how they're probably being unfair, how they demand a little too much, maybe a bit controlling; you'll doubt them. But if they just tell you about something this person did, about some terrible date, you get the picture real quick.

That's where the description comes in. You are using it to tell people vital information so that you can show (and convince them) other things that are true.

Non-vital is already mentioned. Sometimes, you can bend and flip these rules, telling emotion to get a sense of the room. For example, if you describe your character reacting to entering a room – their heartbeat racing, their breathing becoming shallow, a shiver running down their spine – people will get a sense that something about this room is making them nervous or scared and so you've already started to set the tone for it. You've shown a vital description. You'll still probably need to follow up with an actual description of the room. Or, if it's your horror monster, maybe you intentionally never describe them.

If you know, for example, your character picks up an object or tosses something across the room, that's a moment to describe bits and pieces of the room as it flies through. If it hits the wall, leaving a small tear on the floral wallpaper, now everyone knows the room has wallpaper and it's of flowers. That's a good trick for when you don't want to spend paragraphs describing every inch of a room. And vice-versa, you can describe a room in a manner that helps show something about your character, such as how they react to hearing the wallpaper tear or how much care they show after.

Otherwise, there are a lot of small tricks you pick up over time as you describe.

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Remember that the more time you spend on something, the more important you're making it seem in the reader's mind. Don't linger on description without intention. You generally only need to describe enough for someone to understand a scene.

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Be very cautious about repeating the same adjectives or adverbs in consecutive sentences/paragraphs, or consistently using the same number of adjectives each time, like a deep, dark, scary cave that made me feel timid, small, and scared.

Sometimes, it's done for dramatic effect. Usually it's the sort of thing a reader picks up on and starts counting in their head.

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Be careful of nonsense descriptions that sound interesting but don't help further your understanding. Avoid descriptions that repeat what the thing inherently is – it was a clock, of gears and hands. That is indeed what a clock is. Someone being a sword length away or a room being a bowshot long, for example, doesn't actually give you a sense of distance. To describe something by being vague isn't helpful either.

If we were to tell you about something that happened on our computer, we wouldn't pause to explain how a computer worked. If a character got on the bus and paid their fare, we wouldn't describe why they were paying fare or how a bus system worked. For just about everyone, that information is obvious, or extremely easy to find.

Exactly how much description is enough, and how much is too much is more art than science, and is also a function of your style, genre, and type of story you're telling.

We've covered some ground rules here but this is practice and coming to terms with how you write.

- One who reads every word of Tolkien's description of Hobbiton and forms that imaginary world in their head?

- Or the one who gets bored reading the writer describe a hole in the ground for 10 pages?

We'll look into writing effective dialogue next week.

Till then, happy reading :)