“Show don’t tell,” is one of the enduring cliches of fiction writing–at least the teaching of it. It’s stressed so often you’d think there was something unclean about narrative that summarizes action rather than showing it.
It’s an admitted overcorrection at the start of the learning process, but there’s a solid reason for it: new fiction writers have a way of defaulting to narrative. In fact it’s not uncommon to see a writing student’s first few stories rendered almost entirely in narrative summary. Like this:
Bob’s career at college was pretty short. He didn’t like his roommate and so things kept building up inside him until he couldn’t help but complain. His roommate was hotheaded and responded angrily. They had an intense discussion and Bob decided the best thing for him to do was move out. As soon as he had found a place, he left, and that’s how he met Jane. She just happened to live in the complex where he moved. She was hoping to meet an interesting boy and had just about given up….
…and so on and so on.
That’s a paragraph of narrative summary. It covers a lot of ground, but notice how there’s no action in it; only reports of action.
Breaking out of narrative mode is hard for newbies, but this is how fiction delivers the goods–information, sensory experience, emotion, empathy (“I was on the edge of my seat!”). An experienced writer would use the first two sentences above to set up a scene: the confrontation with the roommate.
But what if the larger plan forbids a full scene right there. What if the writer is looking toward more significant action a few pages later, and the entire roommate passage is only an extended set-up for that? But the roommate scene is too good to be glossed over in a a summary. How then, without killing the momentum, can that confrontation be shown? The answer is the “half-scene.”
The mechanism of the half-scene is actually simple: a fragment of scene is folded into a passage of narrative summary. Often it can be a line or two of description and a simple exchange of dialogue.
He talked all morning, nonstop. Neighbors came and went, but he didn’t seem to care who was there or who wasn’t. Hours went by and the words kept coming. Ellen listened sometimes, and napped at others. He didn’t seem to care whether she listened or not. Toward dusk he began to slow down. There were longer and longer pauses in his flow. When the last neighbor was gone, he stopped. He looked at Ellen as if he had just waked up.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Ellen took his arm. “Are you hungry?” she said.
“I want a steak.”
Outside they hailed a cab and rode over to the West Side where the good steak houses were…. etc. etc.
Note where the half-scene occurs: it kicks in at: “when the last neighbor was gone” and runs through: “I want a steak.” The intention is to embellish a rather tepid flow of summary by grabbing a moment in real time, and folding it into the narrative.
What happens in that moment? He looks at her, he speaks, she takes his arm, she speaks, he answers. For those few lines, NOTHING IS BEING SUMMARIZED. Suddenly you are no longer hearing about it, but watching it. For that moment, you are there. It’s all real time, and the effect is bracing.
Fiction readers want to be drawn directly into the emotions of a story, to SEE, HEAR, TASTE, SMELL the action. If they wanted detached reports, they’d be getting all they need in the morning paper. So whenever you see an opportunity, use the half-scene to refresh your reader’s involvement with a dose of presence.
Endnote:
Like other “rules,” this one can be, and for most, should be suspended while writing first draft. Nothing should slow down the flow of raw first draft. I’m a case in point: if you’re following the progress of Regenerating Jeff, my first-draft novel, it may seem like I’m not practicing what what I preach. As the narrative flows, possible scenes go by, summarized but unwritten. I’m fully aware of it, however: this early-stage limitation is “my method,” and I’ve come to accept it.
It is how I tell myself the story.
In subsequent drafts, much of that narrative will be replaced by scenes. But I know my foibles too well: if I had to worry about the show-tell balance in writing my the first draft, I would never get past page 20 before giving up.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
