Writers in the Storm

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October 14, 2024

3 Ways Writers Can Instantly Spot Telling

By Janice Hardy

One of the problems with telling is thats is often hard for writers to know when theyre doing it.

Show, dont tell is subjective, which is why one rule doesn’t cover it all. It depends on the genre, the market, the audience, the point of view style, and even the narrative distance. What works for an omniscient third middle grade novel might feel told in a first-person romance written for adults. 

If you look at only the text, you risk missing “told prose” in your writing, since a sentence that technically shows can feel told in context. It’s important to examine the different levels of telling so you know what to look for.

Here are three places to look for told prose.

1. Telling at the Sentence Level

You’ll find most telling at the sentence level. Most of these types of tells can be caught by searching for common red flag words, such as because, since, or when.

Keep in mind “tell” is subjective. A sentence can tell and still read and work fine. It’s up to you to decide if the sentence would be stronger with or without the telling. Such tells include:

Telling that Explains

These explain the reasons why characters feel or act as they do. They also sneak into the manuscript when you fear the text isn’t clear enough and you have to explain information so readers “get it.” Most times, they really don’t need that extra help. You’ll often find filter words in these types of tell, such as “looked” and “felt.”

Telling that Summarizes

These tells take a shortcut by summarizing instead of dramatizing. They often read as though someone is watching the scene unfold from the sidelines, giving a general overview of the action. They might even sound like a summary you’d find in an outline instead of a novel. Sure, you might get the point across to your readers, but it’s not an entertaining read.

Telling that Conveys Information

Many tells exist only to convey information the characters would never think (or have reason) to share, such as world-building details or character backstories. They often sound too self-aware, or read as if the author was jumping into the story with a mini-lecture. These types of tells are good old-fashioned point of view shifts.

2. Telling at the Paragraph Level

If the told prose is explaining or summarizing a situation, the telling can affect an entire paragraph or even a page. You’ll find these tells most often when you pull away from the point-of-view character and start describing what’s going on from afar. These told sections can read like a summary of the scene in your outline. It might even read as if you planned to do more, but never got around to it.

Infodump Telling

An infodump drops in the reasons why something is important in the overall world or setting of the story, and infodumps focus almost exclusively on information relating to the world. This is information readers “need” to understand the story, but in most cases, dramatizes it or backgrounding that information leads to a much stronger story.

Backstory Telling

These tells explain the history of a character, place, or item and why it’s important. Frequently, they’re more extensive than an infodump, sometimes using flashbacks and long internal monologues to reveal frequently unnecessary history. Backstory telling usually focuses exclusively on the histories of the characters, explaining why characters are the way they are instead of showing those behaviors and quirks in action.

3. Telling at the Scene Level

Telling doesn’t stop with summarized paragraphs, and it’s possible to tell an entire scene. These are some of the sneakier types of tells, because writers rarely think to look for told prose at this level. These are scenes that contain important information, but you don’t show the scene unfolding—you just explain it and why it matters.

The most common scene-level tells are flashbacks. They dump history or explain backstory, since showing the scene tends to stop the story. Flashbacks are particularly tricky because they’re often shown, but they’re still telling readers information.

What’s annoying about these tells is that technically, they’re not traditional tells. They just read as though the author is summarizing or explaining events in the novel while nothing is happening on the page. Readers get bored, skim through them, and complain nothing happened in the novel. Since these scenes look like solid, functioning scenes, writers are left scratching their heads and wondering what’s wrong and why no one wants the book.

What Are You Trying to Tell Your Readers?

No matter where you find your told prose, before you revise it, take a step back and consider this: What are you trying to tell your readers? Once you pinpoint what’s important and what needs to be conveyed in that sentence, paragraph, or scene, you’ll be better able to choose how to show that information. Look for ways to:

  • Suggest motives through what a character does, says, or thinks.
  • Show world-building rules through how those rules and details affect the character’s actions or behavior.
  • Show character backstory by choosing details and actions that had an influence on someone who lived through that history.

Show, dont tell is a troublesome beast, but it’s a tool like any other. If you think about how you want to use it and what you’re trying to say, you’ll have a much better sense of how to convey that information to your readers.

And showing them a fantastic story is what it’s all about, right?

Do you struggle with show, don’t tell? Where do you most often tell?

About Janice

Janice Hardy

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author and founder of the popular writing site Fiction University, where she helps writers improve their craft and navigate the crazy world of publishing. Not only does she write about writing, she teaches workshops across the country, and her blog has been recognized as a Top Writing Blog by Writer’s Digest. She also spins tales of adventure for both teens and adults, and firmly believes that doing terrible things to her characters makes them more interesting (in a good way). She loves talking with writers and readers, and encourages questions of all types—even the weird ones. 

Find out more about writing at www.Fiction-University.com, or visit her author’s site at www.JaniceHardy.com. Subscribe to her newsletter to stay updated on future books, workshops, and events and receive her ebook, 25 Ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now, free.

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16 comments on “3 Ways Writers Can Instantly Spot Telling”

  1. I try to imagine it's a film and I'm viewing it on a screen. It doesn't entirely eliminate the occasional telly. But I find it does help.
    Also,looking for the words you suggest is a great help, too.
    Thank you for reminding us. It's a bit of a difficult one, especially for new writers.

  2. Show vs tell is always challenging - I've published 3 books to excellent reviews, and I STILL struggle with this. Thank goodness for my writer's group critiques who spot it every time. That's a suggestion for other writers struggling with it- it's so hard to see on your own writing (or you wouldn't have done it to begin with 🙂 . So, having more eyes (preferably another writer) critique your work helps enormously.
    Thanks, Janice, for the valuable information - it's very helpful, especially to look for those "tell" words.
    Great article!

    1. Thanks! Crit groups are so valuable for so many reasons, but that's probably the best one. We know our work too well to be objective about it, or see what's there vs what we think we wrote. Those outside eyes really help.

  3. The easiest way is to only write scenes from the pov of the viewpoint character. If they said it, did it, or thought it - it's not telling, it's living with them.

    A character rarely thinks of the beginning of their civilization, or why Aunt Lucy is X way, because they already know.

    Within that framework, you can fit ANYTHING - with proper motivation or an interlocutor.

    Just NEVER use a narrator. Works for me!

  4. I have trouble with what the character's thinking. Can I only cover what the protagonist is thinking. That is telling, right?

  5. Thank you for these actionable tips to avoid "telling". It is one of the most proclaimed problems in writing, but how to fix it is often elusive. Great post!
    Kris

  6. It depends on what POV you're using. If you're doing omniscient, then you can show the thoughts of everyone, though a lot of people stick to one character at a time anyway just for clarity.

    If you said something like "John thought he should have asked Lisa out for dinner," then you're likely telling. You're explaining to readers what John thought, not showing John thinking it. A show would be more like "John frowned. He should have asked Lisa out for dinner."

    If you're doing a tight or limited POV, then you'd only show what the POV character is thinking.

    Telling is more about tone and what's conveyed. If it sounds like the author explaining, or it shifts out of the POV character's head to say something they wouldn't know, you're probably telling. But if it fits the POV character's voice, and it's something they'd logically think, do, say at that moment in that scene, it'll probably feel shown.

  7. It depends on what POV you're using. If you're doing omniscient, then you can show the thoughts of everyone, though a lot of people stick to one character at a time anyway just for clarity.

    If you said something like "John thought he should have asked Lisa out for dinner," then you're likely telling. You're explaining to readers what John thought, not showing John thinking it. A show would be more like "John frowned. He should have asked Lisa out for dinner."

    If you're doing a tight or limited POV, then you'd only show what the POV character is thinking.

    Telling is more about tone and what's conveyed. If it sounds like the author explaining, or it shifts out of the POV character's head to say something they wouldn't know, you're probably telling. But if it fits the POV character's voice, and it's something they'd logically think, do, say at that moment in that scene, it'll probably feel shown.

  8. Kris,

    You're most welcome! I totally agree. It frustrated me to no end, which is why I sat down and tried to figure out how to spot it and how to fix it 🙂

  9. Denise,

    That can be tricky. It's less tell-y and infodumpy when readers want to know that info at that time, or if it's relevant to the scene. I try to create situations where I can show the backstory in how the character acts or thinks, or gives them a reason to bring their history up or use their skills.

    Here's a post I did that might help. There's tons more on my site as well 🙂

    http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/03/baby-got-backstory-dealing-with.html

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