Showing not telling in storytelling: when the old rule should bend
For nearly a century, the writing maxim "show, don't tell" has been drilled into aspiring authors by creative writing tutors and craft manuals stacked in second-hand bookshops across Perth and Melbourne. It sounds simple, almost gospel. Yet anyone who has studied masterful storytellers knows the rule bends, sometimes dramatically, in the hands of writers who understand its true purpose. The science of show versus tell is less about prohibition and more about choosing the right tool for the narrative job.
The phrase traces back to early twentieth-century teachers like Percy Lubbock, whose 1921 book "The Craft of Fiction" urged writers to render experience rather than summarise it. Modern guides have refined the idea, but the principle remains: readers form stronger emotional connections when they experience events unfolding rather than receiving a digest. Telling is not the enemy of good prose. It is a different instrument, and knowing when to pick it up separates capable novelists from those whose manuscripts collect rejections from publishers in Sydney, Hobart, and other Australian centres.
The psychology of showing and telling
Neuroscientific research suggests that descriptive, action-driven prose activates more regions of a reader's brain than summary statements. When a writer depicts trembling hands, shifting weight, and shallow breathing, the reader's mirror neurons engage, producing a felt sense of fear. Direct statements like "she felt afraid" reach a different cognitive pathway, registering as reported information rather than experienced sensation. This explains why scenes heavy with imagery feel immersive while pages of summary feel flat.
Cognitive load theory also reveals limits to pure showing. The brain requires regular scaffolding, moments of orientation and summary, to maintain comprehension. Effective writers manage this balance by alternating immersive scenes with measured passages of contextual information, much like a film editor who knows when to linger on a close-up and when to cut to a wider establishing shot.
In workshops held in Brisbane writers' centres, emerging authors often discover their chapters stall because they have overcorrected toward showing. A protagonist's every micro-expression is catalogued, every internal reaction meticulously enacted. While the intent is admirable, the prose begins to feel exhausting, and the reader loses sight of the story's throughline. Acknowledging the mental fatigue that pure showing produces allows writers to deploy telling as a pacing device rather than a failure.
When telling serves the story
Telling becomes essential whenever a narrative needs to cover ground quickly. A fifty-page leap across years, a transition between continents, or a compressed montage of repeated failures cannot be rendered in granular detail without bloating the manuscript. A well-crafted paragraph of summary can move a reader from 1968 to 1978 with the right tone. The Australian novelist who begins a chapter in wartime Sydney and finishes it in contemporary Hobart owes readers that telescoping efficiency.
Telling also offers emotional distance that showing cannot. When a narrator reflects on a past trauma from the vantage of years later, the calm, measured tone conveys resilience and perspective that moment-by-moment dramatisation would muddle. This technique appears in memoir and literary fiction by writers who have lived through hardship. Showing every wound in real time can re-traumatise both character and reader, while telling allows the story to hold its wisdom without exposing every raw edge.
Genre fiction leans on telling in ways that literary readers sometimes overlook. Crime procedurals, science fiction worldbuilding, and historical fiction set in colonial Australia require passages of exposition to establish technical or cultural context. Skipping these passages leaves readers disoriented; including them as dialogue can feel contrived. A deft paragraph of telling, written with voice and specificity, can carry the same texture as a fully dramatised scene while moving the story forward by days or weeks.
Breaking the rule with purpose and voice
The most memorable Australian fiction often breaks the show-don't-tell rule with deliberate stylistic signature. Writers like Tim Winton and Charlotte Wood occasionally lapse into direct authorial commentary, offering observations closer to essay than to narrative. These moments register as authorial presence rather than failure of craft. Readers accept the shift because the writer has earned it through consistent voice and established trust. The breaking of the rule becomes a feature, not a bug, signalling that the narrator has stepped forward to reflect.
Voice-driven narration provides another opportunity for strategic telling. When a character narrator has a distinctive way of processing the world, direct statements of opinion and feeling can convey personality more efficiently than staged behaviour. A sardonic first-person voice describing a chaotic family Christmas in Adelaide might achieve more characterisation through a single cutting observation than through three pages of action. The trick is ensuring the voice feels lived-in, so the telling does not sound like exposition.
Comic timing also relies heavily on telling. A joke lands differently when narrated in the past tense than when dramatised in real time. Writers of satirical fiction know that the gap between expectation and delivery, the dry commentary that frames an absurd event, often depends on a storyteller who steps back and reports rather than enacts. Australian humour, with its love of understatement and ironic deflation, finds a natural home in this kind of narrative voice.
Australian storytelling traditions and the show-tell balance
Australia has a rich heritage of storytelling that predates the European novel, and Indigenous oral traditions offer lessons about the show-tell dynamic that contemporary writers are beginning to incorporate. Traditional storytellers from communities across the continent have long used a blend of vivid description, song, and direct address to convey meaning. The Country itself is rendered through specific sensory reference points, while deeper knowledge is imparted through spoken commentary. This ancient balance between sensory immersion and explanatory voice continues to influence writers across the nation.
The local publishing market reinforces the value of this balance. Small presses operating out of Melbourne, Sydney, and regional centres publish hybrid works that resist strict categorisation. Whether it is a memoir that braids personal reflection with lyrical scene-work, or a literary novel that incorporates essayistic digressions, these publications reward writers who treat the show-tell spectrum as a continuum rather than a binary. Aspiring authors attending festivals around the country quickly learn that Australian readers reward confidence and risk as much as conventional craft.
Cultural specificity also shapes how telling appears in Australian fiction. The cadence of conversation in a Sydney pub, the texture of everyday life in regional centres, these details often work better when woven into narrative commentary than when dramatised through clumsy scene-setting. Resources such as the publishing collective at gobblefunked offer useful guidance for emerging Australian writers refining this kind of voice.
Practical techniques for knowing when to break the rule
Writers who wish to master the show-tell balance benefit from treating each moment of choice as a deliberate decision rather than an automatic reflex. The first question to ask is what the scene is doing for the story's larger arc. If the answer is that it advances plot or reveals character through action, showing usually serves. If the answer is that it provides necessary context, transitions between eras, or expresses a narrator's accumulated wisdom, telling is often the better tool. Recognising the function of each paragraph frees writers from the anxiety of policing every sentence.
A second technique involves tracking the reader's emotional distance. Scenes rendered through action tend to pull readers into intimate proximity with characters, while passages of telling create breathing room for reflection. A narrative that never lets the reader step back can feel claustrophobic; one that never draws readers in can feel detached. Skilled writers modulate between these modes, recognising that pacing is as much about emotional closeness as event density. This modulation is particularly important in longer works, where readers need both immersion and orientation to remain engaged.
Revision is where the science of show versus tell becomes most visible, because the writer can see the manuscript as a whole. A first draft defaults to telling, as the writer works out what happens. A second draft swings toward showing, exploring sensory texture. A third or fourth draft is often where the true balance emerges, as the writer recognises which moments deserve dramatisation and which deserve elegant summary.
Craft choices that strengthen any manuscript
- Audit each chapter for the ratio of scene to summary, ensuring the balance reflects the story's needs rather than habit.
- Reserve telling for transitions, time jumps, and moments of narrator reflection, where distance serves the narrative.
- Use showing to dramatise scenes with high emotional stakes, where reader immersion matters most.
- Allow voice-driven narration to break the rule strategically, so that commentary feels like character rather than exposition.
- Read widely across Australian authors to internalise how local writers blend showing and telling in distinctive ways.
Bring these principles into your own writing practice today, and revisit the manuscripts on your desk with fresh eyes. GODZ Child Productions publishes voices that understand craft as both discipline and play. If your work wrestles with how much to show and how much to tell, consider submitting to the imprint or exploring the catalogue of titles already available through the store. The conversation about show versus tell continues in every paragraph worth reading, and every Australian writer has a contribution to make.