Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

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April 18, 2012 / 12 Comments

The Wendigo Eats Your Heart And Replaces It With Updates

It’s that time, again, in which we play: WHERE’S WENDIG?

Turns out, I’m all over the map these days. This week, for example, I leave for Los Angeles on Friday for a mix of transmedia talks, meetings, and Blackbirds stuff. What stuff, you ask?

Well, on Sunday, April 22nd, I’ll be at the LA Festival of Books. I’ll pop by the Mysterious Galaxy booth (#372!) to sign Blackbirds at 1pm. That’s also my birthday, so I expect you to show up with love in your heart. And cupcakes. And possibly some kind of exotic monkey. Or at least dressed up as an exotic monkey. Other awesome authors will be signing at the booth, including Stephen Blackmoore and S.G. Browne.

Then, on Tuesday, April 24th, when the book releases, I’ll be having a launch party signing event at the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore (Redondo Beach!) at 7:30pm. There will be a Fortean rain of dead blackbirds to celebrate. Though, that’s only if I can manage to cast my septic contrails across the skies over the city.

If you’re in LA, then, please do come track me down and say “hello.” I won’t bite. Well. Okay. I bite, but I don’t have any diseases. Well. Okay, fine, you should probably bring some antibiotics. Just in case.

And if you care to vote, Blackbirds is up in a “debut author cover challenge” at the Qwillery!

What else? Ah! Yes. I’ve got another bundle of strong Blackbirds reviews in…

“Chuck Wendig has managed to take the best of urban fantasy and crime noir, twist ‘em together like barbed wire, and drag you right over the barbs. Blackbirds is gritty and violent, yet never loses sight of the light that might be at the end of the tunnel. It’s there, I promise. You may have to squint a little, but Miriam’s humanity always shines through, even when things look pretty grim. Chuck Wendig hasn’t disappointed me yet, and I suspect he’s got quite a lot more in his arsenal. Don’t miss this one!” — My Bookish Ways (5/5).

“Chuck Wendig is one of those rare authors with such masterful use of language, and such a good ear for dialogue, that he engages the reader from the first page and never lets go.” — British Fantasy Society review.

“It’s a cliché in reviewing to say that you couldn’t put a book down, that you ended up reading all night because you couldn’t bear to leave the story. In reality there haven’t been that many books written – ever – that have that indefinable quality that demands your full attention. Blackbirds is one of the few I’ve come across in recent years… straight into my top 10 for 2012.” — Sci-Fi Bulletin review.

“Dark. Disturbing. Unfiltered. Coarse. These and everything everything associated with the above adjectives are not enough to describe this book. The emotional attachment runs deep and the totality of the story is bigger than 354 PDF pages, an hour and a half afternoon walk wasn’t enough for me to digest everything.” — Talk Supe review, (5/5) (and fairly spoilery, so be warned).

New interview with me at Bryon Quartermous’ site. I discuss poop, hobos, and being a “genre spaz.”

New interview with me at On Fiction Writing, where I talk about jealousy, bestsellers, and the worst book I’ve ever read. Oh, and something about Cthulhu? I shouldn’t be allowed to talk in public.

The Dinocalypse Now Kickstarter is up over 1100 backers (!) and $33,000 (!!) and has books dropping from me (a three-book series), Stephen Blackmoore, Harry Connolly, C.E. Murphy, and Brian Clevinger, and for a $10 pledge you get them all. You won’t find a deal like that many other places, and time is ticking down.

If you want a new Atlanta Burns short story, look no further than Fireside Magazine, now available. Brian White treated his authors like royalty, paying them well-above the professional rate. The magazine purports to have no genre boundaries and has crazy awesome art from Amy Houser (who did lots of my e-book covers). It has stories from Tobias Buckell, Ken Liu, Christie Yant, Adam Knave, D.J. Kirkbride. You will  check it out. Because you can smell delicious content and hunger for it.

And I think that’s all she wrote.

Hope to see some of you in LA.

CARRIER LOST

April 17, 2012 / 68 Comments

25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling

Let’s get this out of the way, now — this, like many/most of my other lists, could easily be called “25 Things I Think About Transmedia.” It does not attempt to purport concrete truths but rather, the things I believe about the subject at hand. I am something of an acolyte and practitioner in the transmedia cult, and sometimes give talks on the subject (as I will be doing next week in Los Angeles).

So, here I am, putting my transmedia ducks in a row.

Please to enjoy.

1. The Current Definition

The current and straightest-forwardest (not a word) definition of transmedia is when you take a single story or storyworld and break it apart like hard toffee so that each of its pieces can live across multiple formats. This definition features little nuance, but hey, fuck it. That’s why this list exists — to gather up the foamy bubbles of nuance and slurp them into our greedy info-hungry mouths.

2. The B-Word

Transmedia is, admittedly, kind of a buzz-word. And it’s not entirely new, though the Internet helped this flower bloom. But it’s a very charming buzzword, innit? It makes me feel like I’m from the future. “I have arrived in my temporal pod to uplift your species with the pop culture genetics of — I’ll say it slowly so you can absorb it — traaaansmeeeeedia. Stop shaking that femur around, monkey. Time to learn.” In the end, though, whether you call it transmedia or cross-media or new media or hybridized-story-pollination (HSP), it’s still just storytelling. Though it’s storytelling in a bigger, sometimes weirder, way.

3. Reality Coalesces Into A Story Carapace Around Our Soft Human Brains

The rise of any new or altered media form sees an awkward transitional period where everyone wants to define it. And that’s good, to a point — hell, what do you think I’m doing right now? Rules are starting to appear. Hard definitions. “Well, transmedia needs to be on X screens and across Y platforms and you need at least one robot.” (I just made the thing up about the robot, relax. Though, to be clear: ROBOTS IMPROVE ALL STORIES.) Part of me likes the Wild West nature of the thing, though, where transmedia exists in this state of flux, this uncertain haze where the rules are weak and the practitioners are hungry and the experiments come flying fast and frenzied. Also worth mentioning: the rules are not precisely agreed upon by all practitioners. My writing partner and I worked on a digital storytelling thing called Collapsus, and I have been told that it’s not strictly transmedia. (To which I shake my fist and say, “Fie, fie.”)

4. Still Gotta Give Good Story

Good storytelling is still good storytelling. Doesn’t matter how the story is being told. And this is where transmedia stops being a buzzword, ceases to be a gimmick — no matter what you call it, no matter how many screens you slap it on, no matter how experimental you choose to get, you still have to know the ins and outs of strong storytelling. You cannot and should not lean on the crutch of transmedia.

5. To My Woe, Strongly Marketing-Centric

Transmedia these days is strongly marketing-centric. Which, to me, as a storyteller, goes against the power of this thing. I want to tell stories, not sell widgets and dongles.

6. True Heart, False Face

I find that a lot of what people call “transmedia” fits the technical definition (as noted at the fore of the post) but fails to take into account what for me is more important: the philosophical definition. For me, what makes true transmedia unique and beyond the buzzword, past the gimmick, is when it carries two corollaries to that earlier definition: first, it offers audience investment and lets them act as collaborators; two, the story was intended to be a transmedia experiment from the very beginning.

7. Tree Versus The Forest

Stories are generally a single tree, sometimes grown by a single practitioner. But for me, the transmedia storyworld is far more fertile and compelling when seen as an entire forest growing up together at the same time. The forest for me is the perfect metaphor for transmedia — I live in the woods and I see how all these trees grow together, how some find light and others fail, how it’s all one big organic collision of life that thrives on organized chaos. You can certainly admire the forest for its individual pieces (“What a lovely elm,” or, “Those two squirrels seem to be having crazy methamphetamine sex on top of that turtle-shaped rock”), but you can also gaze out and see a much larger picture: the ecosystem. Therein lies the beauty and elegance — and yes, squirrel-banging chaos — of transmedia storytelling.

8. The Crass Retrofit

A lot of what I see bandied about as transmedia really isn’t. Not for me. It’s not taking one successful property and then staple-gunning other stories — or worse, a re-hash of the original story, where someone makes a video game out of a film or a film out of a comic book or a best-selling erotic novel out of a Denny’s menu — to the original. What Marvel is doing with their film series? Ehh. Not transmedia. It smells of transmedia. And it’s very cool stuff. But Marvel didn’t start out building a universe that was intended to thrive across multiple formats. They built one bulk comic book universe and then shopped it out so that the stories could be re-told across films and books and whatever. Further, the audience investment is minimal, if not zero. The audience has no hand in shaping the Marvel Universe.

9. Sometimes, You Gotta Let The Audience Drive The Dune Buggy

Here’s why transmedia storytellers need to put their auteur egos off to the side — because the audience needs to control a chunk of the action. This can be overt, where the audience is literally allowed control (or even provenance) over the narrative, and their input changes the entire experience. This can be covert, where audience investment helps to shape the output if not directly change it. But the audience must be part of the feedback loop — and in this increasing age of interactivity, the audience wants their slice.

10. Yes, Blah Blah Blah, Star Wars

I dig Star Wars and in transmedia you won’t be able to easily get away from it. The Star Wars Universe is generally transmedia-flavored. Lucas and his phalanx of creators built together a strongly-connected and well-defended universe that crossed a metric jizz-load of media properties. You could argue for audience investment across games and toys (though there I’d argue it’s weak on the transmedia front). As to why this is more transmedia and the Marvel Universe is less transmedia, well, that’s a whole other post.

11. Your God Is My Alternate Reality

You want to look farther back than Star Wars, well, look no further than religion. Like, any of it. Multiple stories and characters across a storyworld that crosses multiple platforms (books, oral tradition, friezes, scrawled on the backs of temple eunuchs) and is profoundly affects and is in turn affected by its audience? George Lucas ain’t got shit on the entire breadth and depth of religion. Religion is transmedia.

12. The Ejaculation Of Game DNA

Shine that UV light over these transmedia bedsheets, and you’ll find many stains shaped like space invaders or puzzle ciphers — that’s because transmedia often absorbs DNA from games. That’s not to say transmedia requires a game-based component, only that games offer philosophical components that other stories do not. Games are active, not passive. Games demand something from the audience. Games are fun, exploratory, experiential. Most traditional narratives do not offer these things: reading a book is passive. Watching a movie demands nothing of me and my input doesn’t do dick. There’s little that’s exploratory or experiential about watching TV. But that changes with transmedia storytelling. The game-ist DNA runs rampant — a virulent thread of chaotic delight. (Some of this comes from the fact that ARGs — Alternate Reality Games — serve as a springboard for transmedia endeavors.)

13. But Please Don’t Say The Word “Gamification”

This probably doesn’t deserve its own list item but fuck it, it’s my list and I’ll rant if I want to. I hate that word: “gamification.” I like games. I like to play. I like putting game elements into play where appropriate. But gamification often relies on shoddy collection mechanics to beef up an already un-fun idea. “We just gamified your gynecology appointment! You just got seven cervical coins! Ding. You’re now mayor of vagina-town! You just collected the Speculum Is Colder Than An Ice Cube In A Yeti’s Mouth badge!”

14. The Word I Like: “Emergence”

I’m starting to feel that the success of a given transmedia project lives or dies on how much emergence it affords — emergent gameplay being unexpected or unintended game interaction, and emergent narrative being stories growing out of the experience that you did not plan for or anticipate (and note that both are strongly driven by audience). You cannot demand or force emergence, but I think you can cultivate it by leaving room for it, by designing aspects that cede  authorial control (or some portion of it) to those who are participating in your story. It also may work if you just hand out buckets of hallucinogens.

15. You Can Lead A Horse To Water But Can’t Make Him Tweet About It

More to the point, you can’t ever force participation. A portion of the audience — perhaps a large portion — will never want to engage with a property beyond a cursorily active (or entirely passive) experience. They just don’t operate that way. Games change this to a point, in that audiences are getting used to feeling handsy with narrative (hello, Bioware). What this means is, you leave room for collaboration, but let the audience walk through the door. They won’t all walk through, because some are just here for the show.

16. The Perfect World Scenario

My perfect world scenario for any transmedia experience is that my path =/= your path. What I experience in the storyworld is not precisely the same as what anybody else experiences. I want to be telling someone about the story and I want them to be surprised that I was able to interact with the T-Rex, or that the painting on the wall of the Hyperborean Castle was one I actually painted.

17. Faster, Transmediacat, Kill, Kill!

It’s probably worth a note that pacing in transmedia is a different animal. Everything moves a little more quickly — the oxygen that the novel or even screenplay format allow is now potentially provided by the audience and by the gaps in their experience. I don’t think this is universal, and I think you could still tell a slower, more relaxed story through transmedia, but I suspect it’ll be trickier. I also suspect that my neighbor is transmitting hate speech into my brain using a super-tweaked Flowbee. So. Um. Yeaaaah.

18. Bridges And Holes, Bridges And Holes

Transmedia relies on strong transitional elements — how do you move the audience across the many spaces? How do you remove obstacles? How do you get them to want to overcome the obstacles you’re incapable of removing? Story bridges and rabbit holes — places they can cross knowingly or spots they can fall into the narrative unexpectedly — are necessary components to the infrastructure.

19. Writer As Swiss Army Knife

The transmedia writer must be like the Swiss Army Knife. You are a many-tooled motherfucker. Screenwriting, game design, flash fiction, belt punch, compass, crack pipe, wakizashi, and so on.

20. Cheap As Free

The perception of transmedia storytelling is that it’s expensive. And it can be. But it doesn’t have to be. The Internet has made content delivery easy as Sunday morning. A great many tools are free — ask Jay Bushman how an entire story can be told over Twitter. Many tools you already possess — like, say, your phone — have content creation tools already built into them. (We’ve long passed the time when a phone is just a phone. Mine is made of nano-bots. It knits sweaters!) It’s getting cheaper, and maybe even easier.

21. Break Me Off A Piece

Audience investment needn’t be directly related to or buried in the actual narrative. Transmedia storytelling is a great place to break out the individual components of storytelling — idea, motif, theme, mood, plot, character — and highlight them in different ways across different platforms. This Is How You Die, related to my novel Blackbirds, explores the themes and ideas of the novel without changing the novel.

22. The Cast Is All Here

Transmedia is like any grotto carved out of pop culture — you have visionaries, cult leaders (and their cultists), craftsmen, auteurs, skeptics, critics, haters, weirdos, shamans, fixers, and so on, and so forth. Worth realizing, though: it’s a fairly small community. And a lot of really awesome work is being produced at all levels. (If you’re so inclined, recommend some in the comments.)

23. The Hoax Is Over

Hoaxing has been a way into transmedia: tricking people into believing something is real or genuine when in reality it’s, er, not in reality at all. I kinda feel like maybe the “hoax” component is done, kaput, pbbbt. This is also a good time to mention you should be checking out Andrea Phillips. Behold: “Cautionary Tales in Transmedia Storytelling.” She’s also got a book out soon: “A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling.”

24. Not Every Story Requires It

Transmedia isn’t a big pop culture Snuggie. It is not one size fits all. Some stories just don’t demand that kind of treatment. They’re better off as single-serving entities — book, film, show, comic, deranged hallucination, Scientology pamphlet, whatever. But on the other end of the coin, transmedia isn’t a genre-only thing. I mean, it often is in practice. But it shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to be.

25. You Won’t Know Until You Try It

Go. Splash around in the transmedia pool. Look at what’s been done. Find transmedia creators and pick their brains (they’re a surprisingly accessible group and the community aspect is strong right now). Think about the stories you’re planning on telling — could any of them be told this way?


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April 16, 2012 / 45 Comments

Prepping For The Publishing Doomsday

I am a fan of the show Doomsday Preppers.

If you’re not familiar, each episode offers segments that take a look at one or several “preppers” — people who are convinced that the world is on the cusp of destruction — in order to explain what they fear and what they’re doing to countermand the coming apocalypse. Each prepper has his own crazy-flavored vision of how the world is going to end: some fear economic collapse, others solar flares or EMPs or polar shifts or nuclear attack or mutant zombie hillbillies or whatever. The list goes on and on and on.

Some preppers are smart. Some are stupid. Many are fucking nuts.

It’s a fascinating show. You see people hoarding water, building compounds in the middle of nowhere, spending butt-tons of money on subterranean shelters, and damn near all of them are stockpiling guns.

But watching every episode, I’m struck by the thought: “These people are wasting their lives.” I mean that literally — they’re expending a great deal of time, effort and money to thwart a dreaded outcome whose likelihood is… ehhh, ennhh, y’know, not really all that likely. It’s one thing to prep a little bit — “Oh, if an emergency happens, we’ve got some supplies and a strategy.” But a little prep ain’t getting your ass on that show. These people are building armored bug-out buses. They’re running their kids through weekly panic drills. They’re spending hours a day in Ghillie suits, hiding in spider holes they build in their own backyard.

They’ve imagined the worst case scenario and they’re clinging to it like a tick.

So. Speaking of doomsdays…

Let’s talk about publishing!

Publishing pinballs drunkenly between the bumpers of optimism and the flippers of holy fucking shit-hell the meteors are coming fairly regularly. The Internet is good for this: we get to see every moment as it happens and we have zero time to process it. All our processing is done out-loud, together, and mass hysteria runs rampant. Every shadow that passes over our prairie dog heads seems like a hungry hawk when it might be nothing more than a harmless vulture or a passenger plane. Or, y’know, Underdog.

The most recent publishing news is, of course, that Amazon is being given a leg-up by the Department of Justice as the DoJ sues Apple and several big publishers for collusion.

(Sidenote: educate yourself about Amazon’s e-book strategy with this blog post from Charlie Stross.)

Once again the cries of panic have risen over the walls of our digital city. A big shadow is passing over our heads. Publishers and bookstores are in danger. Amazon is a mecha-robot stomping toward Bethlehem.

And writers feel lost. Worried. Bookstores are exploding like a landmine gophers! Books are on fire! Publishers are throwing writers out of windows! An army of self-publishers is marching on New York!

So you turn to me. Your drunken, pantsless Sherpa. Waiting at the top of Mount Penmonkey, stroking my beard seductively at you. *stroke stroke stroke* *comb comb comb*

Okay, you don’t really turn to me so much as I kidnap you in a van and yell at you as we barrel toward the liquor store at increasingly troubling speeds, but whatever. Just the same, let me tell you what to do:

Nothing.

Calm down.

Breathe easy.

In. Out. In. Out.

Maybe have a drink. Take a walk. Sip some oolong tea.

Then, when you’ve relaxed: keep writing.

Stay the course.

Let the squirmy anxiety-ferret you’re holding go. Free him. You don’t need him. He’s bitey.

Put all this bullshit out of your mind.

Stories aren’t going anywhere. Books still exist, both inside Kindles and on meatspace shelves. If a major publisher goes down in flames, a smaller publisher will wink, shake its hips, and step up to the plate. If a major bookstore chain shits the bed, indies will fill the gap, or another chain will rise. If libraries suck the pipe — well, that’s bad for a community and not good for books, but you, little Wordomancer, Inkslinger, Storyspinner, can’t do shit about that. You can’t control any of this. You can, however, control your output. And there exists an audience for your stories. Which is the key, isn’t it?

What, you’re worried about Amazon? Amazon Schmamazon. It’s done no favors to the publishing industry (or the government, given their lack of paying sales tax), but it’s done a lot of favors for overall reading habits. They’re an imperfect juggernaut of a company. You’re free to distrust them (I certainly cast them a wary gaze), but to reiterate: you don’t control them. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. And if things start to suck for writers, other solutions will slide into the gaps — new competitors, new services, or authors who sell their work DRM-free and direct to the readers.

People always want stories.

Book sales — e-books in particular — are up.

Authors have more options now than they had ten years ago.

The Internet is a disruptive-yet-equalizing force that even Amazon cannot fight.

Should you educate yourself? Sure. Should you be aware of your options? Absolutely. Read. Talk about it. Express frustration. But don’t let it get in the way of doing what you do.

Don’t let it get in the way of your stories.

Because all the publishing woes — or publishing successes — mean a soggy sack of dicks if you don’t have a finished story to bring to the party. So keep writing. Keep telling stories. Eye on the prize, Eye-of-the-Tiger.

April 13, 2012 / 86 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: “Death Is On The Table”

Behold last week’s challenge: “Just The Opening Line.”

So, in less than two weeks now, my debut original novel — Blackbirds — enters into the world. Hopefully with a mad flutter of wings and not the thud of a dead crow hitting the windshield of a parked car, but that’s a thing that’s out of my control. The book aims to be a sharp-toothed tale about fate and free will, featuring a girl who can see how you’re going to die just by touching you. (Let me add, in a moment of self-promo whorishness, that if you pre-order the book now from Amazon (US),  Amazon (UK), or B&N, and you email me proof of said pre-ordering to terribleminds at gmail dot com, I will toss you my short story collection and the first Atlanta Burns novella. For free, in PDF or MOBI format.)

What all this means is, today we’re talking about death.

The Big “D.”

Demise. Dirt-Nap. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

You have 1000 words to write a short story that prominently features death. What that means is up to you, of course. And genre is also in your court.

But a death — or the concept of death, or an exploration of death — must be front and center.

I’ll pick my favorite before Blackbirds releases on April 24th, and I’ll send the winner an e-book of my novel from either Amazon (MOBI) or B&N (ePUB).

You’ve got 1000 words.

Post the stories at your blogs or online spaces — don’t post here in the comments as the stories are too long to live at Casa Terribleminds. I’ll delete stories that post here. I’ll bring the hammer down.

Deadline is — well, given that I’m traveling next week, let’s short the deadline by one day.

Your new deadline is Thursday, 4/19, by noon EST.

EDIT:

AND WE HAVE A WINNER.

*pant, pant, pant*

Man, took me a while to go through these — I thought I’d have time traveling but I suspect I underestimated how many of you would enter.

Some really great stories here. The game has been upped. I found myself having to pick apart entries based on tinier details to count them out.

Spritzing death with a douche-spray? Death’s ride? Red and the Wolf? Many many good entries. A couple-few that were hard to read (blogs with images behind the text are unpleasant at best). But mostly top notch.

I’m calling the winner for:

A De/composition.

By Ilona Rose.

It’s short and strongly written and struck me in a very sad way.

A De/composition

Ilona, contact me at terribleminds at gmail dot com.

Thanks, all!

April 12, 2012 / 83 Comments

Ask Me Anything

Here’s the deal.

I figure, I’ll offer my own neck on the interview chopping block here.

You’re free to ask me anything you want. Pop the question (er, not the marriage question, put that ring away), and drop it into the comments below. I’ll pick my favorites and will compile and answer.

Ask me about writing, personal life, this site, my books, pop culture, whatever crosses your terrible minds.

Or, don’t ask me anything, and leave me here sobbing, staring at an empty comments thread.

Your choice.

*lip quivering*

April 11, 2012 / 76 Comments

A Long Look At “Show, Don’t Tell”

You hear that a lot, as a writer: “Show, Don’t Tell.”

It is, by itself, not entirely meaningful. Taken literally: films show, while novels tell. It’s doubly complicated by the word, “Storytelling.” As in, “To tell a story.” As in, “Wait, wasn’t I supposed to show instead of tell?”

As with all the succinct little amuse-bouches of writing advice, this particular nugget contains a modicum of wisdom if you can peel back the skin-flaps and chip away bone to find the heart of the thing underneath.

It’s like this:

We tell stories. But the advice asks us to look at how we tell those stories.

There exists a mode of telling stories which is strongly declarative: less visual, more intellectual and instructive, and with it comes the sense of a parent instructing a child. This mode relies more on telling.

There exists a mode of telling stories which asks more of the audience. It is more visual, more intuitive, and some might (falsely) claim it’s more “cinematic.” This mode relies more on showing.

Telling is explanation. It is definition. It is text. It says, This is that.

Showing is revelation and illustration. It is subtext. It asks, Is this that?

Telling walks ahead of you. It pulls you along.

Showing is the shadow behind. It urges you forward.

Telling invokes. Showing evokes.

Now, both modes have value in storytelling.

Sometimes you want to drop the audience into the space with no easy answers and have them feel around for themselves. Other times you need to take a moment, sit their ass in a chair, and give them a right-good talking-to. You need to tell them what’s up. You need them — if they’re going to proceed any further — to understand the sticky diplomatic relations between the jellyfish-like citizens of the Blumzorp Conglomerate and the constantly-micturating Night Goblins of the Moons of Hong.

Here, now, I will make some bold and debatable statements.

Generally, showing is a stronger mode of writing than straight-up telling.

The impact is more keenly felt. Imagine, if you will, a phone call where someone tells you, “Your mother is dead.” It’s a big gut-punch, that phone call. It’ll leave you reeling. Ah, but — now imagine a situation where you’re shown that rather than told it. Imagine you’re there when she dies. You’re there to feel the last flutter of a pulse, to share last words, to watch the life pass from her eyes as everything just… slumps.

The latter is more impactful, at least in my mind. The latter is you in that moment, witnessing it first-hand as a primary source. The audience wants to feel like a primary source — it gives them intimacy with the tale told and does not purport to keep them at arm’s length. Further, showing delivers a level of mystery, whereas telling often (though not always) obviates that mystery.

Another example, this one simpler but no less important:

Saying “John is angry” (telling) versus offering signs of John’s rage and irritation (showing).

You might reveal this through body language, through words chosen, through his actions. You’re letting the audience come to the conclusion regarding John’s vein-popping rage rather than straight up telling them he’s one pissed-off little monkey. Nothing wrong with letting the audience do some work.

Further, when we show things to the reader, we are building elements (character, setting, description) with details rather than letting a single statement (“John likes cake”) be the standard-bearer for the scene. Though therein lies a danger, too — just as you can tell too little, you can show too much.

When is telling more appropriate? Again, if you have information that absolutely must be conveyed, then telling is the way to go. It’s short and dirty and sometimes? It works. Further, you shouldn’t be afraid to have characters (through dialogue or, at times, through first-person POV) “tell” things. Explanation through a character’s voice and perspective still can carry with it the earmarks of showing — because just as it’s true that you as the author have choices in how you share information, so too do all the characters in your story. Characters speaking in their own voice are, in a way, showing.

And that’s maybe a lesson for the author, too — your voice in all this matters, and a strong and artful voice can make telling seem like showing even when it’s not.

What’s the ratio? How much showing versus how much telling? Since I like arbitrary made-up numbers with absolutely no reflection in reality, I’ll say, mmm, somewhere in the 70/30 split range, with the 70% going toward showing over telling. More to the point: more showing, less telling.

What say you, Internet? What’s your thoughts on this oft-spoken writing adage? Spun from gold? Heaped with bullshit? When is telling appropriate? Give examples or you get the hose.

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