How to Show AND Tell in Your Writing (With Examples from Harry Potter)

Learn why "Show DON'T Tell" is bad advice and how you can use telling effectively in your stories.
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[@blueseaturtle6031]

Show more often than tell (use your own writing intuition to figure out which is the better choice for the overall story) Examples of showing: -Sensory details (five senses) - physical actions - dialogue - character thoughts Examples of telling: - exposition, backstory, history - labeling emotions - labeling traits Showing benefits: - enables the audience to think for themselves and see the story as it is happening - gives concrete objective details Telling benefits: - speeds up your story - allows you to cut out a lot of thick and heavy details that effect pacing Try to evoke certain emotions when telling instead of just giving your reader a bland tiresome description Balance the two elements (showing and telling) and understand that telling shouldn’t be discouraged, it should be implemented reasonably alongside showing in order to speed up the slower parts of the story

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks!

[@rome8180]

Part of what is so effective about the Harry Potter opening is the use of verbal irony and free indirect discourse. Verbal irony is when one thing is said but another is meant. Free indirect discourse is when the narration moves freely into the language of the characters. It's a very common technique in third person narration to make it feel closer to the characters' point of view. An example is "they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." Though it is still ostensibly in third person, this is the Dursley's language, not J.K. Rowling's. You could easily imagine them saying "We're perfectly normal, thank you very much." Later we get other examples such as "they just didn't hold with such nonsense." This kind of linguistic subtext helps keep the "telling" interesting. You feel you already know the Dursleys. You have a sense of what they think and how they talk. More importantly, a lot of what you now know wasn't told to you directly. You were left to figure it out. One of the main reasons for the "show, don't tell" advice is that readers get more pleasure from figuring things out on their own. This kind of writing still allows the readers to figure things out on their own while being more efficient than straight "showing" would be.

[@EH23831]

Agree- I thought that, although strictly-speaking it’s telling, it shows us a lot about what kind of people the Dursleys are. It’s non-action showing if you will.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

A number of you requested this video (or at least some Show/Tell examples), so I hope it helps. If you have any further questions, fire away!

[@aphroditlima2330]

Can you do a video on how to write hallucination… without ruining the reality of the story?

[@seananderson7153]

This video is exceptional! I've seen so many videos rant or only verbally illustrate their "Show Don't Tell", but THIS has examples! THIS spells it out! The highlighted text is such a win! That's even a step further than many videos that do give examples! This must have taken you so much more time to make than your previous video on the subject, but the quality shows. I will be sharing this with my writing group on FB and on my own personal page and with any other writers in need of this kind of help. I also like that your first subject is Harry Potter as Stephen King has gone on record criticizing Rowling's work saying she never met an adverb she didn't like, etc. But I think Harry Potter just goes to show you--heh--that while show don't tell is a smart way to write most of your story, telling has its place. And, at the end of the day, show OR tell, story is god, and will win the fans if the author finds them. Let's not forget, it was the publisher's daughter that fell in love with the first Harry Potter book and pushed her father for its publication, not her father who actually worked at the publishing company. A fan's love is a powerful thing. WELL DONE!

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks a ton for the kind words! Is your writing group on FB a public one? Just curious. And that's funny what you said about Stephen King's criticism of Rowling. In his book On Writing, King praised her and HP multiple times.

[@markmarkel5120]

New writer, Perfect video.Before listening to you. Other videos on Show/Don’t tell seemed so critical. One reason I started writing was because of JK /H/P. I didn’t realize she broke so many rules. Third person POV two different ways. Third person and First person. She doesn’t cut out all the words you should use. Now Show/Tell in your video. Cops Tell in writing reports, no time for the Sensory description. Most U tube avoid examples of H/P. Thanks for breaking it down in the paragraph.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad the video helped

[@Gruzbee]

The opening to Harry Potter is a very mild hook for the reader. I like it when an author does this, and it's something that Dean Koontz does quite frequently in his writing. It would be the same if she's told us that the Dursleys were drab and boring, and nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary ever happened. They did their dull things, lived their dull lives, and were comfortable in their little bubble, and then (dun dun dun) little did they know that... magic! (ooh... ahh) Pacing is always a big concern of mine. I struggle to maintain a proper balance between what is necessary to the reader, and what is necessary to me. I may know some detail about my protagonist that might be cool and fascinating, but to belch all that out at the wrong time would be a disservice to the reader when I want them to quickly get from one page to the next. Maybe that scar on the arm will come up later, or maybe it wont. Going into a two page explanation is introducing a tar pit into the narrative. Where I always struggle is with using way too many words that flex my vocabulary, but are cumbersome to the story. I inevitably always have to go back and drop a few words here and there, and even re-write entire paragraphs because elaboration may have built the world, simplification is the highway across it.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

"elaboration may have built the world, simplification is the highway across it." I needed this. It should be pasted outside every writers' workshop everywhere. Great post.

[@Wolltazar]

Careful with your dictionary. I, like most people (probably) don’t know what cumbersome is, and people usually don’t want to read with a dictionary opened next to the book 😅

[@Eldanogrande]

Telling when you should show is bad. This got twisted into always show, never tell by people who couldn’t figure out when you should show or tell.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

What's your Show-to-Tell ratio? 90%-10%? 75%-25%? 50%-50%? Let us know!

[@potatomanboooi3105]

i like to share i equally when it comes to a written book but with a comic lots of information does not need to be told because you can see what's being shown.it also depends on if you want the audience to imagine a scene or share dialoque

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

@@potatomanboooi3105 Yeah, it varies depending on different mediums and stories. Visual mediums like comics benefit from having the ability to describe a complex setting (like a fantasy world/city) in a single image

[@rheaelise4540]

I tend to go overboard in one direction or the other, depending on my mood. Fresh in the morning when my imagination is most vivid I tend to do a lot of showing as I picture it clearly in my head. Later on as I'm tired but still motivated I do a lot of telling probably to hurry up to the next exciting scene 😅 However when I reread and redraft (during my morning, bursting with imagination phase) I can see better how showing too much bogs down the narrative and I trim things back. So now that I'm more aware of my style I just follow along with my moods and try to be more disciplined during edit and revision

[@AnotherDuck]

I have honestly no idea what I do overall, but probably a relatively even mix. I use the ratio largely to set the pace of the paragraphs. As you mentioned, telling is faster, so I use it more if want more fast-paced action, and showing for slower, introspective scenes. I do have one character who's described exclusively by telling. It's a fantasy setting, and she's a succubus permanently affected by a type of charm magic. This also means that if you tried to press people into describing her as objectively as they could, they'd agree as much as confused witnesses to a crime. She doesn't even know exactly what she looks like herself.

[@uncertaintyunravelled8273]

I generally don't bother thinking about telling or showing during my first draft for a scene. I find that it freezes me. It's only later that I take a look. Remove some telling, some showing and add it so that I can manage the balance between pacing and immersion. PS: Congrats on 1000 subs.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks! And yeah, in the early drafts it helps if you don't bog yourself down in stopping to think of techniques. Oddly enough the same applies to athletes. If you want to throw a basketball player off his game, ask him (in the middle of the game) about all the little parts of his technique. Then when he thinks about it, things become less fluid.

[@AnotherDuck]

A detail I noticed is where it's told Mrs. Dursley spends her time craning over fences, and it's that it's also one of those segments that does both showing and telling. It's telling us what she does, but by that it's also showing us a bit about what kind of nosy personality she has.

[@claudiag8823]

On the little sentence with the boring tie which sums it all up though: What I find very difficult for me about Show Don't Tell is HOW am I supposed to get some things accross by only showing them? Because some reactions, actions, whatever, can be read from two different points. For example, someone's heart beating like mad can mean fear or excitement, positive or negative, and it's not always possible to draw a conclusion to the right emotion from the surroundings (maybe some people would now say, well, in that case, you're doing something wrong). The same with the tie. If it had been described as a checkered tie, then that's only that, a checkered tie. How should I know that I as the reader should consider it as the most boring tie imaginable to show how dull the Dursleys are in general? But with the way it's handled, it's up to the reader to decide what is the most boring kind of tie for *them*, but we still know that it's boring, that these people are mundane. And because it's always being preached NOT to tell, for me, it influences my work negatively because I do everything to show instead of tell. So much in fact that I reach a point were my text appears forced and constructed because I desperately tried not to tell, only to show. And that's not the sense of any good writing. So, I completely agree that one or the other should only be used if it feels *right* for your story!

[@EH23831]

I think there’s a difference between action showing and non-action showing. These paragraphs are showing us what the Dursleys are like by telling us things about them… we can still infer what kind of people they are from their thoughts and views. 😊 so it’s still interesting

[@julius-stark]

I've been a practicing screenwriter for over two decades and in that media show goes a much longer way than telling because of the restrictions of the media. I've been working on a novel the last two years and I agree, sometimes you have to tell the audience what's going on to some extent or your risk losing/confusing them. I've read 10x more books in the last 2 years than in the previous 10 better improve my novel and I absolutely hate books that don't paint a clear image of where we are or who we're following. This is not to say I want to know the exact color or thread count of every stick of clothing people are wearing or anything like that, but just knowing where we are and who's there almost feels like a tall order with some books I've read. Especially if it's sci-fi/fantasy a lot of authors either lean too far into too much explaining or not enough. I try to limit myself to a sentence, maybe two, and then I move on. If it's really important, three sentences.

[@chris.awilliams7138]

I think it's important to note that in a book there is only tell. 'Show' is telling the audience something from which they can draw the conclusion you would have otherwise told them. So if you want your audience to know a character was excited... Direct Telling 'He was excited'. Indirect Telling 'His body quivered with anticipation like a coiled spring'. Cicruitous Telling 'She could see the dilation of his pupils, and the smile forming on his lips'. Each progressive level forces the reader to do more mental work to understand the important point that our character is excited. More brainwork is good for getting us to feel immersed in the story, but this slows down the pacing which is not always ideal. When viewed in this manner, 'show vs tell' becomes almost entirely an issue of pacing. The only other thing to keep in mind is that many sentences tell the reader multiple things at once, some of which the reader may not be conciously aware of; as an example, my circuitous telling also told us the our female character was paying some attention to the male character. If I didn't want my readers to know that she was paying some level of attention to him, then I'd have to find some other viewpoint from which to observe the physiological changes from which the reader concludes that he is excited. Furthermore, if we show/tell our reader that a character is excited on multiple occasions, they will come to interperate this as the character being easily excitable. We might not intend for this to happen, it might even be the opposite of our intention, and where that is the case, out-right saying 'he wasn't noramlly this excitable' will be more effective at dispeelling this impression than 'he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so alive'.

[@jjulesmw]

Thank you for this. I got some feedback early in my book where I was told to “show not tell”. It paralyzed my ability to set a scene. I’ve made good progress by focusing on showing, but there is something missing without some telling. What you said here makes so much sense. I really appreciate having the clarity!

[@Fafnd]

I became frustrated with the mantra of "show, don't tell" from the vast majority of youtube videos on writing. I did some research on the subject and found that the mantra is actually a relic of the cold war. Specifically because a lot of Soviet art and propaganda emphasized telling it's themes and idea over showing them, what does the USA do? Counter with "show, don't tell" not only to hide part of their intentions but also just not do what the Soviets were doing. It seemed so petty and stupid that I went back to "show and tell" that I remember from when I was younger. It seems to be a more healthy position on the issue. Also thanks for creating these examples really provides what I needed when talking to other writers and readers.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Cool history lesson--I never would've guess that Cold War politics would influence art/writing in such a way. I always imagined that "Show Don't Tell" was coined by some college professors who thought they were clever or something. And thanks for the kind words about my video. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@batman5224]

Honestly, I think I show quite a lot in my writing, but reader reaction can be somewhat contradictory. Many readers will say that I use too many sensory details, which is probably true, but occasionally, I’ll also get someone who says that I tell too much. Of course, both critiques can’t be right. I think people don’t always mean the same thing by showing and telling. For example, some people think dialogue constitutes showing, but others believe that expressing emotions or opinions through dialogue is still telling. Of course, because people do that in real life, I don’t really have a problem with it. I just think the advice can be very contradictory.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Lot of gray areas, for sure. When I was making this video, I got stuck a few times while highlighting the showing/telling in different colors. Sometimes you can argue it both ways.

[@darkengine5931]

Often for me as a reader (not a writer), I zone out when the writing seems too empirical and more on the objective side. That's when it starts to read too much to me like exposition since it seems too neutral and lacking emotional beats. Like this pulling from web examples: >> 1. She could see the picturesque, deserted beach in the distance. The water sparkled in the sunlight and the sand shimmered with bright shells and shiny pebbles. I mean I can conjure up a picture of this in my mind, but why am I supposed to care? It's like an artist who just paints a photorealistic deserted beach without adding any type of emotional and subjective spin on it, so it reads to me like an infodump: a sensory infodump but an infodump nonetheless since I'm not emotionally invested. It's about as interesting to me as a generic postcard they have on display at a tourist shop. However: >> 2. The tarmac felt hot in the sun, and rough underneath his palms. He couldn't wait to get in between his soft, silky bedsheets at the end of the day. ... this is actually way more interesting to me. It is not only describing the scene but how the POV character feels about it, like a great painter who infuses his emotions and way of perceiving things into the painting. So while I am not getting as clear of a picture as the previous passage, I am getting a lot more reasons for why I should care. It's like a more impressionist painting (less sensory detail) but one infused with a powerful sense of the artist's subjectivity and the way he perceives things. >> 3. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. -- Jane Eyre This is giving me both masterfully. I'm getting a very vivid picture and vivid sense of how the POV character feels at the same time! This is the most engaging type of prose to me. Yet #2 is still way more preferable to me than #1. It's like a very naturalistic and detailed painting that gives me a strong impression of how the artist feels about the subject. Another example from Joe Abercrombie: >> 4. Logen gawped, amazed, as a huge vessel ploughed through the water towards them, shining spray flying from its prow. A mountain of wood, floating by some magic in the sea. -- The Blade Itself I'm not the biggest fan of the sentence fragment but I love this passage still, because first it's fairly sensory as icing on a cake and paints a vivid picture. Most importantly, however, it's also revealing a whole lot about the sheer wonder that Logen -- a primitive who has never seen ships before and doesn't know what they are (thinking of them as "floating by magic") -- feels and perceives it. We're really seeing the ship through his subjective eyes. My only critique besides the fragment is that it's a bit odd that he doesn't know what a "ship" is but knows what a "prow" is. Still, this is really engaging prose to read for me because not only am I seeing a vivid picture, but I am seeing it so deeply through a POV character's eyes. I'm really able to get in Logen's shoes here and maximally empathize and vividly feel and vividly see at the same time.

[@iosyntropy]

so many aspects about the lore behind jk rowlings querying story. so many moving parts on her part and the publishers. theres just a million things that went on to set all the gears and cranks in the right place. its interesting to imagine Rowling showing the majority of the first paragraphs rather than telling. like if we saw mrs dudley spying on the neighbors, it would have taken the tone of a more mature book, possibly, not that its a mature thing to do but there would have been more of a deliberate and present feeling than the clever pep it has through quickly telling. so theres aspects of childrens story telling and attention keeping that make things cute or synonymous with the nice british witty narrative voice, and he even is a child at that time. deathly hallows doesnt read like that. its just crazy to imagine an agent initially giving that the benefit of the doubt, but again, the gears and cranks of things. she kept pushing and knew it was a story for the ages.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Great point. The way it's told sets the tone in a way that showing might not be able to.

[@deckardcanine]

Tip: "Privet" has a short I sound. Rhymes with "divot."

[@johngagon]

I think this was a good balanced approach to the heuristics of showing vs telling. You don't tell the climax for example. The hero fought the dragon and slayed it. You probably don't show a character waking up, getting dressed for work, drinking water, relieving themselves or the entire history of the planet. There's more to it. Once I've figured out what's in my story, I have to ask myself. Will showing this part or telling this part keep them hanging on? Mr. Figg's usual morning routine was interrupted just before the sugar went into the coffee. Red flashes on the wall and the muted wail of ambulance siren fanfared a uniformed pair with a stretcher. Good. That's one less lawyer to deal with. "Sir, do you mind giving us a statement?", "Not at all."

[@spudspuddy]

Privet, not private. Privet is a garden hedging shrub. It bugs the hell out of me that the title of The Philosopher's stone had to dumbed down to Sorcerer's stone because the American public are considered too stupid to know what a philosopher is.

[@OutsiderLabs]

Privet is pronounced private by half the world, just FYI

[@spudspuddy]

@@OutsiderLabs no its not, no one on earth has a private hedge.

[@mr.graves2867]

I'd say I try to stick close to a 50-50 when it comes to showing and telling, however I will say it really does depend upon the chapter itself, if there's a lot of different characters in the room and they each have different views on something going on it's probably going to be easier to stick around 50-50, but if it's one character in the middle of a Forrest at night then it could be more tell than show or if he's coming up on an old abandoned fort that hasn't been used in a long time it might be more tell describing the state of the fort itself. Love the help and the insight, I'm working on my sci-fi Fantasy novel that I've had in mind for years now and I've finally decided to put my fingers to the keys to really create the story I've always wanted to tell. Looking forward to future advice and techniques to help make the process better. Thanks very much

[@EH23831]

I think the opening of HP works well as it’s primarily for kids.. they like a little exposition and to know what characters look like 😊

[@imaginepageant]

I am… REALLY late to this video, but wanted to comment anyway. The telling in HP’s opening works because HP is (at that point) a story for children. You see a lot of telling in children’s books because children need things spelled out for them more often than adults. At the beginning of a story especially, immediately grounding you in the world with some backstory of the characters helps kids follow along. This is not necessarily the case with adult novels. While telling certainly has its place in adult novels, and I could see description like that we get of the Dursleys working later in the story, adult novels should never open with a big infodump.

[@darkengine5931]

Fair point, yet the alternative to "showing" as distinguished in this video isn't necessarily to infodump as I see it. >> The condescending tone of Bob's voice grated Joe's nerves. _Who the hell does he think he is?_ Joe struggled to conceal his anger. "Yes, sir," he replied. That's not too "infodumpy" from my perspective even though it's deeply in the "telling" category; it's reasonably beyond the driest nature of text interpreted as strictly expositional. Even empirically "showing" in a very dry and uninteresting way can come across as an infodump. Evocative/engaging writing seems like it could be in either category as with dry, expositional writing. The problem to me with, "Jane was sad," isn't that it's failing to "show" in the empirical sense. It's just very dry and beige, as with the case of, "The porcelain cup was painted green and spanned 60cm in height." Either "telling" or "showing" or both in a more interesting/evocative way solves the problem. >> Jane's grief consumed her, plunging her into an emotional abyss from which no lifetime's worth of tears could offer any solace. The vibrant colors of the world faded into the coldest greys, and all she could remember was the lifeless body of her child. I'm not a writer (just a reader who finds "show, don't tell" a bit contentious since I enjoy literature above all else when it gets me into the minds of our characters). So my above attempts might be horrible, yet I suspect a real writer would be able to tell things in very emotionally engaging ways. The idea that there should be a strong preference for "showing" (when interpreted in the empirical sense) seems to conflate the goals of literature with screenwriting. Literature specifically appeals to me for being able to do things that screenwriting can't.

[@samaelkrieg]

Many beginning writers have a problem with only telling and never showing things. I suspect that is why it is so often hammered on. That said, would you happen to have a video about when it is good to Show, and when one should Tell? Is there any good rule of thumbs to follow when it comes to knowing when to use which method?

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

You want to show the big/important moments in a story (major actions, major conversations, major moments, important moments that might payoff later). With telling, you can tell things that less important: backstory that can be briefly summarized, anecdotes from characters lives ("Joe and Steve were roomates in college when [event] happened."), passages of time, etc.

[@toasteroven6761]

​@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Do these rules also apply to screenwriting or are there additional caveats/do's and don'ts to consider?

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

@@toasteroven6761 Screenwriting relies more heavily on Showing, but if your story has a voiceover, you might incorporate Telling

[@tomelliott611]

I think there are just two hard rules of storytelling (the rest is advice). Don't be boring and don't be confusing. A heavy focus on SHOWING the drama avoids boredom, but it can confuse the reader. Showing relies heavily on subtext and implied meaning and asks the audience to pay close attention. And it's intense and can exhaust a reader. Once the audience misses a crucial detail, confusion sets in. TELLING makes sure readers can follow along, but do it too much and a story reads like an instruction manual. Young readers or hard science fiction stories will likely need more telling. When and where you show vs tell (or how much) is a writer's attempt to be interesting and understandable at the same time.

[@satana8157]

One note I wanna add, you can tell, but if it's a contradiction to what you show that's the most frustrating thing in a book and I stop reading when this happens. Like if you tell someone is smart and then we see them doing dumb stuff or if you tell someone is popular but we don't see any quality that makes someone popular. For example is Twilight everybody loves Bella even though she's the most boring creature in the world.

[@iosyntropy]

officially procrastinating chapter one while i watch this hehe

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Haha well if you're gonna procrastinate, at least fill that time with something related to the craft

[@MrBeckenhimself]

The problem with showing is that readers are never as smart as they like to think they are. Edgar Allan Poes - The Raven is a perfect example. To this day lots of readers have yet to figure out there is no raven. There never was a raven. It doesn't help that Poe hints at it, they still managed to completely miss it.

[@Azathoth43]

Couldn't you argue that we are being told he has a big mustache, she has blond hair, etc? Seems like it can be a very fine line in some instances.

[@TheBluenyt09]

Awzum vid! I guess 30% telling and 70% showing.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Thanks for watching! I'm probably around that range, like 80-20 show-tell

[@potatomanboooi3105]

show don't tell only really works in visual arts.like if you want to give a backstory in a film you don't write it out you show whats happened.you still need to tell as well like if it is a book you should describing a scene as if you were in another character when writing in first person.life if i were to make the main character a guy who takes the shots and always wants to look cool i would make the writing sound like a character like that in your head so basically show and tell using your imagination to show

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

That's a great point on how SDT works in visual arts. Even then telling can work in certain instances, as Scorsese has taught us time and again

[@potatomanboooi3105]

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty an example where it didn't work i think would be ghost in the shell where the story starts off with writing explaining the main characters backstory instead of just showing it visually so it makes the story later on less impactful when it gets to the emotional scenes thee are also their reasons but writing in a movie can also ruin the experience if you put it in the wrong place

[@claudiag8823]

That's a good point. In movies etc., it's of course easier to Show instead of Tell because it's a visual medium. But in writing, I struggle to Show, so I rather tell a lot of the time because it's easier.

[@briannarichardson9511]

"Show don't tell" works better in film

[@davebeveridge3314]

Show 90 tell 10.

[@TrevorDuran3390]

I think it's not only appropriate, but necessary to "tell" in the intro. I just don't like when it's used at any other point.

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Hmm... Got an example of a novel that you thought failed to pull off Telling in the mid-stages of the book? I'm just curious

[@TrevorDuran3390]

@@WriterBrandonMcNulty not off hand. I'll be the first to admit I don't read as much as I should. But in cinema, for instance, and going back to the movie "Us," the drawn out narration of backstory in the middle of the film took me out of the movie. As to where I would have been much more forgiving if it were done in the beginning. Because in the beginning of a novel or film, I'm not yet knowledgeable of the world. So context is welcomed. If you have to "tell" as opposed to "show" by the middle of a novel or film, I just personally feel like it's due to a lack of world building on the part of the writer. Just my opinion. Don't hate me too much. 😄

[@WriterBrandonMcNulty]

@@TrevorDuran3390 Haha you're not the first person to complain about the late-game info dump in Us, but it didn't bother me. If they had opened that movie by explaining the world that the shadow family came from, it would've robbed the audience of the mystery. I will say though... they should've found a way to divide up the info dump some more. Something like what Terminator 1 does by alternating between backstory and action midway through.

[@pelle7771]

The example of Harry Potter ist very good for a novel. But the First paragraph would be horrible in a Film. I think "Show don't tell" is valid for films because showing is easy while telling with blablabla or even reading something on the screen is time consuming and sucks. If you are reading a book - that is a different story.

[@adion24]

I always thought show don't tell applied to film and stage and not so much to written works. Everything is told in a book so I'm kind of confused but just starting down this new path.

[@RM-yw6xe]

Dude, you need to clean your lens

[@Soyouthinkyoucanact420]

Perfect, your videos are so damn good.