How to Show & Not Tell

Show and not tell is repeated over and over to writers from the time we start writing in elementary school to well into our careers. For many, show don’t tell means show the action…show the character doing whatever it is that is happening. For example, instead of saying that Bob is sad, show Bob’s slumped shoulders and dejected gaze. That’s usually what we understand when we’re told to show, not tell. And sure, showing is important in writing, but not every moment or gesture needs to be illustrated in loving detail. That’s great that we see that, but without being shown why Bob is sad, we don’t care.

The why factor moves the story and reveals the character. For example, we learn that Bob just found a love letter written by his recently deceased wife…to his best friend tells us one thing, but if Bob just got a text from his hot side-piece canceling their weekend in Aspen, meaning he’s stuck at home with his awful wife, we learn something entirely different.

“The Gift of the Magi”

Let’s look at “The Gift of the Magi” by O’Henry. “The Gift of the Magi” is a simple story first published in 1905, but the lovely parable endures and is told and retold over a century later because of how well O’Henry shows the powerful why that govern his characters’ actions.

In the story, Della and Jim are extremely poor. They have only two possessions they are proud of: Jim’s gold pocket watch inherited from his father and Della’s beautiful, flowing hair described as being more lovely than the queen’s own jewels.

While Della has a lovely dinner planned for her husband, she knows that the pittance of $1.87 will not be able to give him a gift worthy of her love for him. Upon glimpsing herself in the mirror, she has an idea. Della dashes from home that fateful Christmas Eve day and sells her hair; she uses the money to buy a beautiful gold watch chain for Jim to hang his treasured pocket watch on.

Della returns home to prepare the supper, all the while fretting that Jim will not find her beautiful now that her hair is gone. She fears that he will be upset, and she hopes that Jim can receive his gift and understand why she did what she did before he gets too upset.

 Jim returns home late, an oddity. Upon seeing his shorn wife, he’s gobsmacked. Della reminds him that she is still herself regardless of her hair imploring, “Be good to me, because I sold it for you. Maybe the hairs of my head could be counted, but no one could ever count my love for you.”

 Jim assures Della of his love and then presents the elegant, bejeweled combs she coveted but that they could not afford. Della then presents Jim with his gift, the beautiful watch chain. She asks him for his watch, so they can link the chain to it and see how they look together. Jim replies, “I sold the watch to get the money to buy the combs. And now I think we should have our dinner.”

Why Showing the ‘Why’ Matters in “The Gift of the Magi”

The sentiment or the why of this story is why it’s so powerful and enduring. Go back to the beginning of the story. Pretend that we meet Jim and Della who we know are poor and Della decides to go sell her hair. We have no idea why. Then, she goes and buy’s a gold watch chain. Why? Without the why, the story is a frustrating narrative of seemingly random events.

But…by telling us why, which is that she so deeply loves her husband, the gesture of selling her most valuable possession and of using the money to buy something she feels reflects the value of her beloved Jim, O’Henry and his characters pull at our heart strings and keeps us invested. Will Jim be upset? We don’t know Jim, so we don’t know what kind of person he is. As it turns out, he’s not upset, and the story is even more heartrending when we learn that Jim has taken the same course of action for the wife he loves and cherishes so much.

 What sticks with people is the reminder to give selflessly, generously, and in the spirit of love for that is what makes a gift valuable. It’s not the monetary cost or the weight of the gold; it’s the love behind it.

The why is what gives this story over a century of staying power, as syrupy as it all sounds. 

You might be saying to yourself, okay, that’s great, but how do we show the why in memoir?

How to Show the Why in Memoir

So…let’s talk about showing and not telling in memoir. As we know, memoir has many similar qualities to fictional genres, but there are some key differences. To begin, in memoir, you didn’t invent your characters (unless you’re writing about your children, which technically you did invent them, but then again, you don’t control the reason to their rhyme), which means that you can’t tell us or assume why other people do the things they do. (Really, never do this in memoir…never project why someone else does something as assumptions can be and are often wrong.)

But! You can show us why you do the things that you do. It is a first-person story after all, and just as in a first-person fictional narrative, your protagonist or narrator would not know what the why of the other characters are. You must not make assumptions into another character’s motive unless that assumption leads your course of action in the story.

You can also show a character’s actions and allow the reader to draw their conclusions. Let’s say your memoir is about the demise of your marriage. Your husband comes home midday and uncharacteristically starts belting scotch. It’s not his norm, but he just lost his job, which is why you are walking on Faberge eggs with him…treading more lightly than usual…if that’s possible.

 And here’s what we know for a fact: your husband lost his job, he is drinking, and you are nervous because the line “treading more lightly than usual”, which tells us there’s trouble afoot. This has also set us up for the next question: why is she treading lightly? The question of why the husband is boozing before happy hour has been implied: he just lost his job. We have a plausible why. If the husband was a raging alcoholic, then losing his job may not be the why for this scene.

Thus, the why factor tells readers things about your characters. Readers learn who people are, and they connect more deeply with the story, such as in “The Gift of the Magi” and other timeless stories, when writers show instead of tell.

For more on show, not tell, read Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story.  

Main image credit: Mathilde Langevin via Unsplash