A truism of writing instruction is “Show, don’t tell.” Anton Chekhov admonishes “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Ernest Hemingway exhorts “Show readers everything, tell them nothing.” But not every writer agrees with this advice. Alexandra Schwartz, interviewing novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar (“Making a Scene,” The New Yorker, September 21, 2020), reports “Writers of the show-don’t tell school might worry about didacticism undermining artistry, but Akhtar has a different philosophy. ‘Telling is amazing — some of my best experiences have been being told stuff,’ he told me.” My view is that it depends on the skill and balance with which each form is executed. A skillful teller can be engaging; an endless monologue devoid of interaction. An inventive shower can be enthralling; the relentless hammer of action exhausting. As Francine Prose says of Alice Munro, “Needless to say, many great [writers] combine dramatic showing with long sections of flat-out authorial narration.” More thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.
