Show, Don't Tell Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Session 2 -  Actions Speak Louder than Words

Body language and facial expressions play a large part in our conversation, they are natural reactions to what we speak and hear. Our characters should react the same way. If we forget these important elements, our dialogue will appear flat, boring, and our characters dull. Even setting plays a part in every day conversation. 

 Did you ever avoid someone’s eyes – focus on a picture or a lamp - maybe even lowered your eyes or stared at the ceiling? We tend to focus on things other than the person speaking to us if we are uncomfortable with either the situation or the person.

We wave our hand, cross our arms, tap our foot, or raise our eyebrows to show impatience. Maybe we wrinkle our brow, scrunch up our nose, and let out a deep sigh when we're doubtful. We cross our leg, wiggle our foot, or tap our fingers when we're nervous.  All of these actions show something about our moods, our reactions to conversation and even about us. We react differently when we're nervous, upset, irritated, happy, sad, or doubtful. These actions show what dialogue, alone, cannot. Our characters need to do the same.

Teamed up with dialogue these expressive actions say more about our character, their setting, and their dialogue then the typical he said, she said and their counterparts -replied, asked, responded. These are unnecessary words. Also, other than said, they put the author into the story – something we never want. Said, on the other hand, disappears into the story and most readers don’t notice it. Although, overusing said puts the author in the story, too. Most times we can avoid using it.

 Think of a strong dialogue scene as having three elements:  words, visuals, and thoughts.” Let’s see how it works.

How often have we created dialogue like this?

“I can’t believe you said that,” he said.

“Why not, it’s true,” she replied.

     “But, you didn’t have to say it,” he answered.

“No, I guess I didn’t,” she said.

We tag the dialogue with he said, she said so our readers do not get confused about who is speaking. We vary said with replied, answered, snapped or other like words. The dialogue is boring. We know nothing about the characters. We can change the he/she to Tom and Laura, but it won’t change the dialogue. All we have are words. We can add adverbs to the tag lines to tell us what they’re feeling as in the following example.

“I can’t believe you said that,” he said angrily.

Now we know he is angry, but you, the author, told us that, not the character and we still have he said. Our characters are not showing us anything. And we already learned about the misuse of adverbs in lesson one. We know that doesn’t work. It’s telling, not showing.

 Next step adding visuals. We add visuals by setting a scene - Tom and Laura sat in a restaurant. Sure, we can do that, but then the author’s voice is back in the story. Remember, we want to stay out of the story as much as possible. We want our characters to show us the scene.

Think about a conversation with your spouses or good friends. While they were speaking, you formed your answers in your mind. And you watched their face, noticed their body language at the same time. Maybe their body tensed, their jaw set, their brow furrowed or they frowned. Through their body language you knew they were upset or angry, happy, or sad. Other thoughts flowed through your mind. Maybe you were angry too or thought they were wrong. The interchange included words, body language and your thoughts. Many things happened during that conversation.

Now, let’s add some visuals and body language to our earlier conversation and see how it plays out.

“I can’t believe you said that.” Tom stared at her.

Laura looked at the waiter, avoiding the hurt look on Tom’s face. “Why not, it’s true.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

Tom’s jaw tightened. He picked up his cup, took a sip. “But you didn’t have to say it.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

Notice how we eliminated the he said, she said completely. Yet, we still know who is speaking. We can see and hear their emotion. Examine what the above exchange shows us, based on the criteria. We had the conversation in the first dialogue session but it showed us nothing but the speakers. In the example above, we added a visual and a scene, the restaurant.

We know this because she stared at a waiter and he picked up the cup.  We've added tension with body language - His jaw tightened. We know she is our POV, because she sees the hurt. We see the scene and hear the words through her. We see her visually ignoring him, yet watching his reaction. We vary the length and pace of the sentences to keep the reader’s attention. Sometimes, as in the case of his last comment, it is more powerful not to add a visual or tag line. If we add visuals or tag lines to all dialogue, it becomes monotonous and boring and can even disrupt our story.

We now have two elements, words and visuals. Let’s add the third, thoughts.

“I can’t believe you said that.” Tom stared at her.

Laura looked at the waiter, avoiding the hurt look on his face. “Why not, it’s true.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He’s angry.

His jaw tightened. He played with his cup. “But you didn’t have to say it.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.” She stood up. She had enough. Glaring at him, she pulled some change from her purse and threw it on the table. It’s always about him. Time to leave before she said something she'd regret.

We have completed the elements. We hear the characters voices and see their emotions. They have showed us the scene and their reaction to the words and we have her thoughts, paraphrased - we don't have to say she thought, we know she's thinking. Our characters have brought the scene to life, and you, the author did not tell us anything.

Next time: The Senses