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Glossary

Show, Don't Tell

Craft advice to dramatize emotion and meaning through action, detail, and sensation rather than stating it directly.

'Show, don't tell' urges writers to render experience — concrete action, gesture, sensory detail — instead of summarizing it ('she was nervous'). Showing lets readers feel and infer, which is more immersive and trusts their intelligence.

Like all rules it's situational: telling is the right tool for transitions, summary, and pace. The skill is knowing when a moment deserves to be dramatized and when it should be dispatched in a line. It pairs with deep POV, which shows interiority directly.

Example

Telling: 'She was furious.' Showing: 'She set the cup down very gently, the way she did only when she wanted to throw it.'

Related terms

Deep POVA close third-person technique that removes narrative filtering so the reader experiences the story directly through a character's consciousness.Character ArcThe internal transformation a character undergoes across a story — how their beliefs, wants, or self change.Free Indirect DiscourseA technique that blends a character's inner voice with third-person narration, without quotation marks or 'she thought' tags.
Show, Don't Tell — definition & example · Muze Writer