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14 Eye-Opening Quotes about “Show, Don’t Tell” from Great Authors

Oct 21, 2024

Here’s what Stephen King, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway and more have to say about the literary advice “show, don’t tell”.



“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” E. L. Doctorow


“[Adverbs] are like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day... fifty the day after that... and then, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.” Stephen King

3.

“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.” Logan Pearsall Smith


“Sometimes a writer tells as a shortcut, to move quickly to the meaty part of the story or scene. Showing is essentially about making scenes vivid. If you try to do it constantly, the parts that are supposed to stand out won’t, and your readers will get exhausted.” James Scott Bell


“In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!” Anton Chekhov


“Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action.” Kurt Vonnegut


“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Elmore Leonard


“The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.” Richard Price


“A good story is a dream shared by the author and the reader. Anything that wakes the reader from the dream is a mortal sin.” Victor J. Banis


“Don’t lecture your reader; she won’t believe you. Give her the story action, character thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions as the character would experience them in real life. Let her live the story for herself as she lives real life, by experience.” Jack M. Bickham


“The success of every novel–if it’s a novel of action–depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, “What are my big scenes?” and then get every drop of juice out of them.” P.G. Wodehouse


“When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. You will bring life to nature only if you don’t shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind.” Anton Chekhov


“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.” Ernest Hemingway


“In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”” C.S. Lewis

To learn more about the literary advice “show, don’t tell,” sign up for our course at https://www.scenenottold.com/

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