WRITING: Reading Like a Writer – Telling can be okay

I’m not sure what kind of reviews this book got, but for me, Francine Prose has some damn good ideas.

In explicating a passage from Alice Munro’s Dulse, she notes that Munro’s clean and simple style still allows for movement and information that is more "telling" than showing; yet it allows even more vividly a conciseness of language. 

And the warning against telling leads to a confusion that causes novice writers to think that everything should be acted out–don’t tell us a character is happy, show us how she screams "yay" and jumps up and down for joy–when in fact the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of languages.

A lot of time would have been wasted had Alice Munro believed that she could not begin her story until she had shown us Lydia working as an editor, writing poetry,  breaking up with her lover, dealing with her children, getting divorced, growing older, and taking all the steps that led up to the moment at which the story rightly begins.  (p. 25)

I see this contradiction brought up in many workshop and critique groups that are fresh from classes or how-to books on writing; they’ve learned to spot the "telling" scenes and joyfully suggest better methods which always include "action".  But what they are overlooking is Prose’s point:  brevity is necessary for the unimportant but necessary parts of story.  Brevity is best achieved by straightforward telling.