Recent discussions have led me to focus more on the show vs. tell that we all know about, but also often find it difficult to remember in our writing. Another example from Julie Rose’s Pinhead in this issue of Glimmer Train:
The longer that I deferred the task the more unlikely it seemed that normal relations would be resumed without Philip insisting upon a huge probing discussion of what he would term ‘our issues.’ (…) What would a good, real father do?
That fall I wrote him a neutral little note on my fish stationery about seeing a black bear while out for my afternoon walk ‘at our family camp where I have now retired.’ I signed it Pops.
(…) I counted upon being able to find him when I wanted, park the car and look at his handiwork, see how the structure was coming. I would idle the engine, light a cigar, and think what I might compliment him upon and what mild suggestions I might make–about where to put the chimney or what type of lawn seed to use in rocky soil–when we were speaking again. One of the three new job sites is on Furnace Brook Road, near my cabin. When I pass it, if I see a sloppy siding job or a poorly situated septic, I do not remark upon it even to myself. "Criticism is meant to correct, not to condemn," I said in this month’s letter. (p. 32)
While it may appear to be telling, what it indeed is showing is the father’s understanding of the problem between him and his son–his too often and bluntly shown disapproval since the boy was young–and the inability to truly let go of it: "Criticism is meant to correct, etc." Even though he was smart enough not to point out the particulars, he just couldn’t resist some mention. In the second paragraph above, while the narrator tells us what he wrote in the letter to his son, it’s obvious that he is trying to be subtle about his retirement and likely offering his son some more of his time, but too stubborn to come out and say it.
Rose’s grasp of human nature and her understanding of the show versus tell technique is carried beyond imagery and action, and brings us more into revelation of character–and, in the character’s own words. Nice.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology