I'm spending about 90 minutes a day reading Love in the Time of Cholera. Most of the time I'm immersed in the story, not really paying attention to the techniques used. But yesterday I came upon a section of the book that did what I've been struggling with. It captured the moment of mental change for one of the main characters.
Most people would say that change is important. Characters are supposed to grow or change from the beginning of the story to the end. I had written a couple of novellas that tried to capture that change, but I had a hard time actually describing it. My problem was that they were more showy stories, rather than telly. Most of the writing focused on the external. In that view, it was hard for me to show the change.
But in Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez often goes internal, and so it was very organic when he described the moment of change that happened in the character's head while he was sitting, having a conversation--a relatively action-less scene.
I realize that I need to do more of this focused sort of reading, where I pay more attention to how other writers are doing specific things that I am having trouble with. In this case, it was a bit irrelevant because of the difference between show and tell, but I did find it educational. Now, I can go back to books like Old Man and the Sea or The Road to see how those authors accomplish the same thing, assuming they do.
I'm still wondering if a character's change can be shown in external action. The answer is yes, but it hasn't happened in any of my stories yet. I think that has to do with the stories I choose and the characters I choose to live them.
I've been thinking a lot about showing and telling lately. External and observable action can be powerful. Telling can be lazy. My concern is that a lot of what I see as "showing" is either too vague, as in I don't know what the actions are supposed to show, or forced, as in the author is remembering to show, not tell.
ReplyDeleteTake internal transformation, for example. I can really get into those types of story, maybe because I do work out my life in my head first, most times, anyway. But describing thought processes and realizations is more telling than showing. Even though I have no problems with that, I wonder if you would consider what happens to Femina, for example, when she returned and saw the love of her life at the market place and comes to a sudden realization that everything she's felt so far has been an idealized version of the reality, as showing.
Or maybe you're talking about other situations in the book.
Strange. I enjoyed reading it very much, and then lost steam at about 2/3 of the way through. Wonder if it's because it's spring break or something else.
Yat-Yee, is it really spring break already? The scene you mentioned isn't the one I was talking about, but it definitely works for the discussion. I'm going to repeat myself in Scott's comment reply, but I think you and I are on the same page that showing is something that's observable--or let's say can be captured by some type of recorder, like a video camera. In the case of Femina, I'd say that her realization was internal/telling, but the actual words she said to him in the moment were showing. If we had only gotten the showing, we would have also gotten some sort of insight into the deeper thoughts, but it wouldn't have been as complete. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I think it's just an authorial choice.
DeleteI just purchased Love in the Time of Cholera on Amazon with a bunch of other books. I'm excited to get it! You've talked enough about it to help me remember to get it. I'm not sure about internal transformations. I like to think I show them with "showing" prose, but I don't know. I hope I do! I want to try a more "telling" book, honestly. I think I might get lost in it, but it would be good for me. Maybe I'll start with some short stories.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, Cyberlama is a more telling book, which is honestly probably the form of writing that best suits my interests. I feel like I relate much more to the internalists than the externalists, although I am often inspired by externalists. They can write so beautifully and richly!
DeleteMy first thought is how you really cannot take the writer out of the reader, even with an amazing story like Love in the Time of Cholera! It's not a complaint--I actually love when I stumble across something I am having a tough time with.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on a completely selfish level, Davin, it's nice to hear that you still struggle with things. You write at a very impressive level. It's good to know you're human. :)
j a zobair, if you really want to see how human I am, I can show you my current draft of Cyberlama, because it kind of really sucks at the moment! But I will make it better. Or Scott will eat my hat.
DeleteI think that the internal/external distinction has nothing to do with the show/tell distinction, except that a lot of writers don't work hard at showing internal action, they just tell the reader "Miss SoAndSo suddenly realized..." or whatever. If, as Mr Garcia-Marquez does, you take the reader into the character's head and heart, an internal action can be vivid and remarkable.
ReplyDeleteWe all know how external action can be "telly" and flat, right? It's all about--and I say this without having read Love in the Time of Cholera but I've read a bunch of other GGM--living language and having meaning behind the internal event. Am I being purposefully vague? I hope not!
In Cocke & Bull, which only a few people have read so it won't mean much but Davin will hopefully remember the scene, John sits in a cabin in a swamp, blind drunk, and tries to reason his way through a particular problem. All he's doing is sitting in the dark thinking, but for me it's a scene of high drama when he comes to a certain (wrong) conclusion. Hey, look: I've managed to turn a comment about Gabriel Garcia-Marquez into a comment about myself! FTW!
Scott, I remember that scene quite well, actually. I remember it being dramatic, yes. I don't think plot-action has much to do with quality storytelling at all.
DeleteNo, quality storytelling is all about chickens!
DeleteGOATS. Goats, I'm telling you. And eels. And roosters.
DeleteAnd butterflies.
DeleteShame on me for leaving those creatures out!
DeleteI think internal is directly related to telling and external is directly related to showing. I define showing as anything that can be captured by a video camera, and I think that's a really useful definition. I think we're only differing on semantics on that. The difference in the quality of the writing is another issue, and yes, both showing and telling can be flat or vivid. Marquez continues to be vivid in both his showing and telling. But my conclusion for now is that the moment of internal change must be told if a writer is attempting to capture it at all. Showing the change is really only showing the impact of the change, which could happen a splint second--or a nanosecond!--after the internal change occurs. A reader may get the impact of the internal change by only needing to see the effect externally.
DeleteJohn's scene is indeed very dramatic. I just got a weird tingle around my ribs at thinking about it again. I think vivid writing can be either show or tell. I hope so anyway, since Cyberlama is a lot of tell.
"I think internal is directly related to telling and external is directly related to showing. I define showing as anything that can be captured by a video camera, and I think that's a really useful definition. I think we're only differing on semantics on that."
DeleteI think we differ on more than semantics, Mr Malasarn. "John was a selfish, arrogant man" is not internal, but you can't show it on a video. It's still telling, though. The same with "People who knew him were afraid of William, because he was so violent." It's neither internal nor showing. "John ran around all day" is external and it's action, but it's telling because it's summary, and summary is always telling. I seem to be talking a lot about what's not showing. I don't seem to be supplying a good definition of what is showing. Hmmm.
Okay, internal action: "Molly decided that, for all his faults, she'd stay with Poldy" is telling, but the final chapter of Joyce's "Ulysses" is showing because it's stream of consciousness which takes us thought-by-thought through Molly's mind as she makes the decision and it's active and you see the character in motion, even though she's lying quietly in bed the whole time. I'll also claim almost every line of Mrs Dalloway as showing, though most of it is internal.
If you see it happening, even if it's not something you could record or point at, then it's showing. That's close, but still inadequate. Hmmm.
Semantics! Semantics, I say! To me, the qualities of being selfish or arrogant are internal. Fear is internal. I would call both of those examples internal and telling.
DeleteThe problem I run into with the summary definition is that it's never black or white. "John ran around all day," might be summary to someone who thinks "John ran back and forth from the white rock to the flag pole for six hours" is not summary. But that sentence might be summary to someone who thinks "John's feet pounded against the grass as he ran, sweating and weeping, back and forth, gasping for breath from the jagged white rock to the flag pole that clanged in the wind for six hours" is not. It becomes relative.
Yes, it becomes relative. The more I write, the more it's all gray area to me. Rudimentary ideas like showing versus telling sort of apply less and less often. Now it's all about depth and distance, openness or closedness, with showing and telling being ways of achieving those things, but the most important choices having to do with literal versus figurative language. That's really where I concentrate my efforts these days: saturation point of metaphor.
Delete"the most important choices having to do with literal versus figurative language. That's really where I concentrate my efforts these days: saturation point of metaphor."
DeleteThis is very interesting and mysterious to me.
Me, too! I'm just starting to work it out, or starting to work on working it out, or starting to start working on working it out, maybe. Which is why I have difficulty with such a clear correlation between show/tell and outer/inner. I'm working with the idea--and this is the first time I've tried to verbalize what I'm doing so it will only be an approximation--of blurring the line between what appears to be external and what appears to be internal. I'm working with the idea that there's no such difference, that life happens in the mind and you can look at a stop sign and at the same time vividly imagine a supernova and both are "happening" at the same moment (in your mind) so why not put both on the page in equal amounts and see which image influences the other and how these images influence the internal life of the character as well as the external actions of the character. In other words, it's all one level, there is no "internal" or "external." There are only characters and the variety of experience. And there are also the physical objects in the physical world, and there is the symbolism attached to those objects, which is just as "real" as the object but existing at the level of metaphor. So I'm leaning hard on metaphor, on figurative language, but trying to use as concrete and specific language as I possibly can, all to control the emotional distance of the narrative. At least, that's how I'm thinking of the narrative now. I don't know how that sort of thinking, which is likely itself a metaphor, actually influences the sentences I write. I don't want to examine it too much while I'm in the middle of a first draft, and likely it all sounds incoherent anyway.
DeleteI blame Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and all the poetry I've been reading. Likely some of it's Chekhov's fault, too.
DeleteWhen similes and metaphors start to precipitate out of solution, you're writing purple prose. I don't know if uniform results can be obtained from all readers. And each solution will have a different saturation point as well. Plus, there's no control experiment. It's madness.
DeleteYes!
DeleteIsn't that scene all about a chicken? Maybe I misunderstood the author's intent. Not that authorial intent is significant.
ReplyDeleteThe important thing about that scene is the detailed instructions for loading a flintlock pistol. A well-armed chicken is a happy chicken.
DeleteChickens play a very important role in Rooster. I mean, in Cocke & Bull. So does Davin.
DeleteThere's no chicken in that scene without Davin in the earlier scene!
Delete"I think internal is directly related to telling and external is directly related to showing...The difference in the quality of the writing is another issue, and yes, both showing and telling can be flat or vivid...the moment of internal change must be told if a writer is attempting to capture it at all. Showing the change is really only showing the impact of the change, which could happen a splint second--or a nanosecond!--after the internal change occurs. A reader may get the impact of the internal change by only needing to see the effect externally."
ReplyDeleteThat's it! Every time I want to talk about what I think about showing and telling, I will quote this. I promise to attribute to you every time.
Great! It does make me feel good when something I say is useful. :)
DeleteDon't go back to THE ROAD. Go back to THE CROSSING or CITIES OF THE PLAIN for a study in showing. Or was it telling.... Now I'm confused:)
ReplyDeleteYvonne, your suggestions are quite appreciated actually. I wasn't looking forward to going back to The Road.
DeleteWhen I read, I'm always judging what the writer is doing in the context of the story and my own experience. I'm lucky I can still enjoy a story while I do this, because if I couldn't, it'd be very annoying. It would kill my love of reading!
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of story development must be intuitive. I cannot imagine too many writers can actually sit down and plot it all out and have it sound real...maybe I'm wrong about that. To me it just seems like it either is or it isn't. If that makes sense.
J. R. Nova, I have been able to rely on intuition more and more as I become a better writer. I do think it helps my writing.
DeleteGood, trust it :)
DeleteIf anything, it's a sign that you're becoming a better writer and are able to more easily "glide" through instead of having to stop to figure out the basics.