HOW TO WRITE FICTION - Lesson 6: How to Reveal Through Showing

Last time we discussed telling about characters. As effective a method as telling can be, showing is even better. Showing means presenting the reader with the characters first-hand, up close. It lets the reader "see" (and hear, and sometimes touch and even smell) the characters.

Most showing can be shared with the reader via scenes: word-pictures written in more-or-less "real time." Think of a stage play, on Broadway or at your local high school. The curtain goes up, and presto! Immediately, we begin finding out about the characters portrayed by the actors in the play. Nobody ever describes or explains them to us. We simply look, listen, and learn.

There are four basic methods for showing characters:

·        Action

·        Speech

·        Appearance

·        Thought

A work of fiction should mix and match these methods.

Action

Actions are often the strongest way to reveal characters. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, "We are our deeds."

Actions can be small things, such as the way a character treats a slow-moving cashier in a grocery store. Some people are patient in such a situation, while others become openly hostile. Others will complain, but under their breath. Everyone reacts differently to the ordinary demands made on us by daily life.

In "Cathedral," we learn about Robert’s lust for life by all the things he does that confound the narrator’s expectations regarding blind people. Robert drinks Scotch and fills an ashtray with cigarette butts. He eats "like there was no tomorrow." Robert gets high, then "watches" TV – he’s got not one but two sets at home. In spite of his physical disability, Robert devours the world around him with gusto

Actions can also be big things, such as how characters react in moments of crisis. There's a reason why the Outward Bound program initiates its participants by assigning them a difficult group task, like scaling a high wall without a ladder or even a rope. Such a challenge is actually an artificial crisis, and it illustrates immediately just who is who in the group – who is the Leader, who's the Complainer, who's the Nurse, etc.

The major characters in a story will most likely be tested by difficult situations. That’s where we really learn who they are – by what they do in these times.

The narrator in "Cathedral" seems defensive, even hostile, at the start of the story. It’s unclear whether he has the capacity for generosity, not to mention the inclination. But he goes through what, for him, is a stressful situation – spending an evening with a blind man in the house. By story’s end, the stressful situation has brought about a change in his behavior. When we observe him closing his eyes and moving the blind man’s hand across the paper, we know that he has great reserves of warmth and kindness.

We learn most about characters by watching them act (and interact and react). What do they do, and how do they do it? What don’t they do? Showing action provides the closest thing to objective information about characters. As a result, telling us about these characters is often unnecessary.

Speech

Speech refers to what the characters say, their dialogue. Here is an example of showing through speech from "Cathedral":

"Did you have a good train ride?" I said. "Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?"

"What a question, which side!" my wife said. "What’s it matter which side?" she said.

"I just asked," I said.

"Right side," the blind man said. "I hadn’t been on a train in nearly forty years. Not since I was a kid. That’s been a long time. I’d nearly forgotten the sensation. I have winter in my beard now," he said. "So I’ve been told, anyway. Do I look distinguished, my dear?" the blind man said to my wife.

"You look distinguished, Robert," she said. "Robert," she said. "Robert, it’s just so good to see you."

We are shown a great deal through this dialogue. The passage shows us that, although the narrator and his wife are extremely nervous about the blind man’s visit to their house, Robert himself is quite relaxed. Also, in the first two lines we glimpse tension between husband and wife. Finally, there’s a touch of poetry in "winter in my beard." The narrator’s wife and Robert are poetic, while the narrator himself isn’t.

Now, Carver could have simply told us this information. But it’s more dynamic if we can find this out for ourselves, in this case via dialogue.

Finally, pay attention to the subtext – the hidden meaning – beneath the dialogue. Again, the line "What a question, which side!" speaks volumes about the tension between husband and wife in "Cathedral" when Robert comes to visit.

Appearance

Appearance relates to any and all physical aspects of the characters. Appearance is often "told" by the narrator and so can fall into the telling category. But appearance also falls into the showing character because appearance literally shows us what a character looks like.

As an example, let's return to the physical description of Robert in "Cathedral":

This blind man was late forties, a heavy-set, balding man with stooped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light-brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard.

Physicality can also extend to gestures and physical actions. For example, Robert is a very friendly guy, and we glimpse this just in the way he shakes hands:

The blind man let go of his suitcase and up came his hand.

I took it. He squeezed hard, held my hand, and then he let go.

However, writers should be careful not to over-rely on physical description. The physical often just gives a surface glimpse of a person, just as a cover only gives a surface glimpse of a book. In "Cathedral," interestingly, we get a very full sense of the narrator and his wife and yet we are given virtually no physical description of either of them.

Thought

In fiction, we are often allowed access to the minds of certain characters. Obviously, one of the best ways to see what someone is like is to catch a glimpse of their innermost thoughts.

The narrator in "Cathedral" is not one to reveal too much of his personal thoughts, but he does reveal bits and pieces of them throughout the story. For example, this man is not self-aware enough to know that he's close-minded. But we, the reader, glean this when we catch him thinking such things as:

A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

Later, we learn that the narrator isn't completely at peace when we glimpse this thought:

When I did go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometimes I'd wake up from one of them my heart going crazy.

In thought, characters often reveal things that they would never openly reveal to other characters, and this gives thought a special depth among the categories of showing.

Showing You How To Show

Is this sounding too difficult? Is it a technique that’s fine for a master like Carver but a little over your head? Nonsense! Let’s see how achievable it can be.

Back to our character, Maria Rialto. If you put her at the bus stop, reading a new book every day, you would already be showing Maria through her actions. She waits at the bus stop, she reads books, every day it’s a different book. Those are actions. Actually, each of those actions reveal quite a bit about Maria.

But you can show Maria even more clearly. You can paint a physical picture, giving her glossy black hair, a voluptuous figure, and stylish clothing. Perhaps she dresses on the sexy side but holds herself in a rather prim way. Hmmm, that’s interesting because it’s a contradiction. It seems Maria is turning into a round character on us.

If a character were to greet Maria by saying "hello," you just might get to hear Maria speak. And that would certainly show us more about Maria, no matter what she said. If she says a mere "hello" then goes back to her book, that’s one thing. If she sets the book aside and says, "Well, it’s so nice to see you," that’s something else altogether.

You’ll notice that more actions are seeping out through the physicality and dialogue. The choice to wear sexy clothes is an action, as is the choice to keep reading or, perhaps, set the book aside. If some passing stranger were to make a lewd comment to Maria, we would learn a lot about her by the way she handled it. If the bus were to come down the street, swerve out of the way to miss a cat, and then go toppling onto its side, potentially injuring the passengers, what would Maria do?

You see, it’s really not so difficult to show your characters. And by doing so, you will bring them to life on the page, making three dimensional people out of nothing more than the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

Discussion

After reading the lecture, try answering some or all of the following:

1.   Why do you think actions might be the strongest way to reveal characters?

2.   Do you think it’s important to know what a character looks like? Does this affect who the person is?

3.   Name a fictional character that you "see" very clearly in your mind’s eye. What about this character do you "see?