How to Show Don’t Tell by Going Deeper with Adjectives
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
“Show, don’t tell,” is a frequently-misunderstood adage in writing. What it boils down to is, “how to make the story more interesting and immersive for the reader.”
It’s especially important to show who a character is, as opposed to telling us.
Too often, telling means using a bunch of adjectives to describe someone:
“She was lonely.”
“He was brave.”
Adjectives are bland. They don’t tell you what it means, specifically, for that person, to be brave (or whatever). And readers can simply gloss over the description without really feeling connected to the characters at all.
Adjectives can, however, be a great start. Especially in a revision pass, you can go through your adjectives and find ways to make the character more vivid. Or you can do it in a first draft, if you can tell your characters are flat, or not driving the action.
Here is a good exercise to help you show what your adjectives are trying to tell the reader about:
Describe your character with adjectives
Now find a way to show that quality through action.
Ex: Lonely: someone who drinks at the pub alone
Bossy: someone who takes over the neighborhood garage sale and only wants things done her/his way
Brave: someone who jumps into a river to save a drawing child; or someone who stands up to their parents’ version of what they want them to be (a plumber instead of a doctor).Now WHY? Why is this person lonely? Bossy? Brave? Lonely=shy, hurt by someone in the past; Bossy=fear of not being perfect, anxiety; Brave=depends on type of bravery - do they find it easy to be physically brave, but are emotionally conflict-avoidant? Or are they brave about difficult conversations but afraid to fly?
You don’t have to put everything you unearth into your story, but knowing who your characters really are and why gives you valuable information about how they will react to things that happen in the story, as well as what their faults are and how they might grow through the story.
The important thing is: how can you SHOW these qualities, vs. telling us the person is brave/bossy/lonely?
You may get a sense of this by understanding the opposite: if the person wasn’t lonely, how would they act? Gregarious? Risk-taking? Smile more? And so on.
This can give you a clue to their character arc. By the end of the story, your main character should be ACTING differently, because what’s happened in the story has led them to a new understanding, or new knowledge or skills. If a character acts the exact same way throughout the story, showing no growth or change, readers get frustrated.
It is possible to have backwards growth - someone becomes stingier, more selfish, etc. But that is a particular kind of story, and you have to be very deliberate about showing us how and why the character makes these choices.
As always, keep in mind that every action has consequences. If I choose to boss people around during the neighborhood garage sale, they may not like me very much. They may have a neighborhood potluck and not invite me! They may not invite my kids to playdates.
These consequences are called STAKES. If there is nothing at stake for a particular character quality, then they are simply a cardboard cutout, walking around the scene doing the writer’s bidding. Boring!
What are the stakes for remaining lonely - i.e., doing the same things that made you lonely in the first place?
What are the stakes for being bossy?
What are the stakes for being brave? In the case of physical danger, it might be life or death. In the case of defying your parents, it might be loss of a relationship with them, and possibly by extension your culture/community.
Character traits don’t exist in a vacuum. They should inform everything your character thinks, says, and does. We develop traits for a reason, and we only change when there is a good reason to do so. That arc of change is the essence of your story, and why your reader will care about your character.
All of this can start with simple adjectives. Adjectives are the beginning, that lead you to go deeper and unearth all the interesting backstory that helps inform every part of the current story. That’s how you make your people feel alive, real, and compelling - and memorable long after the reader closes the book.
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