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A review by aix83
Understanding Show, Don't Tell by Janice Hardy
1.0
This is plain bad advice that generalizes poorly and doesn't bother to work through finer points. Advising against exposition at all costs and with complete disregard for the genre is a recipe for disaster in anything but the most vanilla setting. For example:
No, I don't recall I ever had anyone explain a joke to me unless I actually asked. I live in a country where we don't explain jokes to each other. Maybe I would unsolicitedly explain a joke to someone who's displaying that dumb look at the back of their crossed eyes that tells you they really didn't get the joke and are in danger of getting brainstem hernia from the effort to understand it.
I also live in a country where good writers don't put fucking common words and phrases between scare quotes like they're figurative or something, i.e. "get it". I think Mark Twain said the job of a writer is to find the right word and use it, not pussyfoot with putting words between scare quotes and inviting readers to guess their meaning. That's what a lazy writer does. If Janice decided to use informal voice in her writing, there's no need for the quotes. If she's angling for formal voice, she needs to whip out her thesaurus and use the big smart long words like understand or comprehend.
Also the writer acknowledges that sometimes you need to deliver exposition and then backtracks immediately and contradicts herself saying to let reads guess. If it's something I appreciate, it's consistency and coherence. Oh wait... was it the other way around? Actually I don't know what I meant to say so I'll just let readers guess. It's not that I contradict myself, I just lost track of what I... what was I saying?
Now back to the stupid formal categorization error taking place in this stupid advice book.
Here's the kicker. Putting a romance backstory anyone can guess and that can be summarized as 'MC has issues' on the same level as a device that requires serious suspension of disbelief like an anti-gravity car makes it clear Janice Hardy isn't a scifi reader and shouldn't give advice in that area. If there's something as cool as an anti-gravity car in the story – if there's something as cool as anti-gravity in that universe – I want to know how it looks like and why it works. Just because it's not interesting to Janice Hardy it doesn't mean it's not interesting to anyone. In fact, scifi and fantasy readers read that sort of stuff for the car or else they'd be satisfied with some non-scifi book. If it's not achieving that worldbuilding, it's not scifi, it's just a young adult retelling of Jane Eyre or Cinderella with scifi trappings that make little sense and bring nothing to the story.
And there's the – I know, unbelievable! – possibility that the reader can't in fact guess the rules of the universe. This is strangely common in universes with steep learning curves like any and all secondary and alternate world scifis and fantasies. Wow, what a concept! not being able to guess the rules of a universe that's not yours and whose whole gimmick is that it works differently! For instance, I have a setting where police is corrupt and the whole upper class is protected by diplomatic immunity, so the protag doesn't bother calling the police. If I don't put that exposition in between lines of dialog to outright say it, you know what I get? Plot holes. I'd get reviews saying that the choices made by the protag didn't make sense. I'd get plot breaking problems. All because there are still authors out there who think that exposition is the same as infodumping and, as such, cannot be realized nicely even in principle because it's blasphemy against the gods of writing. Would I want to spend a scene to dramatize the corrupt police and society in that world given the protag already knows about it and it does nothing for the plot? Clearly not. So I should just let readers guess, right? Of course. It's not the writer's job to worldbuild, let the readers do the heavy lifting. It's not like there are books out there where like half the reviews say the setting isn't sufficiently worldbuilt because of skimping on exposition and descriptions in the name of showing, not telling.
My advice: use exposition. To avoid coming across as boring or condescending or whatever, the solution is to use the rule of cool and make it the most interesting thing the readers came across today. Alternatively make it short. It's your job as a writer to come up with fun ways to deliver exposition or with streamlined ways to say it fast – just be aware that the possibility is there and it's your responsibility to leverage it.
Rule of Cool: Err on the side of cool.
If you're writing a book that doesn't require any exposition at all, it's best to stop. It's probably too simplistic and we've already seen every part of it elsewhere. If we're familiar with all the tech, every plot device, and the protag's motivation, then it's probably another werewolf vampire romance.
The advice about the anti-gravity car should actually read – in an alternate universe where books on writing aren't full with bad advice – as: if you have a cool car using a cool technology, make a scene where you show the MC lovingly eyeballing the car and checking out the engine before the chase scene. Hell, make them the inventor! That way you get some nice characterization in and do some worldbuilding. Or describe the car when the MC gets in for the chase scene and then demonstrate the tech during the chase. If you need complex scientific explanation as to why it works in the first place, like a second dimension of time or a fifth force we don't have in our universe, better just explain it before the chase scene so it doesn't break your pacing and readers have the info nicely lined up when they need it. That way they won't be pulled out of the story by their disbelief at the poorly set up setting.
Checking author's publication history reveals Goodreads scores of 3.8, which aren't great. 2* reviews say the author plots too tightly leaving no room for characterization or backstory, which demonstrates precisely how phobia of exposition will ruin a book. Her secondary characters and antagonists are said to blend together, and the lack of reaction scenes makes the tone flat, single-note. There's a moral conflict left untreated and people were confused about the socio-political organization of the setting.
Bottom line: forbidding exposition is bad advice. Good advice is saying how to do it well.
The basic definition of exposition sums up the pitfalls nicely: writing or speech intended to convey information or to explain.
That's also a definition for told prose. In writing terms:
It's when the science fiction protagonist gets into an anti-gravity car and the story stops to explain how it works and what it looks like.
It's when the romance protag has a date and the story stops to explain why this guy was particularly rough on her due to her past. [...]
Notice the key phrase: the story stops.[....]
However, sometimes you need to explain things to reads so they can understand and enjoy the story, and there's no natural way to write it without spending pages dramatizing something you could just explain in a line or two.
Explaining the story makes readers think you're insulting their intelligence. You don't think they can "get it" unless you explain it, and that can be a little condescending. If you've ever had someone explain a joke to you, you know how annoying that is.
Trust your readers to get it.
No, I don't recall I ever had anyone explain a joke to me unless I actually asked. I live in a country where we don't explain jokes to each other. Maybe I would unsolicitedly explain a joke to someone who's displaying that dumb look at the back of their crossed eyes that tells you they really didn't get the joke and are in danger of getting brainstem hernia from the effort to understand it.
I also live in a country where good writers don't put fucking common words and phrases between scare quotes like they're figurative or something, i.e. "get it". I think Mark Twain said the job of a writer is to find the right word and use it, not pussyfoot with putting words between scare quotes and inviting readers to guess their meaning. That's what a lazy writer does. If Janice decided to use informal voice in her writing, there's no need for the quotes. If she's angling for formal voice, she needs to whip out her thesaurus and use the big smart long words like understand or comprehend.
Also the writer acknowledges that sometimes you need to deliver exposition and then backtracks immediately and contradicts herself saying to let reads guess. If it's something I appreciate, it's consistency and coherence. Oh wait... was it the other way around? Actually I don't know what I meant to say so I'll just let readers guess. It's not that I contradict myself, I just lost track of what I... what was I saying?
Now back to the stupid formal categorization error taking place in this stupid advice book.
Here's the kicker. Putting a romance backstory anyone can guess and that can be summarized as 'MC has issues' on the same level as a device that requires serious suspension of disbelief like an anti-gravity car makes it clear Janice Hardy isn't a scifi reader and shouldn't give advice in that area. If there's something as cool as an anti-gravity car in the story – if there's something as cool as anti-gravity in that universe – I want to know how it looks like and why it works. Just because it's not interesting to Janice Hardy it doesn't mean it's not interesting to anyone. In fact, scifi and fantasy readers read that sort of stuff for the car or else they'd be satisfied with some non-scifi book. If it's not achieving that worldbuilding, it's not scifi, it's just a young adult retelling of Jane Eyre or Cinderella with scifi trappings that make little sense and bring nothing to the story.
And there's the – I know, unbelievable! – possibility that the reader can't in fact guess the rules of the universe. This is strangely common in universes with steep learning curves like any and all secondary and alternate world scifis and fantasies. Wow, what a concept! not being able to guess the rules of a universe that's not yours and whose whole gimmick is that it works differently! For instance, I have a setting where police is corrupt and the whole upper class is protected by diplomatic immunity, so the protag doesn't bother calling the police. If I don't put that exposition in between lines of dialog to outright say it, you know what I get? Plot holes. I'd get reviews saying that the choices made by the protag didn't make sense. I'd get plot breaking problems. All because there are still authors out there who think that exposition is the same as infodumping and, as such, cannot be realized nicely even in principle because it's blasphemy against the gods of writing. Would I want to spend a scene to dramatize the corrupt police and society in that world given the protag already knows about it and it does nothing for the plot? Clearly not. So I should just let readers guess, right? Of course. It's not the writer's job to worldbuild, let the readers do the heavy lifting. It's not like there are books out there where like half the reviews say the setting isn't sufficiently worldbuilt because of skimping on exposition and descriptions in the name of showing, not telling.
My advice: use exposition. To avoid coming across as boring or condescending or whatever, the solution is to use the rule of cool and make it the most interesting thing the readers came across today. Alternatively make it short. It's your job as a writer to come up with fun ways to deliver exposition or with streamlined ways to say it fast – just be aware that the possibility is there and it's your responsibility to leverage it.
Rule of Cool: Err on the side of cool.
If you're writing a book that doesn't require any exposition at all, it's best to stop. It's probably too simplistic and we've already seen every part of it elsewhere. If we're familiar with all the tech, every plot device, and the protag's motivation, then it's probably another werewolf vampire romance.
The advice about the anti-gravity car should actually read – in an alternate universe where books on writing aren't full with bad advice – as: if you have a cool car using a cool technology, make a scene where you show the MC lovingly eyeballing the car and checking out the engine before the chase scene. Hell, make them the inventor! That way you get some nice characterization in and do some worldbuilding. Or describe the car when the MC gets in for the chase scene and then demonstrate the tech during the chase. If you need complex scientific explanation as to why it works in the first place, like a second dimension of time or a fifth force we don't have in our universe, better just explain it before the chase scene so it doesn't break your pacing and readers have the info nicely lined up when they need it. That way they won't be pulled out of the story by their disbelief at the poorly set up setting.
Checking author's publication history reveals Goodreads scores of 3.8, which aren't great. 2* reviews say the author plots too tightly leaving no room for characterization or backstory, which demonstrates precisely how phobia of exposition will ruin a book. Her secondary characters and antagonists are said to blend together, and the lack of reaction scenes makes the tone flat, single-note. There's a moral conflict left untreated and people were confused about the socio-political organization of the setting.
Bottom line: forbidding exposition is bad advice. Good advice is saying how to do it well.