After last week’s post, where I dropped in the concept of “show don’t tell,” I haven’t been able to let it go. All week, there’s been a vague shadow of an idea, like an irrepressible ghost trying to get through to me.

I’d be cleaning my teeth, and over my shoulder is this thought, just kind of staring at me, eyebrows raised.

I’m in a meeting, and across the room in an empty chair, the thought is sipping ice water and rolling its eyes at my jokes.

Even now, in this bar with the renaissance cat paintings on the wall - the thought is next to me, flicking my glass, drumming its fingers on the table, staring at me expectantly.

Fine, I say to the shadow. I’ll write you.

--

The concept of “show don’t tell” is as old as any story. It’s powerful because it’s true, but it’s not simple, and it’s not binary.

On stage or screen, yes, we craft the story so that the audience can see the character’s identity through the actions they take. But what about literature? We learn so much about a character through their own internal dialogue, about how they perceive their world, and that’s all TELL, without any SHOW.

I am more like a book than a movie. I’m ruminative. I need to talk things through before ever acting. I have to speak, rant, question, second-guess myself, to get some clarity. And it’s not just clarity on what to DO, but even what it is I BELIEVE. My friend Jason and I are both ruminators, and will spend countless hours wandering city streets, spending a whole night on a single topic, just musing and playing with ideas around it, trying to get to the core of what each of us believe.

It sounds a lot like "all talk no action." How does “show don’t tell” work for that?

Often I have behaved as if my life were literature, and others could just read my mind. I’ve assumed that they understand my intentions, my motivations, my heart. On the inside I’m feeling all these things, and believing all these things, while on the outside, I’m as dull as a brick. I remember once being accused of indifference, of not caring about someone, and I was so shocked. To me, I cared deeply about this person - they were always on my mind - but to them, I was distant and uncaring.

Nobody can read our minds. Whatever we are thinking needs to be demonstrated somehow before others can believe it.

So we speak, or we act.

But, if we ONLY speak, then we may not seem authentic. We say things that aren’t proved by actions.

And if we ONLY act, then our actions can be misinterpreted. We do things that aren’t explained clearly.

“Show don’t tell” becomes a lot less simple, and certainly not universally true. To be honest (and to borrow a phrase from a Roblox game my kids play) it’s an absolute clutter-funk.

—

I look over at the shadow-thought, reclining in the candlelight, and I scowl.
"You are not easy to write." I grumble.
“But here you are writing” it replies smugly.
"But all I’m doing is dumping words onto a page. Adding to the noise. It’s all ‘tell.’" I say.
“So it doesn’t matter?”
“If I don’t do this, nothing happens at all. The words stay locked in my head, and nothing reaches anyone.”
“So it does matter?”
“Oh shut up."

—

Show. Tell. Talk. Act. They're all important. And we’ll all do it differently. This dance between speaking our truths, and acting on them, is a fluid, ever-changing energy, and really can't be constrained to a rulebook of specifics.

It's frustrating to admit, but most of our decisions are born from intuition rather than logic. Behind all the words and all the actions is a mysterious drive, a spark, a shadow of an idea that pushes us towards speaking or acting, and I don’t really know how much control we have over that. I heard an interview with a writer this week, and she was asked about her process, the rules she followed for writing her books.

She said that no system has ever worked for her. She said that the words come, and all she can do is write, and observe what she is writing, and make sure she believes it, and then edit appropriately.

Which I thought was wonderful, because I can’t do systems either. For writing or for living. But I can try to stay open to intuition, and respond with both words and actions, and then observe it all, and make changes, and keep growing.

—

I stare over my empty glass with a sigh, and the shadow-idea stares back.

“Is it enough?” I ask, a bit hopelessly.

The shadow leans forward, places a hand on mine, and smiles. “It’s enough."