Show, Don't Tell — 30 Before-and-After Examples That Will Transform Your Prose
The most given and least understood advice in writing — finally made concrete. 30 worked rewrites, grouped by what they teach, that you can apply to your draft today.
Every writing workshop, craft book, and editorial letter eventually arrives at the same three words. Show, don't tell. It's the most given advice in fiction and the most poorly explained. Most writers nod, agree it sounds right, and then leave the workshop with no actual idea how to do it on the next page they write.
Here's the secret nobody quite says. The advice isn't a rule — it's a diagnostic. The question to ask of any sentence in your draft isn't "is this showing or telling?" The question is: does the reader need to be inside this moment, or do I just need to get them across it? Telling moves the reader through time and information efficiently. Showing puts them inside a specific moment with you. The craft is knowing which one a given sentence needs to do.
The 30 before-and-after examples below are the workout that turns the rule into instinct. They're grouped into five categories — emotion, character, setting, action, and backstory — because each category has its own telling traps and its own showing techniques. Read them straight through the first time. Bookmark them and use them as a reference on the second pass of your manuscript.
The Single Diagnostic Question
For any sentence that names an emotion, a trait, or an interpretation ("she was angry," "he was clever," "the room felt tense") — ask: what specific, observable behavior would make a reader conclude this without me saying it? Replace the named state with that behavior. That's "showing." If you can't think of a behavior, the state probably doesn't belong in this scene at all.
Part 1 — Showing Emotion (Examples 1–8)
Emotion is where the telling habit shows up hardest, because emotion-words are convenient. The fix in every case is the same: replace the named feeling with the involuntary physical behavior it causes, and trust the reader.
“She was furious that he had forgotten the appointment again.”
“She rinsed the mug a second time. Then a third. Water ran into the sink while he kept talking.”
“He felt devastated after his mother's funeral.”
“He stopped at the door of her bedroom. The light was still on. He turned it off and then, after a moment, turned it back on, and closed the door.”
“She was terrified as she walked down the dark hallway.”
“She kept her hand on the wall. The wall was the only thing that stayed where she expected it to.”
“He was overjoyed when the letter arrived.”
“He read it twice standing in the doorway. Then he sat down on the front step in his socks and read it a third time.”
“She felt deeply ashamed of what she had said.”
“She apologised twice on the way home and a third time when she got there. He had already forgotten. She brought it up again.”
“He was jealous of his brother's success.”
“He brought it up at every dinner. He brought it up the way you might bring up a fact, casually, as if he had only just remembered it. He had not just remembered it.”
“She felt very lonely in the new city.”
“She started talking to the cashiers. She started taking the long route home because there were more cashiers that way.”
“He realized he was in love with her.”
“He found himself memorising the shape of her hand around a coffee cup. He didn't know he was doing it until he caught himself doing it.”
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Try a Private Writing App FreePart 2 — Showing Character (Examples 9–14)
Telling readers what someone is like ("she was generous") is the writer's shortcut. Showing the trait through a single specific behavior — especially one the character thinks is unremarkable — is the move that makes a person feel real on the page.
“Anna was a generous person.”
“Anna left her change in the tip jar without looking back to see what it was.”
“He was a petty man.”
“He kept a list of every birthday she had forgotten. He kept it on his phone, in a folder called Notes.”
“The candidate was very confident at the interview.”
“She sat down before they offered her the chair. She started the answer before they finished the question.”
“He was insecure about his accent.”
“He rehearsed his order under his breath at the back of the queue, twice.”
“She was fiercely loyal to her old friend.”
“When the table started in on Mara, she put her glass down. She didn't pick it up again until the subject changed.”
“The teacher was a cruel woman.”
“The teacher said the boy's name first when calling the register, and last when handing back the marked papers. She did it every week.”
Part 3 — Showing Setting (Examples 15–20)
Setting is where most writers either over-tell (the encyclopaedia entry) or under-tell (the floating heads in a blank room). Showing a setting means selecting two or three specific, sensory details the POV character would actually notice — and letting those details carry both place and mood.
“It was a cold winter morning.”
“His breath fogged on the inside of the bus window. Someone had drawn a heart there yesterday and the cold still held the shape of it.”
“The house belonged to a very wealthy family.”
“There were three doorbells. None of them were for the family.”
“They were poor and the apartment was rundown.”
“The fridge made a sound at night that she had learned to sleep through. The landlord called it character.”
“The meeting was tense.”
“Nobody was looking at the chair the boss had not yet sat in. Everyone was looking at it.”
“The motel was lonely and depressing.”
“The vending machine had a hand-written note: Out of Order. The handwriting was old and the paper was older.”
“The kitchen felt warm and welcoming.”
“The radio was on, the kettle was on, and there were two mugs already out.”
Part 4 — Showing Action (Examples 21–25)
Action is often where writers do the opposite — they over-show, choreographing every gesture. The discipline here is the opposite of Part 1: cut the unnecessary beats, keep only the specific physical detail that makes the moment land.
“They fought brutally in the alley.”
“The first punch missed. The second one didn't. There was no third.”
“They kissed passionately for the first time.”
“She forgot to put her bag down. He laughed against her mouth and took it off her shoulder.”
“The car crashed into the wall and he was seriously injured.”
“The radio was still playing when he opened his eyes. The same song. He thought, with great clarity, that he had not been unconscious long.”
“She was very hungry and ate the soup quickly.”
“She finished the soup before she remembered to taste it.”
“He nervously confessed his lie.”
“He said it to the table. He kept saying it to the table until she said his name.”
Part 5 — Showing Backstory (Examples 26–30)
Backstory is the hardest category because the temptation to tell is the strongest — there's so much to convey, and dramatising every piece would balloon the book. The technique here is the load-bearing detail: one specific image or behavior that implies the whole.
“He had grown up in a violent household and it had shaped him.”
“He flinched when his wife reached past him for the salt. She had stopped reaching past him, mostly.”
“His first marriage had ended badly years ago.”
“He still drove the long way around the post office. He did not know he was doing it.”
“She had lost her son ten years ago and never recovered.”
“There was a present under the tree every December with no name on it. She bought it in October. She didn't buy one for herself.”
“The veteran had seen terrible things in the war.”
“He sat with his back to walls. Restaurants knew to give him the corner.”
“They had been close friends since they were children.”
“She poured him a coffee without asking how he took it. He drank it without asking what was in it.”
When to Tell (And Why The Rule Isn't Absolute)
Every example above is a moment that earns showing — a scene of consequence where the reader needs to feel the beat land. Most of your manuscript isn't these moments. Most of it is connective tissue: transitions, recaps, summary, structural information the reader needs without needing to live through it.
"Three months passed." Telling. Necessary. Try to dramatise three months and you'll bury the next consequential scene under fifty pages nobody reads.
"She had always been good with numbers." Telling. Fine, if the story isn't about her relationship with numbers. Show it only if it's about to matter.
The discipline is to know which moments your story turns on, and to spend your "showing" budget there. We dug deeper into how this maps to scene-level pacing and POV in our guides on the point of view and narrative voice masterclass, the architecture of dialogue, and the psychology of subtext — all of which are essentially showing-not-telling at different scales.
The Bottom Line
The rule isn't "always show." The rule is: whenever you find yourself naming a state, ask what behaviour would let the reader name it themselves. If the answer comes easily, replace the named state with the behaviour. If the answer doesn't come — if the moment isn't worth dramatising — keep the telling and move on.
That's it. That's the whole craft. Now go run the 30 examples above against the next chapter you draft, and watch what happens.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "show, don't tell" actually mean in writing?
It means dramatizing what a character is feeling, doing, or experiencing through specific sensory details, behavior, and action — instead of stating it directly. "She was angry" tells. "She rinsed the mug a second time, then a third, water running pointlessly while he kept talking" shows. The reader infers the emotion from the evidence, which makes it feel earned rather than announced.
When should you tell instead of show?
Tell when you need pacing — transitions between scenes, summary of months passing, recap of well-known backstory. Tell when the emotion is minor and dramatizing it would slow the prose. The rule of thumb: show the moments your story turns on; tell the connective tissue. Trying to show everything makes a manuscript drag; telling everything makes it flat.
How do you show emotion without telling?
Pick one physical behavior the emotion causes — the small involuntary tell rather than the cliché. Not "her hands shook" but "she gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles went white." Pair the behavior with an environmental detail the character notices in that emotional state. Trust the reader to name the emotion. Naming it for them — "she was nervous" — undoes the work.
Is "show, don't tell" always good advice?
No — and treating it as absolute is the most common way the advice gets misused. Some of the most powerful sentences in literature are pure telling ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"). The real principle: show when the moment carries the story's weight; tell when efficiency serves the reader better.