Don’t Tell Me the Moon Is Shining; Show Me the Glint of Light on Broken Glass – Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

I first read this quote, attributed to Anton Chekov, in a Creative Writing Workshop back in 2002. To me, it epitomizes the principle of Show, Don’t Tell, and in fact, I love it so much that I included it as an epigraph at the beginning of Moonlight & Misadventure: 20 Stories of Mystery & Suspense. The thing is, Chekhov didn’t write it, at least not quite as succinctly. According to Quote Investigator, this expression was constructed as a summary of the instructions Anton Chekhov gave to his brother, who had literary ambitions, in a letter written in May 1886:

In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.

The letter was translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky and published in The Unknown Chekhov in 1954. Further translation efforts reveal that in the March 17, 1886 issue of the Petersburg Daily, Chekhov’s story, “Hydrophobia,” included this passage:

The dam, flooded with moonlight, showed not a bit of shade; on it, in the middle, the neck of a broken bottle glittered like a star. The two wheels of the mill, half-hidden in the shadow of an ample willow, looked angry, despondent . . .

Now, here’s the thing. The quote attributed to Chekhov is brilliant in its simplicity. But what about the two sentences extracted from Hydrophobia? I suspect an editor today would say that “flooded with moonlight” and “glittered like a star” were too much of a cliché (though in fairness to Chekhov they may not have been in 1886) and that the wheels of the mill could either be angry or despondent, but not both. Darn editors 🙂

But back to Show, Don’t Tell. In the Chekhov example, it’s done by setting the scene, adding details, creating a visual for the reader. But there are other ways to achieve it. Dialogue, for instance, can reveal a lot about a character. A great example of this is Oliver in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, when he naively (but oh-so-politely and respectfully), says, “Please sir, may I have some more please.”

Other methods include describing the action for the reader, once again creating a visual, this time by using at least a couple of the five senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, touch): don’t tell me the gunfight at the O.K. Corral only lasted 30 seconds. Describe the sound of the pistols being cocked, the smell of gunpowder and sweat mingled together.

Of course, authors still need to do some telling, whether it’s to clarify a situation, or to move the narrative along quickly. The magic is in finding the balance.

Do you have any tips for showing, not telling? A favorite author who, in your opinion, has the whole Show, Don’t Tell business down pat? If so, please share in the comments.