Show, don’t tell. Every novelist hears it, usually around the time they are trying to work out why a scene feels flat. The advice is sound, but it is also incomplete. Telling is not a sin. Vagueness is. The problem comes when a draft tells readers what to think before they have seen enough to think it for themselves.

This checklist is for a revision pass. Read a scene, spot the telling, and decide whether to build a moment or leave the summary alone. Used well, it will sharpen your prose without turning every page into a minefield of raised eyebrows and sighed breaths.

The Quick Diagnostic: Five Questions

Before you rewrite a passage, diagnose it. Read a page and ask:

• Does the prose name an emotion instead of giving me evidence for it?
• Does it summarise a conversation, journey or argument that the reader would rather witness?
• Does it explain a character’s motive before the character has done anything revealing?
• Does it rely on adverbs or filter verbs to do the work of action and dialogue?
• Does it tell me how to feel about a place, person or decision, rather than letting the details create that feeling?

Two or more yeses is a signal. Mark the passage, but do not try to fix the whole manuscript at once. Work scene by scene, starting with the moments that matter most: confrontations, decisions, first meetings, betrayals, reconciliations. Those are the places where readers want to be present.

Common Forms of Telling — and What to Do Instead

Telling rarely announces itself. It hides in plain, efficient sentences. Here are the usual suspects.

• Emotion labels. “She was furious.” Instead: “She set the mug down hard enough to slop tea over the rim.” The action does not have to be dramatic. It has to be specific.
• Summarised time. “They argued for hours.” Instead: choose one exchange that captures the argument’s shape. Let the reader infer the hours from the fatigue, the repetition, the silence afterwards.
• Explained motive. “He lied because he was afraid of losing her.” Instead: let the lie stand. Show the pause before it, the way he looks at the door, the question he answers too quickly.
• Adverb-heavy dialogue tags. “she said angrily.” Instead: use the words themselves, plus a physical beat. “She said it without looking up from the laptop.”
• Backstory dump. “She had never trusted men since her father left.” Instead: drop one detail into the present conflict. A locked drawer. A flinch at a particular name. The rest can wait.

Each fix follows the same principle: replace the conclusion with evidence. You are not hiding information. You are letting the reader arrive at it a beat earlier than the character admits it.

From Label to Scene: A Worked Example

Take this:

Maya was nervous about the interview. She was also excited. The waiting room felt intimidating.

The sentences are clear. They are also doing all the work for the reader. Revised:

Maya turned the paper cup ninety degrees, then back again. Across the waiting room, a man in a grey suit read the financial pages as if nothing important was happening. The receptionist called a name. Not hers. Maya checked the clock, then the door, then the clock.

No one says nervous. No one says intimidating. The reader infers both from the cup, the clock, the man who will not look up. The scene has not become longer for the sake of it. It has become more precise.

What changed

• The emotion became action: turning the cup, checking the clock.
• The setting became a detail with attitude: a man reading as if nothing important was happening.
• The pacing slowed to match her waiting.

Clarity is not lost. We know where she is, what she wants, and how she feels. We are simply trusted to work it out.

Filter Words, Adverbs and Other Distancing Habits

Some words hold readers at arm’s length. They report experience rather than creating it. Filter verbs include saw, heard, felt, noticed, realised, watched, seemed, decided and thought. Compare “She saw the door open” with “The door opened.” The second is closer to the character’s nerve endings.

Adverbs are not villains. “Walked quickly” can become “hurried”, and “said quietly” can become “murmured”. But sometimes the adverb is the exact word, and forcing a stronger verb creates a pantomime. Use your ear. If the adverb repeats what the verb already shows, cut it. If it adds a genuine shade of meaning, keep it.

Explanations after the fact are another tic. “He slammed the door, showing he was angry.” The slammed door already showed it. Cut the last three words. The same goes for “proving”, “revealing” and “making it clear that”. Trust your images.

1. Circle every filter verb in the scene. Keep only those that add voice, uncertainty or deliberate distance.
2. Underline adverbs in dialogue tags. See whether action or word choice can carry the tone instead.
3. Search for “showing”, “proving” and “revealing”. Delete them unless a character is genuinely interpreting another person’s behaviour.

Keep Showing Lean — and Know When to Tell

Showing can be overdone. If every character raises an eyebrow, sighs, clenches a jaw and studies the middle distance, the scene becomes a puppet show. Over-showing also slows pace. Sometimes a reader needs a clear, unfussy sentence: “Three weeks later, the letter arrived.”

Telling is the right tool for:

• Transitions that move time forward without fuss.
• Repetitive or minor action: “They packed the flat in a weekend.”
• Minor characters who need one clear trait, not a full scene.
• Backstory that only needs to be known, not felt.
• Interior summary when a character is thinking through a decision at speed.

A useful rule: show what matters emotionally in the present scene; tell what carries the reader across the parts they do not need to live through. Clarity is not the enemy of vividness. It is the frame that makes vividness legible.

A Final Checklist Before You Type ‘The End’

1. Read dialogue aloud. If you need the tag to know the tone, rewrite the line or add a beat of action.
2. Check scene openings. Start where the conflict begins, not three paragraphs before it.
3. Search emotion words — angry, sad, nervous, happy, jealous. Replace them with action, thought, dialogue or physical detail.
4. Search filter verbs — felt, realised, noticed, seemed. Cut the ones that add nothing but distance.
5. Ask of every shown detail: does it reveal character, advance tension, or ground the scene? If not, cut it.
6. Read as a reader. Where do you skim? That is usually where the prose has slipped into summary or over-explanation.

Showing is not decoration. It is evidence. Give readers something to witness — a cup turned, a lie left unexcused, a clock checked twice — and they will bring their own understanding to the page. Keep this checklist nearby during revision. It will not write the scene for you, but it will help you see where the scene has not yet begun.

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