Being evident or as silent as a ninja

[磯七ラスミ]

As usual, I bring a two-side (or more) open topic. This time to talk about good plot practices, particular opinions and stuff concerning to explain too much to the public, or to keep quiet and wait for he/she realizing, having a moment of illumination that reveals their the truth.

Here a couple of examples (better called exaggerations):

EXAMPLE A
-Hand me that, please
-You musn't be serious.
-C'mon! I told you everything will be fine.
-I'll keep a closer eye. I owe you, after all.

EXAMPLE B
-Yesterday was a bad day, right?
-You scatterbrain. I almost lose my bus trying to save you.
-I know I know. Don't say it twice.
-We've known since childhood, but yesterday we become friends.
-I not only got a friend, but a girl's cell phone too.
-Hand me that cell phone! I get all credit because was thanks to ME that you got it.
-You musn't be serious.
-I am. We discussed this yesterday after I saved you, don't you remember? Everything will be okay. I'm not going to do anything stupid.
-I'll look after you. I must be with you and with that pretty cell phone. I owe you one and it is the least I can do.
-Are you sure is ME who you care for?
-Baka! O-of course I do. (*blushes*)

[RotGtIE]

There is a rule called "show, don't tell." There is a reason that it is a rule.

[YonYonYon]

Show important things, tell not so important ones

[gekiganwing]

I think you will benefit by minimizing "maid and butler" dialogue, in which characters say things to each other which both of them already know. Author Brandon Sanderson wrote a blog post about this topic.

[Katy133]

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish, as well as what the overall tone the game has.

As stated above, the "show, don't tell" rule is a brilliant rule to follow: "Don’t say that it’s night. Say how the moon is reflecting off the window."

However with any rule, there's always exceptions. There will always be that one, clever writer who is able to break the rule.

Examples of works that break the rule and do it well:

• Arrested Development: I don't usually watch/enjoy American sitcoms, but I really like Arrested Development because it takes the "show, don't tell" rule and rips it apart! What makes it work is that the series combines it will extreme levels of Chekhov's Gun, and breaks the rule for comedic effect. All throughout the series, there's an unseen narrator dryly explaining what's going on, the character's thoughts, and even says things like, "Remember that detail. It will be very important later." The narrator even (with his usual dry delivery) narrates his own opinions, like he's also a character. In one episode, this exchange occurs:

  Michael, the main character: Oh my God. I'm dating Ron Howard's girlfriend!
  Narrator: Actually, she's his daughter. But that's kind of worse, don't you think?

  The narrator also explained everything in an amusing way:

  Lindsay: (Talking about the Milford Academy, a school that taught children to be "neither seen nor heard") Buster was the only one who ever liked it.
  Narrator: Buster so excelled at being neither seen nor heard that he remained at the school, undetected, a full two semesters after he was supposed to graduate.

• Jeeves and Wooster: The novels often use "As you know..."-style dialogue, but clearly does it in a comedic, on-purpose way:

  Aunt Dahlia: Have you ever heard of Market Snodsbury Grammar School?
  Bertie: Never.
  Aunt Dahlia: It's a grammar school at Market Snodsbury.
  Bertie's narration: I told her a little frigidly that I had divined as much.

  Another comedic example:

  Bertie's narration: I thought it sounded suspicious. And I told Jeeves so.
  Bertie: Jeeves, that sounds suspicions.

  The fact that Bertie repeats himself through the narration and dialogue is what creates the comedic tone.
• As Time Goes By: I consider Bob Larbey to be one of the best English screenwriters of the 21st Century. His series As Time Goes By, as well as the series he co-wrote, Mulberry, contain dialogue that explains exposition, character's relationships with eachother, and character's thoughts in a very natural, subtle way. His work feels like real people speaking to one another.

Examples of works that break the "show, don't tell" rule, and do it badly:

• Norm of the North: If you can bear to sit through this 2016 animated film, it contains some of the most lazy, blatant examples of "as you know..." dialogue. It's very obvious when the characters are just saying things for the sake of the audience.
• This scene from The Next Karate Kid film. So much exposition in just a few, forced sentences!
• Troll 2: A film regarded as a "so bad, it's entertaining" movie. There's a scene near the beginning of this film where the mother talks to her son and says the following:

  Mother: Grampa Seth has been gone for more than six months now. You were at the funeral, and I know it was very difficult for you. It was also very difficult for your father, and for Holly, and for me his daughter."

  Not only does this feel unnatural (this doesn't feel like something she would say to her son, it's worded awkwardly), but it's clear that it was simply said out loud to establish the relationships between the main characters (she's the mother, he's the son, he's the grandfather, etc).

You can learn a lot by studying other writers and other works, such as the ones I've listed above. The former list will show you ways to break the rule well. The latter list will teach you how not to do it.

So my advice would be to follow the "show, don't tell" rule, unless you are consciously breaking it for a reason.

[Katy133]

I just found this great video on the subject:



It even mentions The Karate Kid's exposition around 2:19 of the video.

[Jain]

The way I look at it, it's better to put what's natural for the characters before the need to explain things to the audience.

[gas]

Well, let's participate here,
Readers play a simple game. They want a number of unfitting data, proposed in an interesting way.
As much as those data are given in an interesting way, the reader mind will accept it.
Then you give a key, and readers have fun to relocate (on their own, note that!) those memorized data in a proper sequence/logic.
It's quite a puzzle.

Let's do an example.
In Steins:Gate, the game begin with Kyouma doing a strange phone call, to a "secret agency", about "dangerous people" and use very strange codewords. Ow! What's going on? He's a secret agent? What that evil masterplan?
In the meanwhile, a cute girl call him another name and seems instead very relaxed and joyful. Hey! Be careful pretty! Something's bad and you'll risk. This guy too have another name??
Only later we'll find that Kyouma suffer of delusion of grandeur, those strange words relax him and why use another name.

Of course the game will never state "He does that because of...", but for example, it show that no one was really calling him at the phone. You put those pieces together and the global picture flesh out. Ah! That's why he talked so at the phone!

Another quite famous example was The Sentinel short story.
A guy talk about an alien war... Interesting!
Where billion died and they are at a stalemate Oh no!
An alien figure approach... Be careful!
He kill that disgusting figure Hahaha well done!
... that was too white, with no carapace and have only 2 arms <--- that's the key.
The reader use the key and... OMG! I sympathized with the alien side, not the human one, the whole time!

Note that in both narrations, and they are winning ones, dialogues are "open" and direct, without any ninja game. A gun is a gun, a phone is a phone, there's no "that thing you know" game.
The trick live at a broader level.
As for dialogues, I've tried in a lotta ways to convey this, but I think is far better that you play a longterm game of the ninja type.
The trick could be very annoying if repeated for long scenes (and movies have the advantage of visual language to convey subtle things on the fly).

[Soramaro]

It's indeed a very important subject to know how to write a story.

Like people say it before: "Show don't tell" is a short and very true advice to write a story.

Explain elements of the story is necessary but it's boring for the reader if you just list them one by one. The astuce is to give these elements in a more amusing way. Posts above give very good examples (I love the example of gas with the alien).

[wyverngem]

It's a bit of both. If the player can see or hear it then I'd leave it out. If the player can't then it probably needs to be said.

[Kuiper]

"Show, don't tell" is a good guiding principle. However, showing usually requires more space than telling.

He was impatient.

He glanced around the room as he waited, his eyes darting from the clock to the door as he restlessly tapped his foot.

The first example is telling, the second example is showing.

That being said, sometimes showing can be subtler and quicker than telling. This is can sometimes be evident when you compare instances of characters talking about how they feel about something, rather than conveying it through body language. e.g. a character saying"I hate it when you do that!" can simply become a frown of disapproval.

Also, just because you are using a lot of words doesn't mean that you are showing. For example, in the OP, "Example B" is longer, but it's also pretty heavy on "telling" (rather than showing), particularly this bit:

We discussed this yesterday after I saved you, don't you remember?

I feel like this line of dialog exists to tell the reader a piece of information that the author wants to convey, rather than actually show a conversation between two characters. (For further reference, see the TV tropes page: "As you know...")

For me, a big part of being "silent as a ninja" (as the OP's title puts it) is having prose and narration that doesn't draw attention to itself. If I read a line of dialog and think, "Oh, that's there because the author is trying to set something up for me," it takes me out of the scene. As George Orwell said, "good prose is like a windowpane," in the sense of being invisible to the reader. In a lot of cases, providing richer and more detailed description of a scene can make a scene feel more immersive, and as noted before, showing something often requires more words than simply telling it.