Show v. Tell Is A Pain...(See What I Did There?)

My back hurts. Apparently, lifting my one year old/ combined with being almost thirty/ combined with too much reading in awkward positions has kinked up my lower back.

Sitting, right now, writing to you people...hurts. My baby is still sleeping, and I don't know what to do, because I know in a few minutes, he's gonna wake up and cry, and someone is going to have to pick him up out of his crib, and I'm the only one here tall enough to do it.

So, while my mind is on the subject, let's talk pain.

Pain is one of those empty words that mean more to the writer of the word, then the reader of the word. I've read stories where the writer uses the word pain as a short cut, or a crutch.

 I've noticed that it takes more than just that one mention of a word to gain a reader's sympathy.

Take this example from FTCM.

Leo moved far quicker than I expected and backhanded me. I saw a flash of white, then my whole body toppled to the side. My hands tied behind me couldn’t stop the fall, so I gashed the side of my head against the freezing concrete. 

No pain yet, just action.  This is still working, IMO. We're far enough into the story, that I've developed sympathy toward Larissa, so I'm halfway there. But then I do this... Are there sentences like this in your WIPs?

Searing pain lanced across my face. I swore.

When I wrote it, I thought that sentence was beautiful. So powerful, right?  I'm not quite so sure now. I think there's a better way to say it. 

To be clear, I think it's okay to say "Pain verbed through my (insert area of body in pain here ) once or twice. To 'tell' the pain is fine, sometimes. However just saying, "Oh look, pain," doesn't make the reader feel it.

I'm not a fan of the whole Show v. Tell argument. I think there are times and places that it's better to tell. It's quicker. Sometimes it just sounds better. It's for the writer to decide which is best for the pages.

However PAIN is a different story. In my opinion, pain must be shown, most of the time. It doesn't seem to work as well if you tell it.

Pain is a powerful tool to give a character likability. Think of the character House. Pain used in the right place gives justification for his jerk-faced nature. However, the more you talk about pain, the less impact it has. You can't say," It hurts, It hurts, It hurts", without turning readers sympathy into annoyance that the character won't stop whining.

One of my work in progress is about this dying girl who gets healed by a faith healer. She's in pain...all the time. There's only so many ways you can say it without losing sympathy, and starting to sound whiny. Here's an example of how I talk around the pain that I think works pretty well.

“There’s got to be something else we can do,” Mom said, as she closed her door just a little too hard. I winced, both at her words, and at the movement. I ignored her as best as I could for the drive home and concentrated instead on the feel of my wool skirt as it brushed against my knees. I ran my fingers over the cool leather binding of the backseat, appreciating the rise of each stitch. I had an itch on my hairline, but it hurt too much to raise my hand, so I closed my eyes and tried to will the itch to go away. 

I think the trick to using pain, like most things in writing, is to write around the pain, and let the reader do the work imagining it. That same trick works with writing romance, with writing grief, and with writing attraction. Don't try to force it, or come at it too strong. Mention the cause, and let the reader come up with the consequences.

Put the reader to work, because once you let the story leave your hard drive, it's no longer yours. It becomes the readers story. As they read it, the effort they make to attach themselves to the character will be what makes the story linger in their lives.

I guess that's the point of the show v. tell debate. 

Best of luck to you!

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