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Show, Don't Tell: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Mechanics of Writing}}{{page should be category}}
[[File:donttellus.png|link=Sluggy Freelance|frame|Unless, of course, you are [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshading it]] [[Played for Laughs|for laughs.]]]]
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[[Rush]] named one of their songs after this concept.
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{{tropelist}}
▲=== General Telling: ===
* [[As You Know]]: As you know, this is when a troper like you recognizes as the act of characters giving out exposition nobody in the scene would need.
* [[Info Dump]]: Infodumping (that is information + dumping) is a type of Exposition that is particularly sesquipedalian. Although it can be done in a way that is unintrusive or entertaining, most infodumps are obvious, intrusive, patronizing, and sometimes downright boring. Specifically, if the premise of your story is laughably ridiculous, an infodump will call attention to the fact. This infodump, for instance. The word 'infodump' is often used as a pejorative.
* [[That Makes Me Feel Angry]]: it makes me sad when writers resort to just having their characters say what they feel in so many words.
* [[Exposition]]
* [[Explaining Your Power to
* [[And That's Terrible]]: when the narrator reminds the audience, [[Viewers are Morons|in case they missed it]], that what the villain did was terrible. [[Hypocritical Humor|Which is a bad device and shouldn't be used.]]
* [[Meaningful Name]]: a quick (some might even say lazy) way to let us know what a character is like.
* [[Narrating the Obvious]]: when a story shows ''and'' tells.
* [[Said Bookism]]: "In which the nature and intention of dialogue is told by the dialogue tags as well as by the dialogue itself," The
* [[Character Shilling]]
* [[Continue Your Mission, Dammit!]]: There isn't much time left because people keep telling you there isn't much time left. You have 35 seconds to finish this page.
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** [[Informed Loner]]: "I don't like being around others," said Alice to Bob and 20 of their very best friends. On being told this, nobody left the room.
** [[Informed Wrongness]]: Bob told Alice that the moon orbits the Earth, ignoring the clear evidence she'd presented that [[Mary Sue|everything in the universe orbited her]]. Well, we can't all be smart like Alice.
* [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]]: Have a job which would involve distinctly non-heroic behavior for your hero? Don't worry, just don't have them do it. [[Sarcasm Mode|It's not like killing people is an
* [[Cutscene Power to
* [[Cutscene Incompetence]]: Your character is significantly ''less'' able when you're not playing as him.
* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]: The game mechanics don't work the same way the storyline does, or the story doesn't match the way the player is allowed to behave. This often comes across as the game simply ignoring whatever the player is doing to tell a fixed, immutable storyline.
* [[Discretion Shot]]: Writers imply that something [[Gory Discretion Shot|violent]] or [[Sexy Discretion Shot|sexual]] happened without showing it to avoid censorship.
* [[Informed Conversation]]: The "would otherwise be repeating what the audience has seen already" and "distill the plot" variants.▼
* [[Great Offscreen War]]: Not every writer can convincingly depict a war. Especially if they have no experience with the subject.
▲* [[Informed Conversation]]: The "would otherwise be repeating what the audience has seen already" and "distill the plot" variants.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: Writers don't even tell the details, to let imaginations fill in the gaps.
** [[Noodle Implements]]: Stating items used, but not how, to let imaginations fill in the gaps.
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[[Category:Lit Class Tropes]]
[[Category:Narrative Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Show, Don't Tell]]
[[Category:Mechanics of Writing]]
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