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How to ACTUALLY Show vs. Tell #author #writing #writingcommunity #books #authortube

23 Jul 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:44

In this instructional video, the speaker explains a common pitfall for writers learning the difference between showing and telling: over‑reliance on dialogue that is stuffed with exposition. The speaker illustrates how such dialogue becomes a tell when characters speak information they already know solely for the reader’s benefit, resulting in stiff, unrealistic speech. The core solution offered is a simple diagnostic question for every line of dialogue: “Would this character actually say this to this person in this moment?” If the line exists only to inform the reader, it should be cut or rewritten. The speaker emphasizes trusting the reader to infer information and encourages writers to let characters converse naturally. Finally, the video promotes a free scene‑writing checklist, inviting viewers to comment “checklist” to receive it.

Chapters

Whenever a writer first starts learning the difference between showing and telling, what do they do? Well, they start writing a lot of dialogue because dialogue is technically always showing. A camera and a microphone can catch every word of it. So when I'm on people about telling too much, they often switch to dialogue to fix it. It's a smart move. And then they ruin it by stuffing the dialogue full of exposition. You've read this in a scene 100 times. Two characters who both already know something, saying it out loud anyway purely so the reader can overhear. "Honey, as you know, we've been married for 15 years." No husband on earth says that to his wife. He knows. She knows. The only person who doesn't know is the reader. And now the whole conversation is bent towards the reader instead of the characters towards each other. That's the tell. The moment the characters stop talking to each other and start talking for the audience's benefit, that's when your dialogue dies. It goes stiff, it sounds fake, and the reader can't always say why, but they feel it and they know something's wrong. The fix is one question asked of every line of dialogue: would this character actually say this to this person in this moment? If the only reason the line exists is to feed the reader information, it's bad dialogue. You gotta cut it or rewrite it. Let your characters talk to each other. Trust the reader to keep up and know what's going on. Now, this is just one piece in writing great scenes for your book. And if you want to go even deeper, I have a free scene writing checklist to do a diagnostic on your own writing to make sure it's doing everything it needs to do. All you have to do to get it is comment the word "checklist" down in the comments, and I'll send it to you.