"Show Don't Tell!"
What do you think this advice means?
I think this is much more straightforward in comics and other visual media than in novels, but it effectively means: "If you can get something across by having a character DO something, or by having a detail in the environment, it's usually more engaging than having a character or narration tell the audience that thing. ie. If there's a magic wand that kills any human that touches it, have a scene where a human touches a wand and gets vaporised as somebody goes "Wait, you're a human, don't-!" is generally better than two people chatting as they walk and saying "As you know, any human who touches a magic wand dies".
That said, the advice does sometimes get thrown around to excess (because so many people don't follow it) and you do get some writers who get a little too scared of having anyone explain anything ever, or comic people getting the mistaken impression that "talking = bad", when it's more like "stating things about things = less impactful than seeing those things happening". You should definitely MOSTLY show, but sometimes you gotta tell or you'll get endless flashbacks to explain everything.
How do you approach 'showing' things
I make a list of bulletpoints of everything I need the reader to know about a character or the scenario or their relationships, then I try to come up with ways I can get those things across...
Actually, in this case, let me SHOW you rather than TELL. Because in Errant I made two very impactful choices: 1. NO NARRATION. There are no narration boxes in Errant. EVER. There will usually only be non-speechbubble text as sound effects, sound-effect like jokes like something out of Scott Pilgrim ("Sword.") and places you'd see text in a movie like The Avengers, ie. "Location name" or "X years later". 2. NO INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. In earlier drafts, Rekki's thoughts were always narrated in thought bubbles like a shounen manga, but it encouraged all my worst writing habits, so I scrapped it. Everything she's thinking and feeling has to be conveyed as if she's a character in a movie. Rekki cannot tell you, the reader, that Sarin is her best friend who sometimes makes her feel inadequate. I had to make scenarios that demonstrate things like that....
So the first three pages of Errant hopefully get across a lot of info without too much text.
Page 1:
- Three characters have arrived at a ruin (modern, made from concrete with rusted supports) The ruin is off limits (It's covered in yellow tape like it's condemned or otherwise closed.).
- It's damp and kind of cold (everyone's wearing jackets).
- They have swords and the girl has blue hair, so this is probably not our world!
- One of the girls looks eager and excited, the other looks cautious, giving the audience an immediate impression of their personalities. (hopefully you're also making some judgements from their clothes too. A fiery scruffy tomboy contrasting her more subdued and elegant friend).
- The blonde guy is in charge. (Girl calls him "sir" like he's a teacher).
Page 2-3:
- The blue haired girl is Sarin and she's consistently quite a serious, intense, sensitive and conscientious girl, which annoys...
- The blonde guy, whose name is Urien, he's kind of annoyed with how formal and serious Sarin is all the time and likes to tease her. He's confident and flippant.
- Extra-sensory perception exists in this world.
- Sarin has the ability to sense spirits! This is an ability most people can learn if they try, but it's still pretty impressive that she taught herself to do it.
- The red haired girl is Rekki. She's not as magical as Sarin and has feels bad about it.
- Note Urien's sigh, indicating that lack of ability/talent is typical of Rekki.
- Urien sure does like putting down these teenage girls...maybe he's not a nice guy?
- Sarin is an encouraging person and a good friend (maybe a little... excessively complimentary... maybe tries to be physically close to Rekki rather a lot...kind of blushing a bit... maybe she's got a wee bit of a crush on Rekki? ) But basically you're meant to like her and care about what happens to her.
- Rekki has a sister who has some sort of magical crap going on (this is important later).
- Ghosts and spirits are weird, but not scary.
I could have had a Rekki monologue like "My name is Elrekia Lune, but everyone calls me Rekki, I'm at this crumbly damp old ruin we were told not to come near because Urien thought this'd be a good place to train. Sarin is my best friend, she's super-good at magic, and sometimes that makes me feel bad, but she's so nice I kinda feel like I'd be a crappy person if I ever actually said that." BUT AREN'T YOU GLAD I BANNED MYSELF FROM DOING THIS? ...going purely off the length of my forum posts...ha...ha...
How do your disguise exposition in your work?
Wrap it up in some kind of emotional drama, a joke or physical action and only put it in when it's directly relevant. This is one of the most exposition-heavy pages of Errant... and it's also one of the most popular pages of Errant in terms of likes:
So much expo crap you're told here: Rekki's grandmother ended the third age of knights. She did it in the place they're in now. That happened before Rekki was born. Knights in an age of knights are more powerful than those born and living outside of one.... but chances are, your lasting impression of this page is that BRUTAL EMOTIONAL GUT PUNCH at the end. Because THAT is the important thing about all this exposition. The important thing isn't the Lore itself, the important thing is how that Lore effects our protagonist on an emotional level, ie. She constantly feels like IF ONLY she was magical like her grandmother (or like Sarin), people would value her. My personal guideline is: If a piece of Lore has no immediate relevence to what is happening to a character in a way that will have some kind of direct physical or emotional consequence, does the audience even need to know it right now?