Don’t Tell, Show

There’s a saying about writing: “Don’t tell us; show us.”

Don’t tell me about the birth. Don’t tell me about the feelings and about the room and about your thoughts. And for heaven’s sake, please don’t tell me what I should feel.

Take me there. Walk me into the room, and show me around.
Show me the beads of sweat on the mom’s forehead or her grimace during contractions.
Introduce me to the sounds and the smells and the lighting?
Show me the bed and the sheets and the lavender chair in the corner.
If you show me, the emotions will come, the connection will occur.

But as soon as you tell me I should feel joy or ecstasy, I will most certainly not feel those emotions. Not because I, as the reader, am resistant to psychologic prescription, but because when you tell me to do or feel something or you tell me about that experience from a distance, the experience is secondhand. If you show me, you and I are both there, firsthand, in real time. The whole thing has flesh on it. It’s real.

This is good advice for writing.
And public speaking.
And parenting.
And discipling.
And coaching.
And teaching.
And managing.
And in so many other lines of work.