Construct · 1 fields · 1 citations

tell: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
tell1 CONSTRUCTTelling (exposition)BURROWAY · SHOW VS TELL

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Narrative craft

narrating by stating information or a character's feeling directly, as opposed to showing it through scene and action.

In the craft of fiction, to tell is to state information or judgment directly, to summarize or assert a character's feeling, as opposed to showing, which dramatizes it through concrete scene, action, and detail. Burroway's Writing fiction: A guide to narrative craft treats the balance of showing and telling as a core technique, with telling useful for compression and transition and showing for immediacy. The referent is a mode of narration, a choice about how much to dramatize versus summarize, evaluated by its effect on a reader. It is a different construct from an occupation mound or a poker signal, sharing only the everyday verb for stating something.[1]

Unit
The degree to which narration asserts rather than dramatizes information
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Judged qualitatively by how directly a passage summarizes versus dramatizes, and by the reader's resulting immediacy or distance

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Nearby constructs

narrative5 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, five constructsaction3 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, three constructsaffordance4 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Burroway, J., Stuckey-French, E., & Stuckey-French, N. (2019). Writing fiction: A guide to narrative craft (10th ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226616698

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