Ooh, boy, what a lot to unpack. I think all the exceptions are best summed up by "rules are meant to be broken", as long as they're broken with intent.
Are internal monologues considered ableist these days since a substantial number of people don't have one?
Huckleberry Finn was the example of "show, don't tell" back in HS English class. The teacher spent a good portion of our class time reviewing Samuel Clemens' /description/ of the plantation mansion's coffee table, with pages upon pages about its immaculately stacked books and decorations and accoutrements that were supposedly there to covertly convey the message that these were a bunch of dumb illiterate southerners that only put up a facade of wealth and well-upbringing. Of course that message failed to land on our adolescent brains, but the insight we did gain appreciation for by slogging through that laborous passage once again was that Samuel was paid by the word count.
For another wonderful counterexample of where tell works better than show, have a look at the sci-fi short Swarm (from Love Death + Robots S3E6 on Netflix). It certainly is a visual feast, but the most memorable bits are fed as brief exposition dialogue between two scientists that set up the rapid buildup for the reversal that bites you in the face. Any two sentences would have taken an entire feature-length horror film to explore and establish using inductive show reasoning, but such is the way when it comes to evolutionary xenobiology. It's also the only story from all of the shorts that leaves me wanting to explore a spinoff sequel.
I get irritated with people throwing around the word ableist to describe a difference in ability. Even without taking disability into the equation, everyone has different levels of ability in different areas, for one thing. But for another, the existence of disability isn't ableism. There are things I can't do due to a disability that other people can do, and that fact isn't ableism. If I were discriminated against because of my inability to do these things due to a disability, that would be ableism. But honestly a lot of people say things are "ableism" or "ableist" when the fact is there's just difference and not inequity.
I appreciate the disquisition on show don’t tell. This is something I always try to keep in mind as I write. Thanks, Catherine.
Like many things, a lot of people took this advice too literally. It’s meant to be a helpful guideline, not a decree etched in stone. Sometimes, too much telling is deliberate, like with an unreliable narrator. Sometimes, the excessive telling says something about the teller, having nothing to do with what was literally told.
Ooh, boy, what a lot to unpack. I think all the exceptions are best summed up by "rules are meant to be broken", as long as they're broken with intent.
Are internal monologues considered ableist these days since a substantial number of people don't have one?
Huckleberry Finn was the example of "show, don't tell" back in HS English class. The teacher spent a good portion of our class time reviewing Samuel Clemens' /description/ of the plantation mansion's coffee table, with pages upon pages about its immaculately stacked books and decorations and accoutrements that were supposedly there to covertly convey the message that these were a bunch of dumb illiterate southerners that only put up a facade of wealth and well-upbringing. Of course that message failed to land on our adolescent brains, but the insight we did gain appreciation for by slogging through that laborous passage once again was that Samuel was paid by the word count.
For another wonderful counterexample of where tell works better than show, have a look at the sci-fi short Swarm (from Love Death + Robots S3E6 on Netflix). It certainly is a visual feast, but the most memorable bits are fed as brief exposition dialogue between two scientists that set up the rapid buildup for the reversal that bites you in the face. Any two sentences would have taken an entire feature-length horror film to explore and establish using inductive show reasoning, but such is the way when it comes to evolutionary xenobiology. It's also the only story from all of the shorts that leaves me wanting to explore a spinoff sequel.
I get irritated with people throwing around the word ableist to describe a difference in ability. Even without taking disability into the equation, everyone has different levels of ability in different areas, for one thing. But for another, the existence of disability isn't ableism. There are things I can't do due to a disability that other people can do, and that fact isn't ableism. If I were discriminated against because of my inability to do these things due to a disability, that would be ableism. But honestly a lot of people say things are "ableism" or "ableist" when the fact is there's just difference and not inequity.
I appreciate the disquisition on show don’t tell. This is something I always try to keep in mind as I write. Thanks, Catherine.
Like many things, a lot of people took this advice too literally. It’s meant to be a helpful guideline, not a decree etched in stone. Sometimes, too much telling is deliberate, like with an unreliable narrator. Sometimes, the excessive telling says something about the teller, having nothing to do with what was literally told.