The Ongoing Struggle with Show and Tell

If I recall correctly, show and tell was easy when I was a kid.  I'd bring something to school, dazzle everyone with what it was, and dazzle them further with what I told everyone about it (come to think of it, I don't remember show and tell at all, but this is what I imagine it was).

Not so in writing.

I continue to struggle with when to tell and when to show in my writing (which I've already written several posts about here).

And then I found this in Alice LaPlante's The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing:

…Show the important stuff.  Important behaviors, important interactions, important speeches, conversations….  Anything that changes the situation of the story, novel, or essay in a significant way should happen in "eyewitness" mode [p. 213].

And this:

…Often we can tell something more efficiently, elegantly, beautifully, or subtly than we could hope to do if dramatizing it.  In such cases, we should eliminate the dramatization, or scene, in favor of narration [p. 216].

I hope this helps.  If you're struggling with the same thing, I believe what LaPlante has to say about it makes a lot of sense.

Happy writing.