Rant: People keep using 'show, don't tell' as a blanket rule for every single scene

I was in a workshop last month where someone critiqued a quiet, reflective passage for 'telling' the character was tired, but that was the POINT of the moment. It matters because that 'rule' can actually flatten a story's emotional rhythm. Has anyone else had a workshop leader push back on a 'rule' like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

patchen21d ago

Workshop rules can get weirdly rigid sometimes. My last one had a leader who hated any sentence starting with 'I'. Made for some truly strange edits where characters just stopped having inner thoughts. Sometimes telling is just efficient, you know? It lets the quiet moments breathe instead of forcing a whole ballet of tired sighs and drooping eyelids.

daniel_campbell21d ago

Yeah, that drives me nuts. I had a writing group that got obsessed with cutting every single adverb, even when they were the right word for the mood. It just made everything sound weirdly flat and robotic.