Questions about Narrating in YA - is it Voice? Is it Telling?

I think you're making too much out of the term "narrating" and making this convoluted.

Narrating is the act of narration, which is a process of a narrator telling a story. A narrator telling a story. A narrator can be the first person narrator, the third person narrator (as a character), or the author themselves (mostly seen in non-fiction, mind you). It doesn't matter what POV you're using, there's always a narrator. To your question: The distinctive third person narrator--mostly used in third omni--has fallen out of fashion as of late... just because. It's not like reader's dislike it, but the stories that are being told nowadays, with modern attention spans, and a thousand other variables have cut down the use quite a lot. If you're questing why first is used quite a bit in regards to voice, it's because it can get away with a lot more in certain departments that allow voice to shine, whereas third would fall flat--but you can do tricky tricks to alleviate that.


"Voice" is broken up into two parts. The author's voice, and the character-narrator's voice. I'm going to steal Stephen King's analogy, and say the author's voice is their toolbox, and from that toolbox the author can create a character voice.
Now, which one agents/editors are looking for, that beats me. Some seem very confused on the differences if you ask me. However, 99% of the time I'll say it's about character voice.

I have a big hatred for the phrase "Show, don't tell" as it's just too simplified it looses all subtle meaning.
Now, telling isn't bad. Yes, telling is a vital part of the narrative, and yes I believe that telling can make or break a story.
But, do you need it to tell a story? No. Is it the character's voice? Not really.

Ideally, the character's "voice" should be their diction, style, and tone, i.e. how the character say what this wish to say.
Telling is only a small portion of a character's voice, but it's the easiest one to use because it's entirely the character's voice.
To show something, with the character's voice, most of the creative way to describe the scene is exhausted by the purpose of the sentence, and there's only a small amount of room for the narrator to have their word/order choice in.

And this comes down to the the basic premise of the show vs tell situation; when should it be worth the time, effort, and page space to show something completely--in the character's voice--over a short, concise explanation? It's easier for the reader to take in telling, but more beneficial to them if they take in showing.

In regards to this, I find that there's scale when you look at demographics. It mostly comes down to attention span, and how much the audience's mind can work with the information they are given. MG has more telling because they can't handle as much. Adult has more showing because the audience is more prepared and has more patience to compile it all. YA is in the middle, and IMO you should lean more to the adult side.

RaggedEdge said:

Maybe it's most noticeable in 3rd-person stories because in 1st-person it's just accepted as 'voice.' Maybe. It kinda makes sense, though. But when the narrator goes on for too long, or just enough to start testing my patience, I don't care if it's 1st or 3rd, I'm gonna skip it. BUT. But... If what they're telling me is something I enjoy, truly care about, or think I need to know or actually want to know it, then I don't care how long it takes. Unless, of course, it's so long it actually becomes boring or exasperating. Then I'm out and 100% skipping it. LOL

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So what I probably mean is, I don't know if it's voice or telling, but if it holds my interest, I don't really care which one it is.

Two seconds later, my little brother Ken walks in. He's a bit short for his age and all of the kids pick on him, calling him names like 'Small Fry'. If that ever happens, I show them what a Big Fry looks like. Nobody picks on my brother. He hates it when I do that, though. Says it isn't cool for his big sis to fight all his battles.

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^That's telling.

Ken walks in two seconds later. His eye is bruised and bloody, and he's holding an ice pack up to it in order to stop it from oozing.

I rush up to him, hands on hips, frowning.

"That Robert douche pick on you again?" I demand. "How far is he and what should I bring?"

"No, nowhere, and nothing," he grunts, and I throw my hands in the air in frustration.

"C'mon," I insist. "Just one hit, please? It'll even the score. Nobody messes with my little brother."

"No. That'll only make it worse. Only a Small Fry would let his sister fight his battles for him."

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^That's showing.

Now, is the "telling" part necessarily bad? Not really. I'm of the camp that no piece of writing is bad as long as it works. But the latter is certainly more accessible to a reader and allows us to empathize with the characters' plight more.

Chaze, I don't know. The two are for different situations. The first is for when it's not appropriate for the second to happen in real time.

Far too many comments just say "you're telling!" whenever I try to get any critiques anywhere and I've felt like I get no explanation on why that's bad, how it would be better shown, or how I should replace it. In my WIP there is just such an insane amount of background information that it'd be impossible for the story to make any sense without a significant amount of telling.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Chaze, I don't know. The two are for different situations. The first is for when it's not appropriate for the second to happen in real time.

Far, far too many comments say "you're telling!" whenever I try to post anything on SYW and there's no explanation on why that's bad, how it would be better shown, or how I should replace it. In my WIP there is just such an insane amount of background information that it'd be impossible for the story to make any sense without a significant amount of telling.

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I hate even saying "showing" or "telling". It's not that easy or as black and white. Writing itself is showing AND telling. It's just that there are ways of writing that resonate with your audience more than huge chunks of text. So you have an uber-complicated fantasy political drama thing going. You can still reveal that through details and dialogue without putting chunks of text on the page. That's all that is meant by saying you should show it rather than tell it.

Dialogue is a good way to do this, as well as a character observing his or her surroundings. For instance, let's say you have a WIP where magicians create magic through writing on walls (I know, I know; I just pulled that out of my arse).

Here's the telling of it:

She was a Wallmage, and one of the very best novices in her class. She scribbled on walls and magic floated off: fire, water, air, thunder. All of it happened as she put chalk to plaster and let herself go.

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Here's the showing:

She picked up the chalk and wrote "Fire". A plume of white-hot flames erupted from the wall above her then, spiraling outwards and licking the air with fire. A crowd of fellow apprentices applauded and wowed behind her, gawking at the ease with which she'd performed her wall magic.

Not bad, for a novice Wallmage, she thought with a wry smile.

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See? The first works, but it's not really as exciting or engaging. The second is just more interesting. I'm no Stephen King, obviously, and this is only one person's opinion. My own writing needs work and I'm not yet published- which is why I'm a member of these forums. Just sharing some things I've picked up over the years.

I guess it's never stuff like that.

I have a paragraph dedicated to flowers, how fresh tulips and fresh dyed mums are available at different times of the year, how corpses about to be cremated were covered in them. What you're supposed to get from it is that flowers are overwhelmingly associated with the dead above everything else in the setting and that cremation is what they usually do with their dead.

Another is telling in a few paragraphs about how a character tried to make a blueprint of a building but everything he made was directly contradictory, to add to the reason why he's afraid of the building, but still noting that he's a shitty artist so he may have just gotten things wrong. Without all of this background, his fear of the building seems very irrational. Possibly it is irrational but with a more thorough explanation of his experience with the building, of things that happened years ago and could not possibly be in the narrative, give a better picture of his fear.

Etc.

There's nothing about how to explain stuff that could not possibly be shown in real time at all in the narrative. The narrative takes place at most over the period of a month while there's stuff in over 20 years of history that needs to be in there, bits and pieces that don't deserve flashbacks, which are another thing that's looked down upon anyway.

What I've been trying to rely on is that the bits and pieces stuck in there are actually interesting enough that people won't care, but with everyone crying about "telling" it's freaking me out.

If anyone thinks 'telling' is a cardinal sin they need to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I just finished 'The General in His Labyrinth' and it was brilliant.

BUT really, really compelling 'telling' is harder to manage. GGM is a phenomenal and skilled writer so it's not something everyone can do well. But telling is necessary to move the plot along too, so the more interesting you can make it the better.

RaggedEdge said:

I haven't read your stuff but I've seen that knee-jerk reaction against telling in SYW you spoke of.

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This really helps me because I thought I was just crazy. Thank you.

I too agree that telling is definitely important. I don't think it should be a debate between showing vs telling, as much as it should be that writers need to try to find a balance between both. In my current WIP, there are definitely certain parts, especially with world building that i think requires a great deal of showing. Just mentioning that there is no more sunlight won't do, but describing the world without sunlight is, i think, more compelling. There are also certain parts that just require you to tell, rather than making a big deal about describing every little detail. "I sat down and ate my food" works much better than trying to describe how you brought the spoon to your mouth, and how it tasted in your mouth and how you felt when you gulped it down. (JMO), but yeah, i think we should all try to strive for balance. That's the best option.

The problem with sequels...

I've gotten into this tangle too. When I was writing my first novel, I immediately got an idea for its sequel. So after I trunked the first novel for awhile, I wrote it. The sequel came out quickly, screaming to be written.

But in doing this, I also painted myself into a bit of a corner, I think. If the first novel doesn't land, I'll need to mine the sequel for spare parts. And this is very likely, since novel one was the first I ever wrote.

So, based on all this--I'd say go ahead and map out sequel ideas (via excel or another organizer of choice), but don't write them. Instead, write a bunch of Book 1s in other series. I now have possible seedlings for three different series instead of just one, in the hopes of building a stronger long tail. Especially if my sequel ends up needing to stand on its own.

And on the show v. tell debate--I had "show not tell" drilled into me early. I actually overcompensated a bit the other way, and it made for very distant/nebulous prose. So a bit of telling is needed to ground the reader in the story.

A nice rule, but one that can be (and sometimes needs to be) broken.