Prose craft
Show, don't tell
The craft rule that readers should experience the story through action, dialogue, subtext and sensory detail instead of the author's exposition and summary.
Show, don't tell is the technique of letting readers "experience the story through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings" instead of through the author's exposition and summary: describe the scene so readers draw their own conclusions. The motto is often credited to Chekhov's "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass," though his letters prescribe seizing "small details"; the American playwright Mark Swan was using the maxim by the 1910s, and Percy Lubbock drew the picture-versus-drama distinction in 1921. The recommended tools are action, dialogue, sensory detail and subtext; Chuck Palahniuk's version bans "thought verbs" in favor of specific sensory detail.
The rule is best known for its limits: showing is wordy, and critics from James Scott Bell to Orson Scott Card defend telling as a legitimate shortcut between important scenes. The full treatment is the show, don't tell guide; the technique that tells in a voice that shows is free indirect discourse.