Every fiction writer meets the same instruction early: show, don't tell. It gets repeated so often that it stops meaning much. What it actually asks for is simple enough. When a moment matters — a betrayal, a first kiss, a decision that cannot be taken back — put the reader inside it rather than handing them a verdict afterwards.

Summary has its place. You cannot dramatise every Tuesday of a character's life, and a sentence that carries a fortnight across the page is a gift. The trouble starts when summary does work that belongs in a scene. This checklist is for the revision pass, not the first draft. Write the chapter however it arrives. Then go back through it, scene by scene, with a pen.

Spot the sentence that tells

Most telling hides in a single sentence, usually near the start or the end of a scene. It reads like a report on the character rather than an experience of them.

She was nervous about the meeting.

That is a verdict. Now compare:

She read the email twice, then a third time, and still could not remember a word of it.

The second version never names the feeling, so the reader names it instead. That is the whole mechanism. Go through your chapter and underline every sentence that announces an emotion, a personality trait, or a judgement about a person or place. Not all of them will need rewriting. Knowing where they are is half the work.

One distinction worth holding on to: a character's own thoughts are not automatically telling. She would have to tell him tonight, and she already knew how it would go is interiority, and it can be vivid. Telling is when the narrator steps in to summarise what the scene should have shown.

The scene-by-scene checklist

Take one scene at a time. Five questions, in this order.

1. What does the viewpoint character want in this scene?

If you cannot answer in one sentence, the scene is probably doing two jobs at once. Split it or choose. A want gives you something to withhold, and withholding is what makes a reader turn the page. She wanted him gone before her mother came home is a scene. She was worried about the evening is a mood.

2. Can behaviour replace the named emotion?

Swap the label for something the body does. He was angry becomes He set the mug down harder than he meant to. She was exhausted becomes She read the same paragraph four times and gave up on the fifth. Keep the gesture small and specific. A character who cries on every other page stops being moving.

3. Which two senses are doing the work?

Not all five. Sight is the default and the least interesting on its own. Smell and sound pull a reader into a place faster than description manages. The wet-wool smell of a school cloakroom. The particular silence of a house where someone is pretending to be asleep. Choose two senses per scene and let the rest stay quiet.

4. Does the dialogue carry subtext, or just information?

Read it aloud. If a character explains something the other already knows, cut it. If both of them say exactly what they mean, the scene is probably flat. Let them answer the wrong question, change the subject, or be kind when they are furious. And check your adverb tags: she said angrily is usually a note to yourself, not a line for the reader.

5. What is the last line doing?

Scene endings attract summary. It was the worst night of her life. Cut it. End on an image, a refusal, a sound from the next room, a door not quite closed. Trust the reader to have felt the weight of what just happened.

Words that quietly tell

Certain words smuggle judgement into a sentence. Sweep for these on a dedicated pass:

• Filter words: saw, heard, felt, noticed, realised, watched, seemed, could see. She noticed the door was open becomes The door was open.
• Abstract nouns: tension, atmosphere, awkwardness, despair. Name the concrete thing instead — the two of them studying the same patch of carpet.
• Adjective plus emotion: an angry silence, a sad smile, a nervous laugh. Either cut the adjective or rewrite the phrase.
• Adverbs propping up verbs: walked slowly, said quietly, looked nervously. A stronger verb usually does it: shuffled, murmured, glanced.
• Explaining after the fact: any sentence beginning "This meant that..." or "It was clear that..."

When telling earns its place

Showing is expensive. It costs words, pace and page space. Some things should be summarised: transitions, time passing, minor characters, information the reader needs and the scene does not.

Telling is not the enemy. Telling by accident is.

A useful test: if a moment changes what a character wants, can do, or believes, show it. If it only moves them from Monday to Thursday, tell it in a line and get on with the story. The same applies to backstory. A block of history dropped into the middle of a scene deflates it. Save it for a moment when a character has a reason to think about it.

Your revision pass, in five steps

1. Read the chapter aloud. Mark every place you skim.
2. Underline every named emotion and judgement.
3. For each scene, write the want in one sentence in the margin.
4. Rewrite the underlined sentences as action, dialogue or sensory detail — two senses only.
5. Read aloud again. If a line explains what the previous line already showed, delete it.

Then leave the chapter for a few days. On the second read you will hear the difference, and you will also spot where you have over-corrected. A manuscript of nothing but gesture and dialogue becomes exhausting; readers need the occasional plain sentence to rest on. Aim for balance rather than purity. The point is not to remove every scrap of summary from your prose, but to make sure the moments that matter are given the room they deserve — and that the reader is trusted to feel them without being told what to feel.

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