Trusting the Reader: Showing Instead of Telling

One of the hardest habits to break as a writer is the urge to explain too much after a scene has already done the work for us. I still catch myself doing it, especially while drafting historical fiction where atmosphere and emotional restraint matter so much. Often, the strongest version of a scene is the one that trusts the reader to feel what’s happening without being told exactly what to think about it.

While revising my current novel set in 1925 New England, I found several places where I had written a strong image, then followed it with a sentence explaining the meaning underneath it. Once I removed the explanation and let the moment breathe, the scene immediately felt more natural and emotionally believable.

Lynda revising

A Scene From Revision

Earlier Draft

By the time the familiar rise near the house appeared ahead of her, the light had begun settling lower across the fields, drawing long shadows out behind the trees lining the property. Everything waiting there would remain unchanged: the yard, the work, the steady order of the house itself. Still, as she slowed at the turn into the drive and sat for a moment listening to the engine idle beneath her hands, she understood with increasing certainty that something within her own life had already begun moving in a direction from which it would not be easy to turn back.

Revised Draft

By the time the familiar rise near the house appeared ahead of her, the light had begun settling lower across the fields, drawing long shadows out behind the trees lining the property. Everything waiting there would remain unchanged: the yard, the work, the steady order of the house itself. Still, as she slowed at the turn into the drive and sat listening to the engine idle beneath her hands, she found herself reluctant, for reasons she could not entirely explain, to shut it off just yet.

What Changed:

In the first version, the final sentence explains the emotional meaning too directly. It tells the reader that Hilda’s life is changing and points toward the larger themes of the novel.

The revised version stays grounded in physical behavior instead. Hilda simply sits in the driveway listening to the engine idle longer than necessary. That small action allows the reader to feel her hesitation without the narration announcing it outright.

Historical fiction especially benefits from restraint. Characters living in the 1920s often would not describe their emotions openly or analytically, so letting gesture, setting, and atmosphere carry emotional weight can create a more authentic tone.

Hilda and roadster

A Simple Revision Exercise:

After writing an emotional scene, look at the final sentence and ask:

“Am I explaining something the reader already understands?”

If the answer is yes, try ending the scene one sentence earlier or replacing the explanation with a physical action, gesture, or image.

Sometimes the Strongest Line…

Showing instead of telling does not mean removing emotion from a scene. It means allowing the emotion to emerge through what the character notices, avoids, touches, remembers, or leaves unsaid.

Most of these discoveries happen early in the morning with coffee beside the keyboard and yesterday’s pages waiting to argue with me.

Sometimes the strongest line in a scene is the one you decide not to write.

Until next time...

Lynda