There’s a special consideration to the Show, Don’t Tell rule. It has to do with exposition, explaining things to your reader. Generally, if you’re guilty of telling, you’re guilty of over-explaining to the reader. By showing, you’re giving them the chance to work things out for themselves. But if you don’t get the balance right, they might not work it out and be left lost. How do you decided where to draw the line?

Well, firstly, this is one of those things where you won’t be able to make all your readers happy. Regular readers of this blog will know I am a great fan of under-stated fiction which does not hold my hand and hit me over the head with explanations, examples of this taste being Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro and the recent The Forest of Hands & Teeth. Other readers are driven nuts by this style.

So the first guide is to write what you like: if you don’t like it when writers dump a bunch of information on you rather than letting you work it out for yourself, don’t do it to your own readers. If you hate it when writers drip-feed information and refuse to explain themselves, don’t do it to your own readers.

This doesn’t have to be consistent – for example, I recently complained in this review that the author wasn’t explaining things enough, which is rare for me – but it was to do with a) geography and b) sequel stuff, both of which I don’t want to have to waste time musing over when I’m trying to get into characters and story. Ask yourself what you like to spend time thinking about while reading, and if it isn’t geographical questions about the fantasy world, don’t make your readers spend time over it either (a map helps a lot with this).

The second guide is, simply put, understanding what your readers need to know. If it is absolutely essential that they get a plot point, you may very well have to be guilty of beating some readers over the head just to make sure that no one is left lost. Review readers are very helpful in finding this point.

Let’s look at an example for the work I wrote last year and am currently editing for publication. It features three main character, Simon, Hal and Augusta. Simon and Hal are very close war buddies, but three months before the book starts, they had an incident (too long-winded to explain), which has left their relationship strained.

Diana Wynne Jones once said she prefers writing for children because “Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once.” I have a rule where if I mention anything more than once, readers better start paying attention. I mention this incident quite a bit.

In fact, the whole first half of the book is leading up to major argument between the two of them, caused by the incident, that temporarily splits them and also establishes a character trait (that the calm and efficient Hal does very rarely lose his temper and when he does is liable to act far more destructively than the erratic Simon ever could) that is important for the climax.

In the lead-up, I do the following things (this is all from Simon’s POV):

• Very early, I mention that there has been an incident and show that Hal is still waiting to be punished for it and is tense about it, and that Simon has forgiven him – but not told him he’s forgiven him…
• During an outbreak of Simon’s vicious streak, Hal seems almost pleased that Simon is veering close to yelling at him about the incident
• Shortly afterwards, they start to have a nasty blow-up that would at least clear the air, but Augusta heads it off
• Things do seem better now, and Simon is inwardly pleased that their relationship is finally returning to the easy way it used to be
• Simon’s vicious streak pops up again, he takes violent action, Hal thinks a re-occurance of the incident from three months ago is about to occur…

And at that point, Hal loses it and explodes at Simon. Now, I kind of feel I did pretty good set-up for it, so imagine my dismay when one of my readers not only feels that Hal’s reaction was not in character, but the whole argument was put in solely for plot purposes. He didn’t get it. I checked with one of my other readers – he didn’t think it was forced but didn’t understand why Hal blew up at that point and not earlier (men!).

If two of my four review readers don’t get it, that’s two too many – this point is too important to me to leave readers behind. But I also don’t want to alienate the readers who do get it. I made several changes:

• Firstly, at the first outbreak of the violent streak, where Hal seems almost pleased, I also make him seem relieved that the topic of the incident is about to be raised (and then it’s not)
• Secondly, at the aborted argument, I make Hal seem disappointed that again Simon avoids the topic
• Thirdly, when the major argument starts and Augusta again tries to stop it, I have Simon reflect that she shouldn’t have stopped it the first time because then it would have been over with in less tense circumstances
• And fourthly – and this is the one that really goes against the grain for me – I out and out say that Simon watched Hal’s guilt (over the incident three months ago) and fear (that it’s happening again) turn into rage etc.

I have to now hope that is enough, because I cannot bring myself to go further than that (and maybe I already went too far for some readers).

It’s very hard to know yourself if your readers are going to get a plot point that they need to know – you already know (you wrote the thing) so you can’t put yourself in the position of a reader coming fresh to the book. On my side of the fence, it’s difficult to assess the impact of each sparse clue you’re giving to slowly build the picture. For over-explainers, it can also be very hard to resist thinking that, firstly, readers need to understand everything, and secondly, that you’ll just add in another line, another explanation, another few words, to make sure they do understand.

Thinking of the quote from Wynne Jones, you might start thinking you have to mention things over and over again. But readers stop reading if you make them feel stupid (which applies whether you over-explain or under-explain, which is why the balance is important). If they’re smart enough to pick up your book, they’re smart. Treat them as such.

Be ruthless, and narrow down the essential plot points to a handful – what do you really care that the readers get, and what do they have to get to have the climax make sense. Then, on your re-read, try to be objective – try to think how you would feel as a reader – hit over the head, or lost? This talent does develop with practise. And lastly, get a few review readers to tell you how they are feeling as a reader – ask specifically for exposition feedback.