Show, Don't Tell in First Person: 20 Sentences Rewritten
"Show, don't tell" means this: instead of writing that a character is sad, you write what she does, what she sees and what she says, and the reader concludes she is sad on his own. The rule is harder to apply in first person, because a narrator who says "I" has permission to comment on her own feelings and uses it far too often. It also has precise exceptions: there are five situations where telling is the right choice. Here are twenty sentences rewritten, ten in third person and ten in first, followed by those five cases.
What the rule means, and what it does not mean
Showing is handing the reader the clues and letting him conclude. Telling is handing him the conclusion. "He was afraid" is a conclusion; "he checked twice that the door was locked" is a clue. A reader who reaches the conclusion himself gets involved; a reader who is handed the result reads faster and remembers less.
The rule does not say you must show everything all the time. A novel that shows everything runs eight hundred pages and never gets anywhere. It says: at the moments that matter, let the reader do the work. Most guides on the subject stop at a list of third person examples. The first person case, where the trap is different, is almost never covered, which is why half of the examples below are narrated by an I.
Ten sentences rewritten in third person
The examples come from an invented novel, "What the River Keeps": Gaspard, a river warden, and Léonie, his daughter, in a village in the Creuse, in central France.
1. Told. Gaspard was a suspicious man. Shown. Gaspard counted his change twice, even at the tobacconist he had been going to for thirty years.
2. Told. Léonie was angry at her father. Shown. Léonie set the plate down in front of him without a word, a little too hard, and put the bread beside it, not on it.
3. Told. The house was poor. Shown. On the table, the oilcloth had been turned over to wear out the other side.
4. Told. It was very hot that day. Shown. The tar stuck to their soles, and the dogs would not come out from under the cars.
5. Told. They had not got along for a long time. Shown. They ate at the same table with two radios, each tuned to its own station.
6. Told. Gaspard loved the river more than anything. Shown. He knew the name of every pool between the bridge and the sawmill, and he had never given a single one away.
7. Told. Léonie was a bad liar. Shown. "I didn't go there," Léonie said, pulling a willow leaf out of her hair.
8. Told. The mayor was an important, respected man. Shown. When the mayor walked in, three conversations stopped and a fourth changed subject.
9. Told. She was exhausted. Shown. She sat down on the bottom step, not on the chair two metres away.
10. Told. He regretted what he had said. Shown. He brought her coffee the next morning with two sugars, the way she used to take it, and said nothing.
Ten sentences rewritten in first person
First person is the bigger trap, because the narrator is allowed to say what she feels. She overdoes it: "I felt that", "I realised that", "I was devastated". These sentences are telling dressed up as interiority. The cure is the same: give what the narrator perceives, not what she concludes. The narrator here is Léonie.
11. Told. I was furious with him. Shown. I washed his plate first, so I would not have to look at it.
12. Told. I felt something was wrong. Shown. The gate was shut. My father never shut the gate.
13. Told. I had always been afraid of the river. Shown. I still swim with one foot feeling for the bottom.
14. Told. I realised he had grown old. Shown. He took the stairs holding the rail. He would have slapped me, before, for doing that.
15. Told. I was very embarrassed by his question. Shown. I answered the question before it.
16. Told. I did not trust him. Shown. I left my bedroom door open, to listen.
17. Told. That village was suffocating me. Shown. At the bakery, they asked after my father before I had opened my mouth.
18. Told. The letter shook me. Shown. I read the letter three times. The third time I was not reading any more, I was looking at the handwriting.
19. Told. I understood it was over between us. Shown. He said "right", and he looked at his watch.
20. Told. I felt guilty about leaving. Shown. I packed my bag at night, without turning the light on, though nobody in the house was asleep.
Notice that the shown versions in first person avoid perception verbs ("I felt", "I saw", "I realised"): these are filter words, and they are the first thing to hunt in a narrative told by an I. The full revision method, pass by pass, is in how to improve your writing style.
The five cases where telling is the right choice
This is the part that most posts on the subject leave out, and it is the part that keeps novels from running forever.
1. Transitions. "Three weeks went by." Nobody wants to watch twenty-one days shown. One sentence of telling, and you move on.
2. Information with nothing at stake. If Gaspard takes the bus to Guéret and nothing happens on the bus, you write that he took the bus. Showing tells the reader that this moment matters; do not make it lie.
3. The summary of a scene already shown. When Léonie tells her aunt about the argument the reader watched in chapter 4, two lines of telling are enough. Replaying the scene as dialogue is a classic error, listed with others in first novel mistakes to avoid.
4. A narrator whose voice is meant to judge. Some first person narrators exist to comment: irony, distance, bitterness. "My father was a suspicious man, and he was right to be" is deliberate telling, and it says as much about Léonie as about Gaspard. The rule steps aside for the voice.
5. Contrast. After a dense, shown page, one dry sentence of telling works like a cut: "She never came back." Showing everywhere throws that tool away.
Dialogue is a case of its own: it shows by nature, but it can tell on the sly when characters say to each other what they already know, for the reader's benefit. That is covered in how to write realistic dialogue. And for descriptions of places, the question is not whether to show or tell but how much to show: that is the subject of how to describe a setting.
Finding the told passages in a chapter
On a single sentence, everyone sees the difference. On a four thousand word chapter, the eye stops seeing, because disguised telling hides inside correct sentences. Two practical markers: state verbs followed by an emotion adjective (was sad, seemed worried, felt alone), and perception verbs in first person. You highlight them, then you decide, case by case, which ones fall under the five exceptions.
In the Sagoræ workshop, that is Théo's job as writing coach: you hand him a chapter, he points out the passages where an emotion is announced rather than given to see, and he asks you what the character is doing at that moment. He does not rewrite the sentence; he asks the question, and the answer is yours.
T Theo · Scene critic Pre-recorded demo
Theo reads chapter 7 of "The Night of the Hourglasses"
Theo
I see why it feels flat. The scene you have been promising for three chapters (the reunion) is summarised in one sentence: "They talked for two hours". The reader is waiting for exactly those two hours, and you take them away.
Three things I notice:
- The tension is gone by the second line. "Exactly as she remembered him" reassures immediately. What has changed in Elias that Iris did not expect?
- Nobody wants anything in the scene. What has Iris come for, concretely? An answer, forgiveness, money? Without a goal, the conversation can neither succeed nor fail.
- The first exchange does not exist. The first sentence Elias says after six years is worth more than a summary of two hours.
Theo
Then you already have your scene: a request she does not dare to make, in front of someone who is expecting it. Two questions to rewrite it (I will not do it for you):
- At what exact moment does Iris say the word "trial"? Everything before that word is tension; everything after it is conflict.
- What is Elias doing with his hands while she talks? One concrete gesture will do more than "he looked up".
Keep the night falling as she leaves, it is a good closing image. But let it fall on a refusal, not on a summary.
Pre-recorded simulation of an exchange with Theo. The chapter text stays the author's: Theo never rewrites a line of it.
Frequently asked questions
Does show, don't tell work in first person? Yes, but the narrator has to stop commenting on her own emotions ("I felt that", "I was devastated") and give what she perceives instead. The filter word trap is stronger with an I.
Do you always have to show? No. Transitions, information with nothing at stake, summaries of a scene already seen, a narrator whose voice comments, and contrast effects: in those five cases, telling is the right choice.
How do I know if I am telling too much? Highlight the state verbs followed by an emotion and the perception verbs. If a paragraph has three of them, it is announcing instead of showing.
Is "I felt" always a filter word? Not when the feeling itself is the event, as in a scene where the narrator notices she feels nothing. The rest of the time, cut it and keep what she noticed.
If you want a coach to flag where you are telling without ever rewriting for you, Sagoræ offers a free trial, no card required.
✒️ Read next: How to Write Your First Novel: A Guide That Shows Instead of Tells · How to Start Writing a Novel With No Experience: Your First Week, Hour by Hour · 12 First Novel Mistakes and How to Catch Them Before Your Readers Do
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