“Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass,” is great advice for writers. It is attributed to Anton Chekhov who did write something pretty close to that. It remains good advice whether it is apocryphal or not. It basically tells writers to show, don’t tell. Of course, some writers go overboard and describe every single thing in such detail that they have left themselves no room for emotional honesty or plot, but in general, as a reader, I prefer showing to telling. It’s much easier with a picture, though, and in this one you can see the glint of moonlight on the waves.
Of course, what you really want is the perfect blend of show and tell. You don’t want authors telling you what every person is thinking, you want them to trust you to figure it out from their actions and their words. Writers who tell too much insult our intelligence, assuming we cannot get the point without it being spelled out. Fashion blogs often just show, with pictures and very little else. I like to add a bit of telling to explain things like why I fell in love with the Moon Lounge from {anc} at The Arcade. No one loves props more than bloggers and I was afraid I would spend a fortune trying to get it from the gacha machine, but I got it on the first pull.
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