An easy way to tell if you’re showing instead of telling is how much you’re using is/was. My English professor explained this to me a few semesters ago, and while he just wanted varied sentence structure in my papers, it also works very well for creative writing.
This isn’t to say that is and was are bad verbs, but rather that they are very basic and do not express anything beyond the fact that something exists. Sometimes, that’s all you need to know in a sentence, but often, the writer can make the story or the characters more engaging by explaining who someone is, what something is, where something is, when something is, why something is, or how something or someone is more powerfully by using one of a few tactics.
The first method is to use strong verbs. “Strong verbs” is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but a strong verb is simply a verb that explains what action is happening as clearly as possibly. For instance, when one “jumps” off the diving board, the reader doesn’t know how the person jumped, but the reader will be able to more clearly see the action if you write “she dove” or “he cannonballed” or “she belly-flopped.” Be aware of who is reading your writing and who the narrator is. In general, if your target demographic probably doesn’t know the word or if your narrator wouldn’t know the word, use a simpler, less precise verb and use adverbs to make it specific.
Another way is to show why the narrator was saying “it is/she was/there is” in the first place. Think of the is/was statement as the disease. You want your reader to guess the disease, so you start describing symptoms. For instance, “She is mourning her husband.” vs. “She stared at the empty seat at the table, unfazed by her mother’s repeated attempts to get her attention.” This way is more rambly than just swapping boring verbs for strong verbs, but it is a good way to show the narrator’s experience in life, the narrator’s biases, the narrator’s emotional state, etc.
One other way is to make the object of the sentence the subject instead. This just means that whatever “is/was” is now what the sentence is about. This is a simple fix in cases when the object is doing something in the sentence. Instead of “There was a ball rolling past her feet.” write “A ball rolled past her feet.”
Let me illustrate:
How you can use varied word choice to show who is being talked about:
Bland: Jason’s dad was standing in front of Jason.
Engaging: His dad loomed over him.
By using a stronger verb, the more hostile loomed, the reader gets a better idea of who Jason’s dad is and how Jason feels about him.
How you can use varied word choice to show who is talking:
Bland: Macy was sitting at the edge of her seat.
Engaging: Macy balanced very carefully at the very edge of the seat so her feet could touch the floor, because Macy was a very big girl now.
The POV character is a young girl at an age where she wants to be perceived as older than the height of chair legs and the lack of height of her own legs will let her be. She also refers unironically to herself as a big girl in her own thoughts, something grownups generally do not do. By expanding on the reason for the action instead of the action itself and with careful word choice, you can set the tone of the character and of the story.
How you can use varied word choice to show what something is:
Bland: That is a tree branch blowing against the window.
Still bland but better: A tree branch blew against the window.
Engaging: The branch smacked against the window.
This is an example of taking the object (the thing in the sentence that the verb is happening to) in this case “branch” and make it the subject. In the still bland but better version of the sentence, the fact that the tree branch is blowing against the window is obvious, but that doesn’t tell us anything about how the narrator feels about what the tree branch is doing. That tells us what, but it does not tell us what the character feels about this thing. Smacked is a more violent, sudden, startling verb that communicates suddenness, surprise, and unease.
How you can use varied word choice to show where something is:
Bland: The phone was on the far side of the nightstand.
Engaging: She flopped an arm blindly across the nightstand, but her fingers hit empty air just shy of the faint glow of her phone.
The engaging version of this sentence tells you more about the character’s mental state, fatigued, while also communicating where the phone is. Also, using a more descriptive word like flopped gives the reader a clearer mental image of what is physically happening in the scene.
How you can use varied word choice to show when something is set:
Bland: It was the early two thousands.
Engaging: Jana looked around the room and saw many a teenage male heinie, but not a belt among them.
Noting fashion trends, like sagging pants or hoop skirts, can reinforce the time period that you’re writing in and how the narrator fits or does not fit into that time period.
How you can use varied word choice to show when (what time) something is:
Bland: It was seven P.M. on a summer night.
Engaging: He watched the sun dip below the far reaches of the ocean as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
The engaging version of this sentence uses a few details to show about what time and when in the year this sentence takes place: it is sunset, so the exact time isn’t stated, but the rough time is implied; the ocean does exist at times of the year when humans aren’t on it as much (and here I though the entire state of Hawaii disappeared between September and April) but most readers will associate the beach with summer; and if the reader didn’t get the clue about the traditionally seasonal location, it is hot enough to make the main character sweat.
How you can use varied word choice to show why the narrator believes something:
Bland: Kai is a good friend.
Engaging: Kai held her hair away from her face as she threw up into the toilet bowl for the fourth time that night.
Anyone can say anything about anyone else, but the best way to get a reader to like a character, an idea, or a thing is to show them why they should like that thing. Instead of making bland moral claims like “Love is stronger than hate.” tell me how the Samaritan stopped to save the Jew, or how the enemies put aside their differences to protect what they care about. Instead of saying “He was scared of his dad.” show me the beer cans and the slurred speech, show me the belt falling and the voice yelling. Show the reader why.
How you can use varied word choice to show how something is:
Bland: The woman was looking at him.
Engaging: The woman ogled him.
Strong verbs again! Use strong verbs that are emotionally charged when you’re talking about emotionally charged situations! Being ogled is an uncomfortable sensation for the person being ogled, and it also shows disrespect on the part of the person ogling.
Keep in mind that these are guidelines! Sometimes is is the best word for the job, and don’t stress if you have a lot of is/was in your stories. Just because they’re bland doesn’t mean that sometimes you need bland verbs to communicate what you want to communicate. Still, you don’t want vagueness to be your crutch, either. Practice showing instead of telling when showing is more important, but have fun with it! Besides, you can always edit whatever you hate or are unsure of now sometime later.
Don’t sweat! Go write awesome papers and stories!