In a message dated 2/14/01 3:44:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:

<< I'm afraid I'm not really sure what that statement's supposed to mean. You can certainly 'show not tell' without having the character say a single word. All you need is a description of what happens, sufficient to let the readers draw their own conclusions. Whether it's interesting to read or not depends largely on the skill of the writer. Whether the tense form used is active or passive is pretty irrelevant. I'd say that the narrative voice (1st person or 3rd person) is more important in deciding what can be shown (or told, for that matter) and how. >>

The statement meant exactly what I said it did: bringing the element of "show don't tell" into this discussion isn't relevant. It's a whole different discussion, if you will. Someone (I forget who now), was trying to use "show don't tell" as an argument in favor of "non-verbal." Frankly, I don't see how that works out.

Annie