A practical writing exercise

Use show and tell on purpose

Write a summary version and a scene version of one waiting moment, then explain which detail deserves expansion and which telling sentence earns its place.

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Your starting material

Use this complete original material for the demonstration. You can copy or download it before working through the steps.

Original practice material: Tessa waits in a laundromat for an apprenticeship decision on her phone. The wash takes thirty minutes. She has cleared the notification panel three times, though none of the messages came from the workshop. Her clean clothes must be taken home, and the decision may arrive after she leaves. She wants to look calm in front of another customer. At the end she stops clearing notifications and leaves the phone face up while folding one shirt. The decision itself does not arrive in this passage. Close third person through Tessa. Avoid adding a panic attack, a false acceptance, or another character explaining her feelings.

Deliberately flawed example

Deliberately flawed example: Never tell. Replace 'Tessa was anxious' with twelve descriptions of pounding hearts, shaking hands, clenched teeth, and sweating palms. Remove the wash duration because all summary is bad.

Choose the moment to enlarge

Showing spends attention on an action unfolding; telling compresses. Both can be deliberate. Here the important change is not the third generic sign of anxiety but Tessa choosing to leave the phone visible. Enlarge that decision and compress the ordinary wash time.

A bodily response can help, but a list of symptoms may make the moment louder without making it more specific. Use an action tied to her situation: clearing notifications removes the tiny signals she keeps checking.

Keep a useful summary

'The wash took thirty minutes' supplies scale economically. A full account of every drum rotation would distract from the phone decision. Keep that summary and spend scene time on her thumb stopping before another dismissal.

Compare what each version lets the reader experience. A summary can bridge to the important next scene; a scene version can make this waiting itself consequential. The choice depends on the surrounding story, which this excerpt does not establish.

One possible revision

One possible revision — summary version:
Tessa waited anxiously through a thirty-minute wash, checking her phone for the workshop's apprenticeship decision and clearing three unrelated notifications. She tried to seem unconcerned in front of the other customer. Before leaving, she stopped dismissing the messages, set the phone face up, and folded a shirt. The answer had not arrived.
Scene version:
The wash took thirty minutes. Tessa could account for three of them by the notifications she had cleared: a discount, a delivery update, a calendar alert. None from the workshop.
Across the aisle, the other customer shook out a bedsheet. Tessa picked up a shirt as though she had only been waiting for the spin to stop.
Her screen lit again. She put the shirt down. A new bill reminder expanded beneath her thumb; one sideways movement would clear it.
She let her thumb rest on the table instead. The phone stayed face up beside the folding pile. She matched the shirt's sleeves and flattened the collar, leaving the small lit rectangle where she could see it.
Choice note: the summary is useful if the story needs to move through waiting quickly. The scene focuses on a changed habit within the moment; it does not report acceptance or promise emotional recovery. Keep the duration sentence in either version to avoid spending equal space on all thirty minutes.

What changed and why

Replaced generic physiological signals with phone-clearing behavior that belongs to this particular wait.
Focused scene time on the final change in action while retaining a concise duration sentence to control pace.

A choice worth keeping

Keep 'The wash took thirty minutes.' It gives elapsed time without forcing the reader to experience every minute.

Try it with fresh material

Original transfer material: Omar waits outside a rehearsal room for an audition. He has rewritten his name on the sign-in sheet twice because he thinks it looks childish. The hallway has been quiet for twenty minutes. A stagehand will call names; the result is not announced here. At the end Omar leaves his name as written and closes the pen. He remains worried. Use one viewpoint and do not add a sudden talent revelation.

Write an 80–110 word summary version and a 130–190 word scene version. Preserve the same facts and endpoint, retain one telling sentence for a stated pacing reason, and explain two choices about where you spent attention.

Feedback for your attempt

Does the scene focus on leaving the name or only list nerves? Move attention to the actual choice.
Does either version falsely announce confidence or a result? Worry may remain after the action changes.
A concise time summary can be effective. Explain its job rather than removing it to obey a slogan.

Check before moving on

Name what deserves real-time attention in this scene.
Keep summaries that establish time, context, or rhythm efficiently.
Do not equate more gestures with stronger emotion; inspect their relevance and variety.

Original waiting material and two editorial versions authored by an AI agent. No universal show/tell rule or human effect test is claimed. An independent AI agent completed the transfer exercise and archived its artifacts; no human reader testing is claimed. Material version: 2026-10-18.