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Join beehiiv live on July 16th at 1PM ET for a first look at the future of audience-led business.
This isn’t just another feature launch (though there will be plenty of those). It’s a look at a more connected future for creators and brands that are tired of juggling disconnected tools, platforms, and data.
If you care about building an audience online, this is worth your time.
Every student in a high school English class, every young writer in a college creative writing course, or every aspiring author in an MFA program has heard these words before…
You must show the reader what’s happening; don’t tell the reader.
This old adage is credited to Anton Chekhov, in which he supposedly said:
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
This teaches us to use sensory details in our writing, like describing the way your grandfather’s cardigan smells or the feel of millions of grains of sand in between your toes or the taste of warm beer on your tongue for the first time. These tiny, specific details allow the reader to imagine and visualize the scene and put themselves in it.
But this doesn’t just apply to the written word.
The best storytellers on social media do this with their content as well. Your favorite content creator may use specific details like these as they yap direct-to-camera or in a voiceover narration over b-roll clips.
Video editors who know how to tell a story visually do this with tight, medium, and wide shots, along with lighting and effects.
And finally, brands are heeding this advice as well.
Great storytelling is the standard that many big and small companies, brands, and creators have been using and continue to abide by.
Stories have heart. Stories have soul. And…
Stories sell.
But what companies and creators are selling doesn’t have to be a product—although that’s usually the end result. Stories can drive change, inspiration, and trust.
To look at an example…
Yeti’s YouTube channel produces a long form mini-documentary style series of “stories from the wild”. One features a Japanese record store owner. In his pursuit of old reggae music records, he built a personal connection to Jamaica, its history, culture, and people.
Other than a shot of a couple seconds of him carrying a Yeti cooler (in over 20 minutes), not once is a Yeti tumbler advertised or is there a call to action to buy a Yeti product.
That video has over 180k views. And there are many other of these mini-documentary style videos on their channel that follow the same suit.
This is just one of their long-form stories, and there are many more like it on their channel.
This tells me that the Yeti producers of this series understand the power of good and honest storytelling. They understand the power of honoring cultures and unsung heroes.
Their channel has over 230k subscribers. The payoff may not be instant, but it is present.
Telling Has Its Place
In a letter to his brother, Chekhov actually wrote:
"In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball."
Chekhov never said “don’t tell ever”.
Because sometimes telling is important and necessary. In fact, you could argue, from a marketing standpoint, that telling allows you to state the facts and benefits in a brief and efficient way. And that is completely true.
In writing, not every person, place, or thing needs three pages worth of description. Some, for the sake of pace, need one line. If it has no dramatic weight to the story, showing is not necessary. Likewise, when information needs to be relayed quickly, telling is most efficient.
Knowing when you should show details and when to deliver exposition in order to deliver information is a beautiful dance in writing.
You need to do both.
And just as in writing, in marketing and content, you also need to do both.
You can show a beautiful story through visuals and description in a 60 second reel, and at the end when you tell your viewers where they can see more, read more, or find you, that call-to-action is a straight tell.
As someone who firmly believes that all good marketing comes from good storytelling, I can offer the same distinction:
If it is of no dramatic consequence and the goal is for information to be delivered clearly and efficiently, you should tell. But when the emotion of the story and the space and time allows, always show.
We can only “break the rules” when we know the rules and if it makes absolute sense to do so. Most people who say “show, don’t tell” haven’t read Chekhov’s letter to his brother. A better saying would be: Learn when it is necessary to show and necessary to tell.