Show Don’t Tell Checker

See how the Show, Don’t Tell coach reads a page: the lines that name a feeling instead of letting the reader feel it, and why each one matters.

Below is a sample chapter page and the notes Show, Don’t Tell returned for it. Click a note to find its line; click a highlighted line to find its note.

Show, Don’t Tell

Selection of 770 words · 2 credits in the desk

Real output

The Salt Ledger · Chapter 3: Three Bells

Story notes: Romantasy (adult) · Third person limited, Tamsin · Past tense

The bells of the Tithe House were ringing when Tamsin Harrow reached the top of the stairs, and she felt a wave of dread wash over her. Three bells meant a binding. Three bells meant someone in the lower city was about to sign away something they could not afford to lose. She saw the envoy before he saw her. He was standing at the long table with his back to the windows, and the grey light off the marsh made him look carved rather than born. Corin Vael was arrogant and cold, the kind of man who had never once been told no and would not know what to do with the word if he heard it. “You’re late,” he drawled lazily. “The tide was in,” Tamsin snapped angrily. “Some of us walk.” “Some of you,” he purred, “should learn to read a tide table.” She clenched her fists. She was furious. She made herself unclench them, one finger at a time, the way her mother had taught her to before a binding, because anger made the ink run. The salt ink was already laid out on the table. She noticed that it had been poured into the old pewter well, the one with the crack along its lip, and she realized that someone had wanted her to see it. Salt ink did not forgive. A contract written in it held for exactly as long as both parties kept their word, and the moment one of them broke it, the letters burned white into the breaker’s skin. Tamsin had seen a man lose three fingers to a debt of eleven silver crowns. She had been nine. “Sit,” Corin said. “I’ll stand.” “Then stand,” he chuckled darkly. “It makes no difference to the Court whether the binder’s knees are comfortable.” She heard the scratch of a quill somewhere behind the screen at the far end of the room. A clerk, probably. The Court never sent an envoy without a witness, and never sent a witness it trusted. Tamsin felt nervous as she pulled the tithe roll toward her. It was heavier than it looked, as they always were, the vellum thick with the names of every family in the lower city who owed the Court a year of service. She could see the columns of names blurring together. Brewers. Net-menders. A family of chandlers she had bought candles from all her life. She was sad about the chandlers. “You don’t have to read all of it,” Corin said quietly. “Only the names marked in red.” “I read all of it,” she hissed. “That’s the job.” “The job,” he breathed, “is to bind what the Court asks you to bind.” She looked up at him then. His eyes were the color of the marsh at dusk, and there was something in them she did not like, something that looked almost like pity. She realized he knew something she didn’t, and she felt suspicious. She turned the page. The red names began halfway down. Orrin Fisk. Della Mott. The Pell twins, who could not have been more than fourteen. Tamsin ran her finger down the column, steady, steady, until it stopped of its own accord, because her hand had read the name before her eyes would agree to. Bram Harrow. Her brother. Her brother, who was nineteen and stupid and kind, who still fed the gulls on the seawall with bread they could not spare, who had sworn to her on their mother’s grave that he had paid the Court in full last spring. The room was very quiet. Tamsin felt shocked and betrayed and terrified all at once. “There’s been a mistake,” she said. “There has,” Corin agreed. He set a second sheet of vellum beside the roll, and she saw that it was already written in salt ink, the letters faintly smoking where the light touched them. “Your brother borrowed against his tithe. Twice. The second time, he signed for you.” “He wouldn’t.” “He did.” Corin’s voice was gentler now, and somehow that was worse. “The Court is willing to accept a substitute. It usually is.” Tamsin understood then what the cracked inkwell was for. Her mother’s inkwell. The one she had sold to pay for the burial. Someone had bought it back, and carried it across the marsh, and set it out on this table so that she would know, before anyone said a word, exactly how long they had been planning this. “Who?” she asked. Corin smiled, and it was not a kind smile. “Sit down, Miss Harrow,” he said softly. “This is going to take a while.”

8 notes, 1 strengthClick a note to find its line

Summary

The worldbuilding lands through concrete, embodied stakes—“the letters burned white into the breaker’s skin” makes the magic feel real. The passage’s main drag is a pattern of named emotions and asserted judgments at crucial beats, especially at the bell-ringing opening and the reveal of Bram’s name. If you let those moments play through Tamsin’s physical responses, perceptions, and choices, the tension and intimacy of her POV will sharpen without losing clarity.

1Major
Named emotion and stock phrasing at a key opening beat. This tells the reaction instead of letting the bells and Tamsin’s body or choice carry it.
Why it matters
Readers are primed for the scene’s mood by the first lines; being told what to feel flattens the impact of the three-bell alarm.
Try this
Let the bells and Tamsin’s immediate physical response or micro-action do the work. What changes in her breath, balance, or behavior when three bells sound on these stairs?
2Major
Asserted character traits. The narration interprets who Corin is instead of proving it on the page.
Why it matters
An agent or reader trusts the story more when judgments are earned through behavior; being told how to read him short-circuits intrigue and reduces room for subtext.
Try this
Let Tamsin’s limited POV notice one concrete behavior or habit that implies this entitlement, or let his next choice in the room reveal it. Keep the interpretation for her interior voice only when it’s inextricable from her bias.
3Major
Explaining after showing. The clenched fists already cue anger; the label repeats the point.
Why it matters
Double-telling dulls the energy you’ve created with the physical beat and trains the reader to skim interior lines.
Try this
Cut the interpretation and extend either the physical control she exerts or the consequence if she slips, which you’ve already set up with the ink.
4Strength
This is effective showing: you ground the abstract idea of an unforgiving contract in a vivid, sensory consequence.
Why it matters
Readers feel the stakes because they can picture what the magic does to a body, and the next line anchors it in Tamsin’s lived memory.
Try this
Keep leaning on embodied consequences like this when establishing rules and risks; it lets exposition carry emotional weight.
5Minor
Named emotion at a transitional but still meaningful beat.
Why it matters
A general label blurs the specific texture of her dread about this roll and slows the tightening you’re building toward the reveal.
Try this
Swap the label for one small, concrete tell in her body or handling of the heavy roll that only shows up when she’s bracing.
6Minor
Abstract, generalized feeling where a specific detail could carry the note.
Why it matters
A single precise association would make the chandlers feel like people Tamsin knows instead of a category.
Try this
Name one remembered, sensory thing about that family or their shop that pricks at her as she scans the column.
7Major
Named emotion combined with an explicit realization telegraphs the inference.
Why it matters
Readers want to discover the shift with Tamsin; being told she’s suspicious reduces tension right before the page turn to the red names.
Try this
Let the suspicion register through what she notices changing in him or in how she handles the roll, or through a thought that edges around the fear without naming it.
8Major
Stacked named emotions at the pivotal reveal.
Why it matters
This is the moment the reader most wants to experience inside her body and choices; labeling the emotions distances us right when the scene should peak.
Try this
Let one involuntary physical response, a fractured thought, or an impulsive action carry this collision of feelings, and let the silence of the room be broken by something concrete rather than a summary.

The tool’s summary

Note 1 of 8

1Major

Named emotion and stock phrasing at a key opening beat. This tells the reaction instead of letting the bells and Tamsin’s body or choice carry it.

Why it matters: Readers are primed for the scene’s mood by the first lines; being told what to feel flattens the impact of the three-bell alarm.
Try this: Let the bells and Tamsin’s immediate physical response or micro-action do the work. What changes in her breath, balance, or behavior when three bells sound on these stairs?

The notes this tool returned on an original sample passage, unedited. AI feedback can be wrong, and in the desk you can dismiss any note. Your own pages get notes of their own.

“Show, don’t tell” is the most repeated advice in fiction workshops, and the least explained. In the workspace, the Show, Don’t Tell coach reads a passage or a whole chapter and quotes the lines where the writing names a feeling or sums up a moment instead of letting the reader experience it. For each one it tells you why that line may be keeping the reader at a distance, and what you could try. It does not rewrite your prose. Above is exactly what it returned for a sample chapter page.

What “telling” actually means

Telling is not a sin. It is a choice about distance. When the narration says Mara was furious, the reader is handed a conclusion. When Mara snaps the pencil in half and keeps writing, the reader reaches the conclusion themselves, and usually feels it more.

Showing tends to work best at moments that matter: a turn in a relationship, a decision, a loss, the first sign something is wrong. Telling works well for what does not matter much, such as getting a character across town, passing a week, or stating a fact the reader needs and will not remember.

So the tool does not treat every telling line as a mistake. It looks for the places where telling sits at a moment that matters, or where a feeling is explained after the page has already shown it.

What the tool looks for

A named emotion in place of an observable moment (she felt afraid, he was furious, relief washed over her), at a moment that matters.
Explaining after showing: a gesture, then a sentence that interprets it for the reader.
Character traits the narrator asserts (he was a cruel man) with no behaviour behind them.
An important emotional beat summed up in a sentence instead of played out on the page.
Abstract statements of a state (everything felt wrong) where one concrete detail would do the work.
At least one place where the showing already works, and why, so you know what to keep.

How the tool decides

The tool sends the passage you select (up to 2,500 words) or the chapter (up to 8,000), with your story notes, to an AI model with instructions drawn from standard craft teaching on narrative distance and scene versus summary. It returns between two and ten notes, depending on length, in the order they appear in your text, always including at least one strength. Each quotes a short line, names what is happening, says why it matters to a reader and suggests a question or technique to try. A short summary says what already works and which telling pattern affects these pages most.

The model can misjudge. Common false positives: deliberate telling in a first-person voice with a wry or reportorial narrator, summary used on purpose to speed through a transition, and genre conventions (a romance may name feelings more directly than literary fiction). When a note doesn’t fit what you are doing, dismiss it.

About the example, and your text

The examples on our tool pages are real notes the tools returned on original sample passages we wrote. They are stored with the page: viewing them, or clicking through them, sends nothing to an AI model.
When you run the tool on your own pages, it sees only what it needs: the passage or chapter you choose, your story notes and the titles.
We don’t use your writing to train AI models. The AI providers we use process your text to return results and, under their API terms, don’t use it to train their models.

Read our AI promise

Questions

About the Show Don’t Tell Checker.

Can I run it on my own pages?

Yes, in the workspace, on a selection up to 2,500 words or a whole chapter up to 8,000, on the Writer or Author plan. Every first subscription comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee. Compare plans.

Does this tell me what to write instead?

No. It names the issue and suggests a question or technique. The sentence is yours.

Is all telling bad?

No. Telling is efficient and sometimes exactly right. The question is whether the moment deserves the reader’s closeness.

Is it a substitute for a critique partner?

No. It is a quick first read to help you see patterns before a human reads the pages.

Are the notes on this page real?

Yes. They are what the tool returned in a test run on an original sample passage we wrote, shown unedited and listed in the order their lines appear. Nothing on this page sends text to an AI model. Your own pages will get notes of their own.

Is my text used to train AI?

No. We don’t use your writing to train AI models. The AI providers we use process your text to return results and, under their API terms, don’t use it to train their models. Details are in our AI promise.