Showing Vs. Telling in the Single Character or First-Person Viewpoint

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When writing in the first person viewpoint, it is tempting to tell the reader every feeling the viewpoint character is feeling and telling too much in the process.  Having full access to a character’s internal life makes the act of showing and not telling more difficult to manage. 

In their novel Emily Everafter, Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt must show their character Emily Hinton’s embarrassment at an episode in a New York museum involving her dad. Even though in one paragraph they use the word embarrassed, they still effectively show Emily’s embarrassment through action and internal monologue. Here is the scene.

The last thing my parents wanted to see before they left New York was a museum, so here we are at the Met.  We did the whole museum in about forty-five minutes—they aren’t exactly art collectors—and now we’re up in the rooftop sculpture garden, and I’m taking a moment to watch the sun stain the green treetops orange at central park.

I turn and see my father lumber over to a pop art sculpture, a metal garden spade fit for a giant, and rap his knuckle on it.  I take off at a tasteful—well, as tasteful as I can manage in my new strappy sandals—sprint to try to stop him.  He rubs his hand over the textured paint job, scratching the metal with his fingernail, manhandling the thing.  It’s too late.  Two museum security guards in blue blazers beat me to him.

“Sir, do not touch the sculpture,” the shorter one barks.

I am at my father’s side in an instant.  He looks at me, wounded and confused, and then back at the men.

“This is the only warning you’ll get, sir. Do not touch any of the art,” the other one says.

“He didn’t mean to, he. . .” I sputter, simultaneously embarrassed by and aching for my poor confused father.

“Sorry about that.  It won’t happen again,” says a deep voice behind me.  Uncle Matthew is striding quickly across the roof on his long legs, his brown hair mussing in he wind, his confident demeanor and calming intonation setting the guards at ease.  “I’ll make sure he behaves,” he laughs, winking at them.

They look at each other and, wordlessly, turn away.  They walk back to the other side of the roof, stepping with almost military precision.  I imagine sticking my leg out to trip them, but I control myself.

I turn and shake my head at my father.  I feel how hot my cheeks are, and I glance around to see how many people have noticed.  Everyone is staring at us.

I thought it was bad when my parents starting singing “Give My Regards to Broadway,” in harmony, in Times Square, but this is far worse.  We stick out like sore thumbs.  The Clampett family in New York.  Green Acres all over again.  Except that this isn’t an old TV show.  It’s my actual nightmare come true.  The Hinton family in New York.

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Mom comes up behind Dad and puts her hand on his shoulder.  “Honey, Dad just wanted to see what it was made of.  He wasn’t going to hurt something as big as that.”  And then she turns around and with her third-grade teacher’s voice belts out a warning to my twin brothers, who are currently across the rooftop garden trying to spit on the people below.  God, just take me now, I say to myself.  Take me now.

This scene leaves little doubt in the reader’s mind that Emily Hinton is thoroughly embarrassed by her current circumstances.  Dayton and Vanderbilt are able to show us through Emily’s hot cheeks, actions, comparisons and internal monologue that Emily would rather be anywhere but where she was in this scene.  And by the end, the reader, too, feels embarrassed for her. 

When writing in the single character viewpoint, you can still show rather than tell through dialogue, action, and even internal monologue.