There was a strange drama about the film Miami Vice that happened last year. Brandon Streussnig tweeted about showing the film to his girlfriend after she asked to watch his favorite movie. Then, a different user, Chaedria LaBouvier, quote-tweeted him, with a dunk about straight men.
Weird Twitter drama aside, my playful headcanon is that all this happened just so I could be cued to watch Miami Vice. I loved Michael Mann’s Heat, and action movies in general, so it wasn’t a hard sell for me to go watch Miami Vice.
I watched it shortly thereafter, and fell in love. The next night, I convinced my best friend Ulysse to watch it with me, too.
Visa has this concept of “deep-self-directed work.” He mentions it when he suggests U should “keep meticulous notes of whatever you do when you’re procrastinating.”
He doesn’t say it there, but one way I’ve come to view this phrase, “deep-self-directed work” is, ur subconscious or intuition (or the Muses) have some reason for compelling U to be interested in the things U are interested in, even if U can’t rationally understand or explain it just yet.
The movies and games or whatever it is that U are drawn to are doing something load-bearing for U that less-conscious, more intuitive parts of ur mind understand. Taking notes draws that up to the conscious mind, ends up being wildly useful.
When I joked about rewatching Miami Vice for the seventh time that year (probably the fourth or fifth, actually, but seven is a funnier number), Anansi asked me why I was rewatching it, what spot it was hitting.
I’m grateful he asked, because his question prompted a major insight for me.
Of course, there’s a lot to love about the film on an object level. I was already enamored with Michael Mann as a director, and it has an incredible cast. I already loved Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, and I absolutely fell in love with Gong Li. (Can U blame me? Can anyone?) I was really impressed with John Ortiz, and a number of the other supporting actors. I love the characters, the plot, the music, the vibes. The film hits a lot of notes of adventure, romance, and morality that I love.
I also love that the film is sort of… sloppy. Heat is a masterpiece, whereas Miami Vice is just… really good. And somehow, that makes it more approachable, relatable, enjoyable, at least for this viewer. I was reminded of another film with Colin Farrell in it, The New World, which I find more relatable and enjoyable than Malick’s Tree of Life, his masterpiece and another favorite of mine.
When I watch a movie or a TV show, or read a novel, I’m experiencing the story on two levels: enjoying it on the object level, and studying it on the meta level as a fellow artist, someone who crafts stories (novels, in my case).
It was on this second level that I learned something very significant.
As a novelist, I’d realized that one of my growth edges was that I needed to work on the principle “show, don’t tell.” Most of my stories were told, rather than shown.
I knew this, and wanted to cultivate my ability to show my stories rather than tell them, but I hadn’t quite worked out how to do so practically.
Miami Vice was the perfect remedy, in that more or less its whole story is shown, rather than told. To the extent that the plot grabs U, it does so through minor details which are shown, hinted at, sometimes in very brief cuts.
An excerpt from the Miami Vice film script, which demonstrates its commitment to showing rather than telling.
Because I watched the movie multiple times, and every scene was repeatedly just showing important plot details, it finally dawned on me how to “show” in fiction:
the key to “show, don’t tell” is to tell Urself, then work out how to show it
“show, don’t tell,” they say. and it’s true. some of the best stories—novels and films and more—are shown, not told.
then again, they also call it “storytelling”—and an excellent tale can be told, also. i’m very fond of telling, as it turns out, of a tale well told, whether by myself or by another.
that said, it would be good to be able to show a story, in addition to being able to tell one. learn the rules to break the rules. learn how to do both, so u can choose which to use, when.
here’s how i’ve worked out how to show, not tell:
- tell the story! paradoxically, you have to tell the story before u can show it. tell yourself the story. tell others the story. tell the story repeatedly. it’s called “storytelling” for a reason, so sit by the fire and spin the best yarn u can.
- record urself, take notes, polish the tale into an excellent outline or even a fully written (but told) story.
- then, when ur story is well told—when u could tell it in ur sleep, when at the snap of someone’s fingers at a fancy dinner u can impress all the guests with the party trick of telling the best tale they’ve heard in years—or, for the more modest amongst us, simply when u are ready—u can proceed. break the story into manageable chunks. for each part of the story, work out how to show it rather than tell it. evil mob boss? show him chopping off a mostly-innocent person’s fingers. a character is grieving the passing of another? show them leafing through photos of the dead character. somebody dreams of being an astronaut? show their bedroom, filled with photos of the moon landing and NASA paraphanelia. want to prime the audience for a specific recurring theme? work out a small incident that smacks of the same motifs that u can tell earlier in the story. think sights, sounds, smells, actions, situations.
- then, once u’ve worked out how to show each aspect in theory, put it down in detail. write it out in ur draft or ur screenplay or what have u. make it vivid! imagine u have a video camera—what does it see? what do we overhear?
- then, when u have done it all, do a pass through to remove all telling, or 90%. u can keep a little as a treat, if u so choose.
Thank U to Brandon Streussnig, his girlfriend, and Chaedria LaBouvier for creating the conditions for me to watch Miami Vice. Thanks to Ulysse for watching it with me, and to Anansi and Jane for inspiring this post.
