Every writing workshop in the world teaches “show, don’t tell.” Most of the examples are from novels. In a novel, showing means using action and specific detail instead of summary and emotional labels.
Picture books work differently. The illustrations are already doing the showing. Your job is to understand what belongs in the text and what belongs in the art, and to make sure they aren’t saying the same thing twice.
What “show don’t tell” actually means
The basic idea: instead of naming a character’s emotion, describe what they do. Let the reader figure out the feeling from the behavior.
Telling: “Janmani was nervous.”
Showing: “Janmani smoothed the same wrinkle in her shirt for the third time.”
The second version works because you don’t name the emotion. The action reveals it. The reader connects the dots, and that small act of connecting is what makes the feeling stick.
This principle applies to any kind of writing. But picture books have a twist.
You already have a co-author
In a picture book, the illustrations do a huge portion of the showing for you. The art can tell the reader that a character is small, scared, joyful, or determined without you writing a single word about it.
This changes your job. “Show don’t tell” in picture books isn’t just a writing technique. It’s a division of labor. Some information belongs in the text. Some belongs in the art. When both say the same thing, one of them is wasted.
Here’s the version that wastes the art:
Text: “The dog was very excited.”
Art: dog leaping into the air, tail spinning, tongue flapping
The text adds nothing. The illustration already said it.
Here’s the version where text and art work together:
Text: “The leash was gone.”
Art: dog leaping into the air, tail spinning, tongue flapping
Now the text adds a reason. The art shows the feeling. Together they tell a fuller story than either one could tell alone.
The gap between what the text says and what the art shows is the most powerful space in picture book storytelling. The best picture books build that gap deliberately on every spread.
The most common “telling” mistake in picture books
You might expect the most common mistake to be emotional overexplaining. Something like “she felt scared and sad and also a little bit brave.” That does happen.
But the more common mistake is simpler: describing what the art already shows.
If your illustration shows a child hiding under a table, your text doesn’t need to say “She hid under the table.” The reader can see that. Your text should say something the illustration can’t: what she’s thinking, what she remembers, what she’s about to do.
A quick check: read your manuscript and underline every sentence that describes a visible action or a physical location. If the illustrator is going to paint it, you probably don’t need to write it too.
How to show emotions without naming them
If you can’t write “she was scared,” what do you write instead?
Use specific behavior. Fear, excitement, and sadness each look different depending on who’s feeling them. A brave kid who’s secretly terrified acts differently than a kid who falls apart. The specific detail is what reveals character.
Generic: “She was scared.”
Specific: “She knocked twice, then decided three times was better.”
The second version tells you she’s scared. It also tells you she’s superstitious, or trying to feel in control, or both. You got more story out of one action than you would have gotten from a paragraph of description.
A few other approaches that work well in picture books:
What a character notices reveals how they feel. A nervous character scans for exits. A lonely character watches other kids laughing. A character falling in love notices the color of someone’s shoes.
What a character avoids often says more than what they do. A child who takes the long way home every day is showing you something without explaining it.
Small physical details anchor emotion in the body. Tight hands. A held breath. Looking at the floor. These don’t name the feeling, but they put the reader inside the body of someone experiencing it.
Dialogue: the gap between words and meaning
One of the most effective tools in picture books is the gap between what a character says and what they actually mean. This is called subtext (meaning that lives under the surface of what a character says out loud).
A character who announces “I’m not even scared” during a thunderstorm tells you more than a narrator explaining “she was pretending to be brave.” The first version makes the reader do the work. The second one does the work for them. The first version is more fun to read.
Picture books use this kind of gap for humor all the time. The text says one thing. The art shows the opposite. The reader gets the joke by seeing the contradiction, without you having to explain it.
It works for sadness too. A character who says “I didn’t want to go anyway” after being left out tells you exactly how they’re coping. You don’t have to label the feeling. The reader already feels it.
The blank-space test
Here’s a fast way to check if your text is doing too much.
Read your manuscript as if there are no illustrations. No pictures, just words. Ask: does this make complete, obvious sense on its own?
If it does, you might be over-explaining. The best picture book text leaves intentional blanks that the art fills in. Your words and the illustrations should need each other.
If your text says “the monster was huge and green and had seventeen teeth,” the art has nothing to add. But if your text says “she heard something on the stairs,” the art can show us the something. And the reader gets to live in the space of not-quite-knowing until the page turn.
That space before the page turn is your most powerful storytelling tool. What you withhold is often more effective than what you put on the page.
When telling is actually fine
Not all telling is a mistake. Some things are genuinely better stated than shown.
Backstory (history that happened before the story starts) is often easier to tell briefly than to act out. The age of a character, the name of a place, the fact that something happened long ago. These can be stated plainly.
The rule isn’t “never tell.” It’s: don’t tell what the art is already showing, and don’t name emotions the reader can feel from the action.
The showing test: Pick any emotional moment in your manuscript. Find the sentence where you name the feeling directly. Delete it. Does the scene still work? If yes, the sentence wasn’t doing anything. If the scene collapses, ask what’s missing from the action or dialogue that made the explanation feel necessary.
Want feedback on where your manuscript is telling instead of showing? In Storyboon Studio, Janida and Janmani give you specific, spread-by-spread guidance on emotional clarity, subtext, and the text-illustration balance.
Get Story Guidance in Storyboon Studio →Three questions for every spread
Show don’t tell in picture books comes down to three questions you can ask at every page turn.
Is the text telling what the art will already show? If yes, cut the text or change it to add something the illustration can’t.
Is the text naming an emotion the reader can feel from the action? If yes, delete the label and trust the behavior to carry it.
Is there a gap between what the text says and what the art shows? If yes, good. That gap is where the reader lives. That’s where the story happens.
The goal isn’t to be mysterious. It’s to give the reader enough that they feel the story, not just follow it.
