👉  PLEASE view the DETAILS section below the description to learn about this PDF so you understand what you get with your order.

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What is show don't tell?

There’s a general rule when it comes to stories: instead of telling your audience something, try showing them.

Imagine a character in a story is a super lazy dog. Instead of telling your audience that the dog is super lazy, you can create a scene of the dog being super lazy. Maybe the dog presses a button to get its personal robot assistant to bring his food bowl closer to his bed so he doesn’t have to get up.

This is often more entertaining, more engaging.

How do our cards work?

In a nutshell: On each card, we describe a personality trait or quirk about a character (i.e., a dog is super lazy) and you come up with ideas for what the character can do that shows off this trait to the audience.

You can come up with something quite simple – something that would amount to a line or two in a book or a few seconds on a movie screen. Or you can think up a more elaborate scene. It’s up to you and your imagination.

Included are 88 cards, for which creative thinking, lateral thinking and creative problem-solving skills will be put to the test!

Age range: Like most of our items, the content here is open-ended and so is accessible to a vast range of ages. We estimate the minimum age to be 8 or 9.

Created: 2025

Samples

Ways to use these cards

These cards are flexible. Use for brainstorming or discussions with groups of any size, or on one's own. You can also use these cards as show-don't-tell writing or drawing prompts.

Tip! There’s often something obvious or easy about showing off a trait. But kids/teens can really push their creative thinking skills by coming up with a truly original or clever idea. We encourage taking creative risks - that's what the best storytellers do.

Think Like A Storyteller series

Our Show Don't Tell cards are part of our new Think Like A Storyteller series. It's a multi-faceted series that seeks to build imagination, critical thinking, strategic thinking, problem-solving, lateral thinking and idea generation through different aspects of storytelling. 

Details!!

What to know about our PDFs:

1. When you order this PDF, the download link will appear on your checkout page and you'll receive it via email. That link is active for 2 weeks. If you miss the window just email us at hello@furiousthink.com!
   
   
2. Our PDFs are not editable. You can print as well as copy & paste the content, but you cannot alter the PDF you receive. Please know, some online printing services are incompatible with this set-up (we've only encountered one, but assume there are others).
   
   
3. With this PDF you get two versions: a version created with one card/slide per page that is easily viewed on a device AND a version with 8 cards per page, that you can print and cut into physical cards. 
   
   
4. Our PDFs are non-refundable.

Printing: The printable pages are created for standard letter size, 8.5" x 11". 

Size of file: single cards package - 93 pages, 555 KB |  printable package - 15 pages, 857KB

If you would like more information about buying PDFs from us, please visit our purchasing PDFs details page.