Claim: All Waffle Houses should be open 24/7.
Opposite: All Waffle Houses shouldn’t be open 24/7.
Bedell-Pearce, Jack. Challenges of running a business 24/7. The Guardian, 28 March 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2013/mar/28/24-hours-business-challenges.
In Challenges of running a business 24/7, Jack Bedell-Pearce identifies several reasons why operating a commercial activity 24/7 isn’t ideal; in particular, such businesses sacrifice employees’ mental health. One’s circadian rhythm is an essential aspect of their health, and working a night shift can disrupt this process, making one accustomed to waking up at night and going to bed in the morning. Naturally, when someone adopts this lifestyle, they don’t enjoy the luxuries of life; most of all, one has limited interactions with other people.
I typed “All Waffle Houses shouldn’t be open 24/7.” into ChatGPT, and the AI spit out a substantial amount of information. I didn’t even mention the alternative argument, yet the software still provided claims for both sides. The only argument under the con side that I didn’t mention but ChatGPT did was that running a business 24/7 is costly because businesses don’t get an adequate amount of customers past midnight; however, they still have to pay fixed costs, which can decrease their profits.
Assumption: In fiction, an author should always show not tell.
Opposite: In fiction, an author shouldn’t always show not tell.
Sources Supporting the Opposition:
Anders, Charlie. 5 situations where it’s better to tell than show in your fiction. GIZMODO, 31 December 2010, https://gizmodo.com/5-situations-where-its-better-to-tell-than-show-in-your-5722161.
Gold, Jami. Showing vs. Telling: Don’t Assume Showing Is Better. 9 August 2018, https://jamigold.com/2018/08/showing-vs-telling-dont-assume-showing-is-better/.
Going into my research project, I strongly believed you should always choose the option to show rather than tell in writing; in essence, I thought telling was the devil of literature. I conducted research that supported this reasoning and explained to me how I could show like an expert. However, albeit the sources listed above aren’t the most credible, they did provide some quality counterarguments that allowed me to grow as a writer. To preface, they mention showing and telling are both useful tools in writing, and an author shouldn’t prefer one over the other. There are, however, unique scenarios where one should tell rather than show (e.g., mundane activities, unimportant information, etc.). One of the situations that stood out to me the most is when you have a time constraint and you can’t show every detail. This resonated with me mainly because my research project is a piece of flash fiction. Therefore, I need to utilize every resource I can to be as concise as possible, and according to the articles, telling can improve my efficiency. Considering all of this, I still value showing in writing. In my opinion, showing is what separates an intriguing story from a mundane textbook, and that’s why I plan on including many moments in my story where I use vivid detail to a paint a picture in the reader’s mind.