Say It With "Show"

Nothing quite sums up a situation, personality, emotion etc. than simply presenting the facts and allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions. Consider some passages from Before the Blood:

Nurse promptly abandoned him at the drawing room door, which she quickly shut behind him. In a haze of Havana smoke gathered New York's financial moguls flanked by their tightly laced wives, and these women, in their House of Worth gowns, simultaneously and disapprovingly, raised their lorgnettes at the boy's intrusion into their society.

The door opened and a slouched man, slight in height and stout in width, about seventy, and wrapped in a full cape, handed Gibbs his wide-brimmed hat, swiped the door knob with a gloved finger, and scornfully appraised the room.

"You may fancy yourself a master once you compose your own celebrated Missa solemnis," Maestro coldly replied as John shook his smarting hand. "Until then, add your embellishments to what you play best, the scales."

He contented himself by pretending to enjoy the view, but his fingers spoke the truth by intensifying their grip on the crude seat at every jolt and bump.

Inside, John led the way through the dark building and up the darker staircase with Helsby close behind him, carrying a candle.

Just as John was about to turn the door handle, he heard faint squeals from his father's chambers further down the hall. His hand froze and then pulled back.

Despite a quaking belly, clammy palms, and breaths that came a bit too quickly, Helsby couldn't resist staring into the distance, jutting his chin, and grinning. 

John slammed the door behind him. For a moment, he stood, eyes squeezed shut, fists clenched, breathing heavy. 

Nora's lips pursed in concentration, as she slid her hand down the chimney, gripped it in her slim hand, and gently twisted it back into place.

The breeze that fluttered the curtain was cooler today, a sure sign autumn was snuffing out the last breath of a summer that needed to die. John raised the lid and sampled the  buckwheat cakes without really tasting them.

John took a step forward, and the girl took one back.

John sat in the corner and greeted eighteen eighty-two with a bottle of champagne and a heart of steel.

"Frightful affair, isn't?" Mortimer said from across the table, to no one in particular. "Another evening of dyspepsia, thank you Pierre."

Head to forehead, face furrowed in deep thought, Abbott never looked up until John lifted a paperweight off the desk and let it drop. Abbott leaped to his feet, shoved the account books aside, and frantically examined the desk for nicks and scratches.

And finally:

"You appear out of sorts today, Master John." Helsby sat down opposite, folded his hands on the table, and leaned forward with a sympathetic smile as John translated a Michel de Montaigne essay from the original French into his copy book. "Perhaps you'd like to confide in me. They say a trouble shared is a trouble..."

"Fuck off."