The Tellurian Showers challenge

For The Friday Challenge 11/25/11 - Tellurian Showers: Write a single scene, in two radically different ways: one telling, and one showing.


She sat down at the computer and opened up the worst example of telling. She knew it was the worst, because a record number of people had made that comment about it. Now to find one scene. She read the story several times, and each time became more frustrated.

"How can I change this into showing? It would take thousands of words instead of a few sentences."

Finally she narrowed her choice down to one paragraph:

When the spaceship appeared, nobody was worried. They were too happy to worry. But when the occupants of the spaceship took over all of the media we no longer talked incessantly about Dr. Conrad. Instead, they told us who he was and what he had really been doing. I had a hard time listening to it, because I just didn't believe it.

"Five very Tellurian sentences. How much ya wanna bet this'll turn into five hundred Shower sentences?"

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Maryann turned on the TV as soon as she got home, to watch the news. "I wonder what miracles Dr. Conrad has done today," she thought. "He's so wonderful!"

Allan, the evening anchorman, beamed at the camera. "I'm havin' a great evening, folks! We have exclusive video of our very first visit from outer space! And we're expecting one of the aliens to speak to us any minute!"

The TV showed a strange object sitting on a runway at an airport. It looked very different from the nearby airplanes, and much larger. A line of man-like figures were streaming out of it. There were thousands of them, all wearing the same bright yellow suits. A small group of reporters and mobile-camera people converged on them, shouting questions and shoving cameras in their faces.

For a few minutes the aliens looked around, as if assessing their new environment. The reporters continued their good-natured noise, smiling at the aliens to show how happy they were because the ship had come.

Abruptly, the microphones were taken. One alien began to speak into the microphone he held, and all the cameras focused in his direction.

Maryann laughed and clapped her hands. "They are very friendly, aren't they! I'm so glad they came!"

The alien's voice was clear and easy to understand. "We have come to rescue your people. You are being deceived by The Evil One, whom you know as Dr. Conrad. He has been stealing your souls and lying to you. You have become his slaves."

At this point, the reporters and camera people began talking and laughing, patting the aliens on the back, and repeating over and over, "Welcome! We're so glad you're here!"

Allan, the anchorman, added his own comments from the studio. "Yeah, folks, they're following the good doctor to earth. I'm so glad they're here, aren't you? There's plenty of room for more friends of Dr. Conrad."

Maryann nodded at the TV in complete agreement, smiling happily at the thought of aliens coming to visit Dr. Conrad. When she remembered her next appointment at the clinic was tomorrow, she was even happier.

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She saved the document and loaded it up on the blog. "Maybe not five hundred, but a lot, anyway. I think maybe telling is 80% laziness and 15% avoidance of hard work and 5% lack of time."

The question is: is that really better?