Yes, blending to various degrees is probably the best. Even "tell" sequences benefit from the detail usually associated with "show".

I think there are degrees, but the main thrust of the article was to get people to think about whether "show" or "tell" is more appropriate, instead of blindly parroting "Show, don't tell".

I'm starting to think there's three different things at work here, and the confusion arises with the middle ground, between pure "show" (detailed dramatisation) and pure "tell" (concise, non-detailed summary). There is also a narrative form, that seems to me to fall half-way in between pure "show" and pure "tell" - the detail-rich summary. As you point out, that library "tell" example would fall there, because while it is a summary, it also has specific details which give life to the passage - details that a lot of beginning writers leave out to do a list of events. It isn't just a description of what they did or where they are, it moves - the dust, them - they aren't static. But at the same time, nobody could possibly claim that it was a dramatic, and hence "show", passage.

As I see it, the problem is that because of the rule "Show, don't tell", a lot of people start thinking that there are only the two options. A detail-rich summary is a summary, therefore is "tell", and is bad because the rule says "Show, don't tell."

Black-and-white thinking like that annoys me.

"Tell", in the sense of the dry "history of the world fantasy novel prologue" is definitely not a good idea. But what can we call that middle ground, that detail-rich summary that still isn't full-blown dramatisation? Because it isn't "show", and to include it with "tell" gives unintentional props to the kind of "tell" that doesn't belong in fiction. In this article, I was including it with "tell" - perhaps not such a good choice.

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Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
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