amanuensis1 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amanuensis1) wrote2011-09-17 10:44 am
amanuensis1) wrote2011-09-17 10:44 am
Entry tags:
Meta, distilled.
Meta-revelation:
A couple of weeks ago I picked up Red Glove by Holly Black, and all through the book I was delighted at how little exposition the book throws at the reader. The book treats the reader like an intelligent creature who can infer from context, as it drops hints at events past and assumes the reader has plenty of imagination to invent the conversations these characters might have had, the details of the lives they've lived before they arrived at these stages in their conflicts. It uses unfamiliar jargon and doesn't stop the action to explain it, since context is plenty. It was one of the first books in a long time that hasn't pinged my annoyance button with tedious blocks of exposition, and I was delighted.
Of course, once I finished it, I discovered it was the second book in a series. *facepalm*
Except, as I lifted my face outta my palm, it made me realize: this is how I like my fiction. How I like to read it and how I like to write it. Where the worldbuilding comes as it comes. Free of dense exposition blocks. Showing the unfamiliar in its context. Assuming the reader can use her brain.
No one style is going to please everyone, but here's my new personal writing maxim: write like it's the second book.
A couple of weeks ago I picked up Red Glove by Holly Black, and all through the book I was delighted at how little exposition the book throws at the reader. The book treats the reader like an intelligent creature who can infer from context, as it drops hints at events past and assumes the reader has plenty of imagination to invent the conversations these characters might have had, the details of the lives they've lived before they arrived at these stages in their conflicts. It uses unfamiliar jargon and doesn't stop the action to explain it, since context is plenty. It was one of the first books in a long time that hasn't pinged my annoyance button with tedious blocks of exposition, and I was delighted.
Of course, once I finished it, I discovered it was the second book in a series. *facepalm*
Except, as I lifted my face outta my palm, it made me realize: this is how I like my fiction. How I like to read it and how I like to write it. Where the worldbuilding comes as it comes. Free of dense exposition blocks. Showing the unfamiliar in its context. Assuming the reader can use her brain.
No one style is going to please everyone, but here's my new personal writing maxim: write like it's the second book.
no subject
Physical descriptions of people should be used extremely sparingly if at all IMHO. POV characters should never describe themselves! Except maybe obliquely--"She was taller than I was, but then again most people were," tells you that the POV character is short, which is acceptable if shortness is important to his or her character. Eye color is never important unless the character's father is questioning the character's paternity on the basis of it.
no subject
What a contrast to the ridiculous Life of Pi by Yann Martell which at one point insists that the main protagonist felt like a lonely scared Indian boy. Wut? Never in my life have I felt like a lonely scared German girl. When lonely or scared, I always just feel like a human.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I see contrivances that get used over and over for POV characters to describe themselves. I've told myself that if I ever have a character look at herself in a mirror on page two in order to describe her features, I'm hittin' myself over the head with a copy of the OED.
no subject
Please to be hitting me over the head with the same OED if I use either of these.