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On writing
Sep. 24th, 2006 11:25 amI noticed that Neil Gaiman took on the famous "show don't tell" rule this morning:
It depends what you're writing and what kind of effect you want to have on the reader. "Show don't tell" is a useful rule of thumb, but lots of fine books and stories tell (Borges, for example, does almost nothing else, and we love him for it), and so do storytellers.
There was once a princess who, although she was perhaps a little on the thin side and extremely short-tempered, was very beautiful...
could often get you further than a page in which you see her short temper and learn about her beauty (although, if they have anything to do with the story, you'll do that anyway).
Which got me thinking. Usually I take "show don't tell" to be a rule of plot - the last thing any reader wants is to have the epic confrontation between Good and Evil narrated in retrospect (while you were debating about the virtues of 2% vs 1% milk, I was throwing the Ring of Power into Mount Doom).
( More thoughts on this topic )
Blah blah blah. Now to clean my apt.
It depends what you're writing and what kind of effect you want to have on the reader. "Show don't tell" is a useful rule of thumb, but lots of fine books and stories tell (Borges, for example, does almost nothing else, and we love him for it), and so do storytellers.
There was once a princess who, although she was perhaps a little on the thin side and extremely short-tempered, was very beautiful...
could often get you further than a page in which you see her short temper and learn about her beauty (although, if they have anything to do with the story, you'll do that anyway).
Which got me thinking. Usually I take "show don't tell" to be a rule of plot - the last thing any reader wants is to have the epic confrontation between Good and Evil narrated in retrospect (while you were debating about the virtues of 2% vs 1% milk, I was throwing the Ring of Power into Mount Doom).
( More thoughts on this topic )
Blah blah blah. Now to clean my apt.
