My husband says the phenomenon of over-explanation is an American trait. If that is so, I'm either extremely blessed or headed for the short bus, because I can not give a simple yes or no answer to ANYTHING!
I am considered a quiet person by those who know me. What they do not understand is that I often decide not to speak because the topic requires much more time for my answer than is generally avialable. I am quiet because I have too much to say.
Writing offers the outlet I need to exorcise this without getting those lost stares. But I have to wonder, if I'm getting the same stares but just don't see them because the reader is in another state? As more experienced writers, would you say that the ability to not just see a ball, but to see where the ball came from, why the ball is here, and what caused the ball to have a serious chip on its shoulder to be a good thing or, as it is in a two-sided conversation, a boring thing?
Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :
Without labeling myself as a "more experienced writer" I will reply.
All that stuff is great for the writer to know. What makes a writer great, is his or her ability to decide how much of that the reader needs to know.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
They say---well, Walter Cronkite said---that a reporter should always know more about a story than what he actually reports, so that way he writes and sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
Posted by innesjen (Member # 6126) on :
I think it's good to know everything you can about your story and characters but you don't want to fall into a trap where you are telling too much in your writing. A good trait to have is to know what is important to say and what doesn't need to be said. It's hard though, to know what is too much and what isn't enough, but luckily readers will let you know, and in a relatively nice way ;p.
Posted by jdt (Member # 3889) on :
The MC in my book gets a job as an accountant (in the 15th century). In the first version, he spent a couple of pages, maybe more, explaining double-entry accounting to his new boss. The critiques weren't pretty.
Posted by ozwonderdog (Member # 7837) on :
SHow, dont tell, blah blah, you've heard it before, yeah?
I have found that, agreeing with everyone else here, if YOU know everything about the world you're writing about, then so too do your characters, and they can speak as if they've lived there, or experienced it all, themselves.
Its like two characters having a conversation about baseball, mentioning last names only, and batting averages and strike outs etc. Me, as an Australian, would have no idea. But the sound of convinced in the characters voice, which is really the confidence that the writer has, would lead authority to the character, and make me believe that yes, they know their stuff about baseball.
Um, lame example? You know what I mean?
Posted by redstar (Member # 8038) on :
I was reading somewhere today, I think it was on an old post from James Maxey's blog, that you should never be too afraid of being obvious. He said that when you write something, and it's too much information, an editor can tell you that it's too much and to tone it down a bit. But if you're obscure, no one will ever be able to tell you what they didn't get because it wasn't clear enough to be gotten.
There's definitely a balance, nobody wants to be overwhelmed by details, but if you have to choose which way to lean, you can always pull back later if you need to.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Word to "jdt"---the introduction of double-entry bookkeeping in an era without it, was a plot point in de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. (Maybe some of the critiques mentioned that.)