Sometimes less is more. I listen to a lot of writers (and instructors) talking about how a book needs more imagery and description. Constantly writers will bring up how “you have to have lots of character development and description, or I won’t finish a book, because even if the plot is good, I just won’t care about the people.” What is the truth? I have a slightly different take on the subject. I believe the reason people read books rather than watch movies is that books actively involve the imagination. A writer’s job in a book is to trigger that imagination. It is not a writer’s job to word paint every detail in such a way that the reader sees everything down to the last detail. To me, that is what “active reading” is about. The reader gets put in a scene and fills in a lot of the details with his or her own experience triggered by the things the author puts in to start the process. Let me use a couple of very trite and shopworn examples. “Tall dark and handsome” doesn’t describe much, but it triggers an image in every woman’s mind. The image will likely be different for each person based on their life experiences. “It was a dark and stormy night” does the same thing in producing imagery based on a reader’s cumulative life experiences. Now I’m not saying to use those kinds of trite wordings, but it’s your job as a writer to find just the right words that paint enough of the picture to get the job done.
Sometimes, you won’t want to do it that way. You’ll take the time to build your own highly developed image or more lengthy description just the way you want it with more detail. That’s perfectly okay, and even mandatory if it’s something that needs that. I know I’m right about this, because I often hear writers I respect complain about how they “waded through a page of imagery or personal description” and felt it actually interrupted or delayed the story…and bored them. They couldn’t wait for it to be over…or in some cases just scanned or skipped it. There’s another point as well to remember. Developing a character is a process that involves every chapter. It’s not just what color their hair is, but rather it’s everything they believe and value and want. That is revealed throughout what you write, and with that, as well, there’s a balance here that needs to be reached, and sometimes less really is more.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Greg
|