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.
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Greg
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