 |
| April 2015 |
I must say that I agreed with the writing advice Schmidt shares in this article.
In it he lays down some rules and suggestions on how to incorporate exposition without boring the reader or interrupting the narrative.
As a reader, exposition and description can easily take me out of a story. A good example of poor exposition, in my opinion, comes in movies that open with a blank screen and a long winded explanation of the setting in text form. (Of course, now that I think of it, Star Wars made the text-based opening
iconic. Let's call that the exception that proves the point.) In books, I'd much rather start right in with the story by focusing on an opening piece of action or a character that will see us into the adventure.
Too much explanation (telling) takes away from the narrative (showing). It is a difficult balance to make but Schmidt does a good job of explaining how to work non-narrative information into stories.
I'm not a writer but I'm always interested in finding out about the art of it. I am happy it was included here.
No comments:
Post a Comment