I remember the early days of web design, where I'd fire up Netscape Navigator and marvel at the WYSIWYG editor. There was a time, at least for me, when this was a go-to tool, and it set a standard for me. The idea that I can immediately create something and see the results really drove me forward, even if the things I created were pedestrian or simple. As a result of this very immediate sense of gratification, I got spoiled, and expected that when I typed, clicked or dragged something, I'd be able to know that the result was directly related to my action. This made me lazy, but I didn't see it as lazy. I just thought everyone was doing things this way, and that they'd understand my "genius" no matter what I did.
Along that bell-curve, people lost interest when I started taking shortcuts because the tools allowed me to do so. Subsequently, I wasn't involved in web design much longer after that. I had thought that my problems there were isolated to the world of JPEGs and image maps. They weren't.
I had started using that shortcut philosophy in everything I did, because I counted on people understanding whatever I did, because:
A) I did it, and I'm me and pretty smart and popular (and arrogant)
B) whatever I was doing was pretty obvious, and you had to be a blithering idiot not to understand.
Because of (A) I came to judge a lot of the world was (B).
I will admit that the bulk of this discovery didn't happen at all until a few years ago, and didn't happen in depth until some time last year, so there was over a decade of habits and philosophy built up where I thought I was Prometheus bringing fire to mortals and that the mortals were mentally two steps ahead of fruit flies on the scale of how-smart-things-are. In short, this whole mindset made me pretty much an asshole. How I ever found or held any job often boggles my mind. If then-me came to now-me for a job interview, I'd proudly, happily even, beat the snot out of myself. I deserved it.
This self-discovery was incredibly instructional, because I got a chance to see this same practice (not the arrogant attitude, not always, but definitely the shortcut practice of assumptions) done by other people. And I think because the arrogance was occasionally absent, it wasn't a matter of people being stupid and not realizing what's happening, it's just a matter of not thinking.
i. Not thinking that it matters to explain particular details or reasoning.
ii. Not thinking that other people wouldn't understand.
iii. Not thinking about the problem in stages or components, but rather as an end result to get achieved.
And all that build-up brings me to this blog today, with this to say, addressed to everyone writing something (fiction, non-fiction, whatever):
The reader(s) are going by what you put on the page, and if you introduce elements without explaining them, you create a lot of confusion.
I feel like this needs an example:
We set up a scene where a man is lost, wandering around with only the clothes on his back, and amnesia. He's staggering around for a few paragraphs, feeling quite angsty and confused, and we make it clear that he has nothing. Suddenly, about three paragraphs in, we mention that it's sunny so he puts his sunglasses on.
See the issue? He's got ONLY the clothes on his back...and then we see him in sunglasses. Isn't that convenient.
Now a lot of people will read great flexibility into the situation and they'll rationalize "only the clothes on his back" to mean that sunglasses are included. So maybe I am a purist in thinking that I take the author at their word (or lack thereof) when I compose a scene in my head based on what I read.
I'm uncomfortable with the idea that authors are inherently granted or gifted leeway in what they write. I think it's principally done because they went to all this trouble to write a book, and that's a lot more than what some members of the audience have done lately, so we can forgive the oversight.
That doesn't sit well with me. If the author went to all this trouble to write a book, the author could spend some time in the editing process making sure all the bits make sense.
Knowing many members of my writing group are reading this right now, several of them are translating this into: Now I have to detail EVERYTHING EVERYTIME.
Please, don't go overboard.
There must be space for the audience to squeeze into your story, alongside the numerous (and sometimes repetitious) descriptions of trees and cars and the world. The audience wants from you a certain level of description, but it's like snow:
A dusting of snow isn't enough to be pretty.
And six feet of snow is pain in the ass to shovel.
But in that two to three inch range, when they cancel school but it's not a blizzard and everyone can stay in and relax? That's magical.
On the flip side, don't over-trust them to fill in the details. Yes, they're going to in their own way, and you can't really stop them, but if you do let them go for it, don't complain that they're getting it wrong.
If all you create a tall character with brown hair, then you're open to many interpretations of "tall" and "brown". In your head you may have specifics (like six foot and honey brown) but you didn't say that, you left things wide open for the five foot ten oak colored man and the seven foot tall man with hair the color of burnt pancakes)
So what's the trick? Where's the sweet spot? Right here:
You must describe what you need to fill the scene, advance the story or present new information. All else is optional and at your discretion, but abuse of that chases away the reader.
How do you get there? Practice. Practice and feedback. Practice, feedback and experimentation.
I know you can do this.
Angsty?
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