Re: Narrative Summary and Transitions

Patricia C. Wrede wrote:

> Stage business isn't just there to break up the important dialog and
> distract the reader. It serves the same purpose in a book that it
> does in a stage performance: it provides characterization and
> subtext that the dialog alone has a really tough time carrying. It
> doesn't take much -- I overloaded the above examples a bit on purpose
> -- but it does take some.

If it's done right. A number of sf stories written when smoking was
more common have characters smoking. In most cases, this seems to have
been done just to break up dialog or as some other kind of decoration.
I can think of only three in which smoking ties in with the story.

At least one book on writing recommends such decoration.


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  • Re: Is this a real term?
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