Re: culture/character noodling

In article
<1ijr74t.ssd41r1ihc0bzN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catja Pafort) wrote:

David Friedman wrote:

That's what I mean; you may know all that, but in the text, all I
saw was someone who didn't react at all to an attempt on her life.

More precisely, someone who does not react in any way sufficiently
dramatic to be observable at that point to the reader.

That's the writer's fault. You, the writer, can show any reaction, from
her thoughts to flinching in inappropriate places. If there is
something, and it's not on the page, then it's not a character trait,
it's a problem in reporting.

There is always lots that isn't on the page--the page isn't big enough.
The question is whether I've reported the right things.

She is shown reacting in a variety of ways to an attempt on her life,
including checking to see if some relevant evidence (the note that lured
her there) is still there (it isn't), starting to try to figure out what
happened and deciding to put that off for the morning since she is
currently exhausted, and instead taking immediate precautions against
another attempt. She doesn't go screaming off to the relevant
authorities, for reasons that I hope get made clear a little later.

There's such a thing as being too clever. If you leave readers thinking
that her reaction is not believable, you've got a problem on your hands.

Yes. One of my general worries in writing is that I am being too
clever--being subtle at the cost of not getting the relevant information
across to many readers.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now
.

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