Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 101
April 5, 2011
Three nice things
1. The winner of my "Fool for Books" giveaway was Aydrea. Thanks to everyone who participated, because your comments increased my library donation!
2. I'm in the middle of a book that I LOVE, and it's so good that I'm a little bit scared the second half won't measure up. Please, book, don't let me down! If the rest of this book is as good as the beginning, I will definitely be blogging about it.
But this reminds me why I usually enjoy the second read of a book more than the first. During the first read, I'm too busy worrying about what's going to happen next. Will the writer fall into predictable cliches? Will she bump off my favorite character? Will she reward the insufferably smug character whom I hate? Will the character I love so far turn out to be an unpardonable jerk? Will I be right about who committed the murder and who is the main character's bio father and what Character B's guilty secret is?
It's exhausting, I tell you.
3. I went to a reading by David Sedaris last night. It always does my heart good to see the size of the venues this guy reads at--ticket-selling venues, no less--and the length of the lines to get books signed. This is a writer who draws concert-size crowds. Okay, he's not your average writer, what with the NY Times List and the appearances on NPR, but STILL. Here's a writer who doesn't pull big crowds because he was a celebrity first. He became a celebrity because of his writing. (And, to be frank, his delivery of that writing.)
I've seen him read three times now, and every time I'm struck by a few things. The first is that, no matter how grueling the tour, he always looks happy to be there, happy to see the audience. He doesn't act tired or put upon. He's a truly welcoming performer. That may be because he tries to have fun with the aspects of a tour that could otherwise be exhausting: for example, he asks people in the signing line if they've heard any good jokes.
Another thing that always strikes me is the fact that he recommends other people's books every time he reads. Last night it was Tobias Wolff's The Barracks Thief.
He also ends every reading with a Q&A, giving the audience a chance to speak.
The common thread here is that he comes to an event with the expectation of entertaining. While preserving a certain professionalism--he acknowledges that even when his essays are autobiographical, he is still a "character" in them rather than his literal, real-life self--he shows up ready to give.
2. I'm in the middle of a book that I LOVE, and it's so good that I'm a little bit scared the second half won't measure up. Please, book, don't let me down! If the rest of this book is as good as the beginning, I will definitely be blogging about it.
But this reminds me why I usually enjoy the second read of a book more than the first. During the first read, I'm too busy worrying about what's going to happen next. Will the writer fall into predictable cliches? Will she bump off my favorite character? Will she reward the insufferably smug character whom I hate? Will the character I love so far turn out to be an unpardonable jerk? Will I be right about who committed the murder and who is the main character's bio father and what Character B's guilty secret is?
It's exhausting, I tell you.
3. I went to a reading by David Sedaris last night. It always does my heart good to see the size of the venues this guy reads at--ticket-selling venues, no less--and the length of the lines to get books signed. This is a writer who draws concert-size crowds. Okay, he's not your average writer, what with the NY Times List and the appearances on NPR, but STILL. Here's a writer who doesn't pull big crowds because he was a celebrity first. He became a celebrity because of his writing. (And, to be frank, his delivery of that writing.)
I've seen him read three times now, and every time I'm struck by a few things. The first is that, no matter how grueling the tour, he always looks happy to be there, happy to see the audience. He doesn't act tired or put upon. He's a truly welcoming performer. That may be because he tries to have fun with the aspects of a tour that could otherwise be exhausting: for example, he asks people in the signing line if they've heard any good jokes.
Another thing that always strikes me is the fact that he recommends other people's books every time he reads. Last night it was Tobias Wolff's The Barracks Thief.
He also ends every reading with a Q&A, giving the audience a chance to speak.
The common thread here is that he comes to an event with the expectation of entertaining. While preserving a certain professionalism--he acknowledges that even when his essays are autobiographical, he is still a "character" in them rather than his literal, real-life self--he shows up ready to give.
April 3, 2011
Distraction
Writers complain about distraction all the time. Now we tie it to the internet (there’s always email to open, tweets to send, social networks to check in on), but I suspect that writers who wrote before there was an internet will tell you about pets, neighbors, the TV, the phone, and bright ideas to suddenly reorganize the sock drawer. The fact is, there are always reasons—good reasons and bad—for us to look away from our manuscripts.
However, when I noticed my own process the other night, I realized that what we call “distraction” is not always a bad thing, and is not always something that fights with our writing. I noticed that after writing an especially powerful scene, or even sentence, I need a moment. A moment to look away, to digest what I’ve just written. A moment to figure out how I am going to follow that punch. And I don’t do that digestion or decision-making at the conscious level; something works in my brain while I am momentarily “distracted” by Twitter, or email, or an impulse to pick up scraps of paper off my floor, or a need to check my calendar to see exactly which day next week is my doctor’s appointment.
I suppose the distraction would be detrimental if it pulled me away from the desk altogether, but usually it’s just a moment, and then I’m back in the story, this time knowing what the next sentence needs to be. It makes me wonder if there’s some neurochemical process at work in my brain that requires those few seconds to operate.
I do have periods of extended concentration where I’m not distracted at all, and I don’t recommend trying to multi-task while writing. But I have noticed this certain brand of “distraction” that actually serves more as a pause, a breath. Sometimes I don’t do anything during those pauses but stare at the wall, but other times I take a momentary break and come right back.
April 2, 2011
Library challenge update
I'll be giving a fuller report later, but here is the status of my challenge as of my original deadline, 3 PM EDT on April 2:
I pledged $1.00 per comment on my LiveJournal and Blogspot blogs, and 50 cents per new Twitter follower, to be divided equally between the Cheltenham and Philadelphia libraries.
LiveJournal: 52 comments = $52.00
Blogspot: 23 comments (25 - 1 comment by me - 1 duplicate) = $23.00
Twitter: 2299 followers - 2270 original followers = 29 new followers = $14.50
I also applied the $1.00 per comment pledge to my participation in the Fool for Books giveaway hop, which continues through midnight tonight. So far, that post has 102 comments, for another $102.
That's $191.50 and counting. I capped my original donation at $100, and I will give at least $100, but I have a feeling I'll be giving more. I'll do a final report after midnight tonight, when the giveaway hop closes, but I'm inclined to make every comment count in one way or another.
Meanwhile, many of the other challenges continue, so if you love libraries, please click through to these blogs and comment there!
Sarah Mullen Gilbert (The Writing Cave)
Janet Fox (Through the Wardrobe)
Margo Rowder (Margoblog)
Angela De Groot
Amy Brecount White
Kimberly Sabatini (Jess Free Falcon)
Jessica Leader
Colleen Rowan Kosinski
Jessica Shea Spotswood
Marine Corps Nomad
Kimberlee Conway Ireton
C. Lee McKenzie (The Write Game)
And THANK YOU!!--especially to those of you who tweeted or blogged about this challenge, who clicked around commenting on all the blogs, and who donated to your own libraries. For the sake of my own sanity and time-management, during these blog challenges I suspend my usual practice of responding to every comment. But I still read every comment, and I appreciate every one. (And so will the libraries!)
I pledged $1.00 per comment on my LiveJournal and Blogspot blogs, and 50 cents per new Twitter follower, to be divided equally between the Cheltenham and Philadelphia libraries.
LiveJournal: 52 comments = $52.00
Blogspot: 23 comments (25 - 1 comment by me - 1 duplicate) = $23.00
Twitter: 2299 followers - 2270 original followers = 29 new followers = $14.50
I also applied the $1.00 per comment pledge to my participation in the Fool for Books giveaway hop, which continues through midnight tonight. So far, that post has 102 comments, for another $102.
That's $191.50 and counting. I capped my original donation at $100, and I will give at least $100, but I have a feeling I'll be giving more. I'll do a final report after midnight tonight, when the giveaway hop closes, but I'm inclined to make every comment count in one way or another.
Meanwhile, many of the other challenges continue, so if you love libraries, please click through to these blogs and comment there!
Sarah Mullen Gilbert (The Writing Cave)
Janet Fox (Through the Wardrobe)
Margo Rowder (Margoblog)
Angela De Groot
Amy Brecount White
Kimberly Sabatini (Jess Free Falcon)
Jessica Leader
Colleen Rowan Kosinski
Jessica Shea Spotswood
Marine Corps Nomad
Kimberlee Conway Ireton
C. Lee McKenzie (The Write Game)
And THANK YOU!!--especially to those of you who tweeted or blogged about this challenge, who clicked around commenting on all the blogs, and who donated to your own libraries. For the sake of my own sanity and time-management, during these blog challenges I suspend my usual practice of responding to every comment. But I still read every comment, and I appreciate every one. (And so will the libraries!)
April 1, 2011
Has technology helped or hurt your writing?
I'm running a giveaway at my
Blogspot blog
. A few notes about that: You can win The Secret Year if you don't already have it, or if you'd like another copy (perhaps to donate or give away); the giveaway links to dozens of other giveaways where you're likely to find a book to your taste; best of all, comments on that post count toward the
library challenge.
So even if you've already commented on the original post, you can squeeze more library money out of me by commenting over there.
Now for some writerly talk ...
The internet is all abuzz about ebooks and how they might change the reading and book-buying experience, but I've been thinking about how technology has already changed my writing process. I started writing at a very young age back in the pre-internet days. Low-price notebooks, lack of access to a typewriter, and the high price of typing paper all combined to make me a longhand writer. And longhand was a pain to edit. The cut-and-paste process was literally that, a mess with tape and scissors. When I got older, I had a typewriter, but typing was a pain too, especially typing a manuscript for submission. Too many mistakes could make a page unsightly enough to throw away. Having a brilliant idea to add a paragraph on page 3 of a 15-page story meant retyping pages 3 through 15, and therefore it had to be a really great paragraph to make one do all that extra work!
Therefore, back then, I did a lot more "pre-writing" thinking before I ever put words on a page.
Now, editing is easy, revising is easy, and printing a perfect manuscript (when you even have to print a physical copy anymore) is done at the touch of a button. I can write my first drafts on a keyboard--something I once thought I'd never do--because I can change them so easily. Cutting and pasting, and undoing those operations, are so easy. Now I do much more of my trial-and-error, early-draft work right on the keyboard.
The temptation with computers is to declare a piece finished too soon. The sentences look so neat and nicely formatted! They look like a finished product--not like the old scissored-together longhand drafts that once signaled my early work. At the same time, I'm more likely to try a revision idea nowadays, even if I'm not sure about it, because it's easier to save the original and perform all sorts of word surgery on the copy than it used to be. Since I don't have to retype umpteen pages just to insert a paragraph on page 3, I'm more likely to insert that paragraph and make the story a bit better.
Do you think technology has helped make your writing better? Or hurt it? Or do you think it's made no difference at all?
Now for some writerly talk ...
The internet is all abuzz about ebooks and how they might change the reading and book-buying experience, but I've been thinking about how technology has already changed my writing process. I started writing at a very young age back in the pre-internet days. Low-price notebooks, lack of access to a typewriter, and the high price of typing paper all combined to make me a longhand writer. And longhand was a pain to edit. The cut-and-paste process was literally that, a mess with tape and scissors. When I got older, I had a typewriter, but typing was a pain too, especially typing a manuscript for submission. Too many mistakes could make a page unsightly enough to throw away. Having a brilliant idea to add a paragraph on page 3 of a 15-page story meant retyping pages 3 through 15, and therefore it had to be a really great paragraph to make one do all that extra work!
Therefore, back then, I did a lot more "pre-writing" thinking before I ever put words on a page.
Now, editing is easy, revising is easy, and printing a perfect manuscript (when you even have to print a physical copy anymore) is done at the touch of a button. I can write my first drafts on a keyboard--something I once thought I'd never do--because I can change them so easily. Cutting and pasting, and undoing those operations, are so easy. Now I do much more of my trial-and-error, early-draft work right on the keyboard.
The temptation with computers is to declare a piece finished too soon. The sentences look so neat and nicely formatted! They look like a finished product--not like the old scissored-together longhand drafts that once signaled my early work. At the same time, I'm more likely to try a revision idea nowadays, even if I'm not sure about it, because it's easier to save the original and perform all sorts of word surgery on the copy than it used to be. Since I don't have to retype umpteen pages just to insert a paragraph on page 3, I'm more likely to insert that paragraph and make the story a bit better.
Do you think technology has helped make your writing better? Or hurt it? Or do you think it's made no difference at all?
March 30, 2011
Patchwork quilt
I've been a-visiting again, exploring the internet beyond the margins of my own blog. Teralyn Pilgrim asked permission to repost a favorite of mine, "An Unusual Take on Conflict," where I discussed what a book about two improv actors taught me about writing.
I was also apparently the first guest blogger ever at Kelly Fineman's Writing and Ruminating, where Kelly asked me to talk about poetry and how it influenced The Secret Year, and how I solved the problem of showing a character's poetry when I don't write much poetry myself.
While you're clicking around, please comment on the participating blogs in the Library-Loving Challenge, where there are now a dozen participating bloggers, and follow the Twitter accounts @Margorowder, @JanetSFox, @MarineCorpsNomd, and @JennRHubbard to increase the donations. You play, we pay! Thank you to everyone who has commented and spread the word and donated.
And finally, a few quotations from May Sarton, to whom I often turn when I need inspiration of the writerly kind. All of these are from Journal of a Solitude:
"One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent."
"We do the best we can and hope for the best, knowing that 'the best,' so far as selling goes, is a matter of chance. The only thing that is not chance is what one asks of oneself and how well or how badly one meets one's own standard."
"... many feel their own suffering is unique. It is comforting to know that we are all in the same boat."
I was also apparently the first guest blogger ever at Kelly Fineman's Writing and Ruminating, where Kelly asked me to talk about poetry and how it influenced The Secret Year, and how I solved the problem of showing a character's poetry when I don't write much poetry myself.
While you're clicking around, please comment on the participating blogs in the Library-Loving Challenge, where there are now a dozen participating bloggers, and follow the Twitter accounts @Margorowder, @JanetSFox, @MarineCorpsNomd, and @JennRHubbard to increase the donations. You play, we pay! Thank you to everyone who has commented and spread the word and donated.
And finally, a few quotations from May Sarton, to whom I often turn when I need inspiration of the writerly kind. All of these are from Journal of a Solitude:
"One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent."
"We do the best we can and hope for the best, knowing that 'the best,' so far as selling goes, is a matter of chance. The only thing that is not chance is what one asks of oneself and how well or how badly one meets one's own standard."
"... many feel their own suffering is unique. It is comforting to know that we are all in the same boat."
March 28, 2011
Leave a comment, help a library
This is a library-loving blog challenge!
In these tough economic times, library budgets are getting slashed just when their communities need them most. For every commenter on this post between now and Saturday, April 2, at 3 PM EDT, I will donate 50 cents to Cheltenham Township Libraries (PA) and 50 cents to the Free Library of Philadelphia, up to an amount of $100 total. (But if you see I've reached the cap, keep commenting, because I might be persuaded to increase my cap. It's been known to happen.)
How easy could it be? You comment, I cough up the money, the libraries get a gift! If you don’t know what to say in your comment, “I love libraries” will do.
My pledge is “per commenter”—so if a single person leaves 50 comments, that still only counts once! But you can do more by spreading the word ... please link to this post, tweet about it, mention it on Facebook, etc. You can raise money for additional local libraries by visiting the blogs of others participating in this blog challenge:
Sarah Mullen Gilbert (The Writing Cave)
Janet Fox (Through the Wardrobe)
Margo Rowder (Margoblog)
Angela De Groot
Amy Brecount White
Kimberly Sabatini (Jess Free Falcon)
Jessica Leader
Colleen Rowan Kosinski
Jessica Shea Spotswood
If you’re inspired to start your own challenge or donate a flat amount to your local library also, please leave the amount of your pledge and the name of your library system in the comments.
There is also a Twitter component to this challenge. For every new follower I get and keep at my Twitter account @JennRHubbard between now and Saturday, April 2, at 3 PM EDT, I will donate an additional 50 cents, up to the above-named cap. (My starting number of followers is 2270.)
Also, watch for a book giveaway later this week; if you want to be considered for it now, just leave your email or some way to contact you in your comment.
Thank you!
In these tough economic times, library budgets are getting slashed just when their communities need them most. For every commenter on this post between now and Saturday, April 2, at 3 PM EDT, I will donate 50 cents to Cheltenham Township Libraries (PA) and 50 cents to the Free Library of Philadelphia, up to an amount of $100 total. (But if you see I've reached the cap, keep commenting, because I might be persuaded to increase my cap. It's been known to happen.)
How easy could it be? You comment, I cough up the money, the libraries get a gift! If you don’t know what to say in your comment, “I love libraries” will do.
My pledge is “per commenter”—so if a single person leaves 50 comments, that still only counts once! But you can do more by spreading the word ... please link to this post, tweet about it, mention it on Facebook, etc. You can raise money for additional local libraries by visiting the blogs of others participating in this blog challenge:
Sarah Mullen Gilbert (The Writing Cave)
Janet Fox (Through the Wardrobe)
Margo Rowder (Margoblog)
Angela De Groot
Amy Brecount White
Kimberly Sabatini (Jess Free Falcon)
Jessica Leader
Colleen Rowan Kosinski
Jessica Shea Spotswood
If you’re inspired to start your own challenge or donate a flat amount to your local library also, please leave the amount of your pledge and the name of your library system in the comments.
There is also a Twitter component to this challenge. For every new follower I get and keep at my Twitter account @JennRHubbard between now and Saturday, April 2, at 3 PM EDT, I will donate an additional 50 cents, up to the above-named cap. (My starting number of followers is 2270.)
Also, watch for a book giveaway later this week; if you want to be considered for it now, just leave your email or some way to contact you in your comment.
Thank you!
March 27, 2011
On book bloggers
I've finally decided to throw in my two cents on this, inspired by discussions on the blogs of The Story Siren and Lindsey Leavitt, among others. Here's what I think about book blogs, i.e., blogs typically devoted to the discussion and review of books, often interspersed with features such as author interviews, guest posts, giveaways, and publishing news:
I think they are a fabulous idea.
What's especially exciting about the YA world is that many of the book blogs are written by teens, i.e., our primary audience. Not that I don't welcome adult readers of YA, too, because I absolutely do. I welcome every reader. I'll be honest: I love people talking about books. I want people talking about books online. (And on the train, and on TV, and on the beach, and in the school halls, and over the office water cooler, and at family dinners.) I'm never going to say we should have less discussion about books.
The fact that people are willing to spend hours of their free time reading books and blogging about them thrills me. Not only that, book bloggers often come to author signings. I've even known bloggers who have organized live book events and fundraisers!
I know that every blogger didn't love my book. Many did, some didn't. I don't even know the exact numbers or names because I don't keep a scorecard. I only read a small number of blog reviews, for two reasons: 1) I need to keep most of my mental energy for writing my next book; and 2) reviews aren't really for me; they're intended to help readers figure out whether a book is for them. I'm happy to join a discussion about my book when invited in, and if someone sends me a compliment, I respond with thanks, but otherwise I keep out of it. To a certain extent, the book belongs to readers now.
Authors do expect--and frankly, deserve--politeness and professionalism from the bloggers who ask for review or giveaway copies, interviews, and the like. Most writers only receive a small number of advance or final copies of our own books; the rest, we buy ourselves, and we can't say yes to every request. For my own part, I've been lucky that those who approach me have been polite and professional, and it's always my goal to be so in return.
There's often discussion about whether book blogs have an impact on sales, and if so, how much. I don't know the answer to this. Because blog content stays up forever, it's difficult to know when someone sees a blog that might influence a sale, and when the reader actually purchases it. Here's a true story from my own life. I read a brief synopsis/recommendation of Neal Shusterman's Unwind online. It sounded intriguing, so I wrote it down in the little book where I keep a running list of books I want to read. The list is long, and I didn't get around to Unwind immediately. In fact, one year later, I was in a bookstore looking for a book they didn't have. But I saw Unwind on the shelf and recognized its title, and bought it that day.
I'm glad people are blogging about books.
I think they are a fabulous idea.
What's especially exciting about the YA world is that many of the book blogs are written by teens, i.e., our primary audience. Not that I don't welcome adult readers of YA, too, because I absolutely do. I welcome every reader. I'll be honest: I love people talking about books. I want people talking about books online. (And on the train, and on TV, and on the beach, and in the school halls, and over the office water cooler, and at family dinners.) I'm never going to say we should have less discussion about books.
The fact that people are willing to spend hours of their free time reading books and blogging about them thrills me. Not only that, book bloggers often come to author signings. I've even known bloggers who have organized live book events and fundraisers!
I know that every blogger didn't love my book. Many did, some didn't. I don't even know the exact numbers or names because I don't keep a scorecard. I only read a small number of blog reviews, for two reasons: 1) I need to keep most of my mental energy for writing my next book; and 2) reviews aren't really for me; they're intended to help readers figure out whether a book is for them. I'm happy to join a discussion about my book when invited in, and if someone sends me a compliment, I respond with thanks, but otherwise I keep out of it. To a certain extent, the book belongs to readers now.
Authors do expect--and frankly, deserve--politeness and professionalism from the bloggers who ask for review or giveaway copies, interviews, and the like. Most writers only receive a small number of advance or final copies of our own books; the rest, we buy ourselves, and we can't say yes to every request. For my own part, I've been lucky that those who approach me have been polite and professional, and it's always my goal to be so in return.
There's often discussion about whether book blogs have an impact on sales, and if so, how much. I don't know the answer to this. Because blog content stays up forever, it's difficult to know when someone sees a blog that might influence a sale, and when the reader actually purchases it. Here's a true story from my own life. I read a brief synopsis/recommendation of Neal Shusterman's Unwind online. It sounded intriguing, so I wrote it down in the little book where I keep a running list of books I want to read. The list is long, and I didn't get around to Unwind immediately. In fact, one year later, I was in a bookstore looking for a book they didn't have. But I saw Unwind on the shelf and recognized its title, and bought it that day.
I'm glad people are blogging about books.
For participants in the bloggers' library challenge
Leave your links in the comments, below. Please link to the specific library-challenge post, rather than to your general blog. My post will go up by Monday night and will include all the links I have by then. Thank you!
March 26, 2011
Simmering
I once posted about a piece by Heather Sellers in which she said writing "takes extraordinary focus, attention, and acres of time."
I've found myself mentally quoting that "acres of time" phrase a lot lately. This is especially true of my writing at the first- and second-draft stages. I need thinking time, digesting time. The stewpot in my brain is working on something; it needs time to simmer.
I would love to be able to bang out a novel in a week, but my brain won't make the necessary connections at that speed. Something happens in the hours I'm not at the writing desk; something changes in me between writing sessions. I can leave my desk with absolutely no idea of where the characters are going next--and 24 hours later, I know. Without question--it's so obvious now!
I need time to follow false leads, backtrack, rewrite.
I write scenes that end up on the cutting-room floor. I need time to second-guess, to scrap scenes and characters and subplots and replace them with something stronger.
I need time to gain access to my characters' deepest secrets, to fight through their defense mechanisms.
I need time to figure things out.
Some people can write quickly. That's wonderful, and enviable. But some of us just have to simmer.
I've found myself mentally quoting that "acres of time" phrase a lot lately. This is especially true of my writing at the first- and second-draft stages. I need thinking time, digesting time. The stewpot in my brain is working on something; it needs time to simmer.
I would love to be able to bang out a novel in a week, but my brain won't make the necessary connections at that speed. Something happens in the hours I'm not at the writing desk; something changes in me between writing sessions. I can leave my desk with absolutely no idea of where the characters are going next--and 24 hours later, I know. Without question--it's so obvious now!
I need time to follow false leads, backtrack, rewrite.
I write scenes that end up on the cutting-room floor. I need time to second-guess, to scrap scenes and characters and subplots and replace them with something stronger.
I need time to gain access to my characters' deepest secrets, to fight through their defense mechanisms.
I need time to figure things out.
Some people can write quickly. That's wonderful, and enviable. But some of us just have to simmer.
March 24, 2011
Making room for the reader
There was lots of good discussion on the LiveJournal comments thread on my post about multiple POVs. A couple of the comments touched on a concept that, for me, extends into other writing issues:
"And I agree that always knowing what a character is thinking and feeling spoils the fun, but I'd posit that it's just as easy to fall into that trap with first person as it is in 3rd." --P Sunshine
"Many beginning writers feel the need to pass on more information than the reader needs, and it slows down the pacing. [As a reader,] I'm all about sorting through the info right along with the main character. I don't like it when I figure things out first, because I get frustrated when I have to sit around waiting for him/her to catch up." --Tabitha Olson
Sometimes we feel compelled to explain everything, tell everything, make sure the reader knows every nugget of backstory and every thought that is going through the character's head. But it's more fun to leave a little mystery, to allow readers put things together themselves. So I suppose my message today is: Leave room for the reader.
Many thanks, as always, for the great comments I get on my blogs. You all really make me think!
"And I agree that always knowing what a character is thinking and feeling spoils the fun, but I'd posit that it's just as easy to fall into that trap with first person as it is in 3rd." --P Sunshine
"Many beginning writers feel the need to pass on more information than the reader needs, and it slows down the pacing. [As a reader,] I'm all about sorting through the info right along with the main character. I don't like it when I figure things out first, because I get frustrated when I have to sit around waiting for him/her to catch up." --Tabitha Olson
Sometimes we feel compelled to explain everything, tell everything, make sure the reader knows every nugget of backstory and every thought that is going through the character's head. But it's more fun to leave a little mystery, to allow readers put things together themselves. So I suppose my message today is: Leave room for the reader.
Many thanks, as always, for the great comments I get on my blogs. You all really make me think!
