It seems like what you’re saying is, “make the writing value-dense.” The goal is to put images in the reader’s head; details sometimes work better, but not always.
Although, now that I have a hand-held device with dictionaries, Wikipedia, Google, & Google Earth, I relish looking up words, places, & references as I am reading!
Mr. Stephenson, you are saving my loquaciously telling ass—again—and more directly than ever. Previously by example you have shown me this way—which I already use by preference, due to being a Dickens reader at an early age—but I am surrounded in my writing circles by the Show, Don’t Tell crowd. They tell me all the time. It’s an irony I use against them, but I’m outnumbered. Armed with this, however—and not just with one of your books, which is harder to use in argument—I am no longer out gunned. Thank you. I SO wish we could have a couple of beers together!
It seems like what you’re saying is, “make the writing value-dense.” The goal is to put images in the reader’s head; details sometimes work better, but not always.
Although, now that I have a hand-held device with dictionaries, Wikipedia, Google, & Google Earth, I relish looking up words, places, & references as I am reading!
Mr. Stephenson, you are saving my loquaciously telling ass—again—and more directly than ever. Previously by example you have shown me this way—which I already use by preference, due to being a Dickens reader at an early age—but I am surrounded in my writing circles by the Show, Don’t Tell crowd. They tell me all the time. It’s an irony I use against them, but I’m outnumbered. Armed with this, however—and not just with one of your books, which is harder to use in argument—I am no longer out gunned. Thank you. I SO wish we could have a couple of beers together!
By your account, Dickinson invites the reader into the language world of the writer. It is a collegiality I did not expect and I like it very much.