Rant on authorial nitpicking

[limyaael]

Before I start this rant, three caveats

Comments

[kiena_tesedale]

Do you mind if I ask for a spot of advice on number nine? I'm horribly wary of too much exposition, as it used to be my problem when I first started writing, so I'm having issues looking at my current situation objectively

[criada]

Speaking for myself, I can say that when it comes to magic systems, I love to know all the technical nitty gritty. It's a problem my writing suffers from too. I'm obsessed with explaining how everything works, but terrified I'm boring everyone else to death.

[kiena_tesedale]

Thanks for your thoughts! I still don't know exactly how much I'll be adding, but I'll keep in mind that lots of people enjoy reading about the system. I do to, which is part of my problem - I want to share it with other people. :)

[blunder_buss]

If I may, I'd like to give my own opinion too. I think a character should only explain what is relevant. Since character C knows little about the magic, it'd be best for character B to give the fundamental basics. If he prattled off on the great history and symbolism of the magic and heaps of little details, it's too much information too soon. Maybe he could constantly give character C little 'lessons' through the story, moving more indepth.

Basically, this holds true to any two characters where one explains. The information depends on what the other character knows, wants to know, and their personality. One character might love hearing about symbolism, while another would only care about more practical things.

So yeah. Shutting up now. *flee*

[dsgood]

Note that readers and critiquers may take something as story-fact because a character has said it. Which probably means it's a good idea to make sure the reader knows the character is untrustworthy or badly-informed.

Infodumps: sf writers used to have boring characters give them; such a character can be expected to drone on about things everyone knows. This does not work for me.

What can work is when the speaker is saying something very different from what the listener thinks is true. "As you know, Bob, Stalin was a pacifist" told to someone who accepts the consensus view of Soviet history, for example.

"As you know, your father, the King..."

[the_s_guy]

Yup. Otherwise it's too often what Dad always refers to as "As you know, your father, the King," writing. Horribly, horribly bad and obvious infodumping.

*shudder*

[limyaael]

Hence why I included the idea that the author, at least, should know everything once the final draft is done. I don't mind if I can flip back and answer some question that doesn't make sense by the end of the book. I do when I flip back and it appears that the author has just forgotten all about the character's firm, and entirely opposite, statements of A and B. That's when it becomes a mistake.

The idea of going against the consensus view of reality is interesting, but it would work better for science fiction than fantasy, I think, where the reader is often dealing with an entirely new history and doesn't get what's so surprising about King L'i'o having a red crown.

[buymeaclue]

Nor is the character having an epiphany and the author not telling the reader what it is, which I’ve seen mar the ends of several otherwise good stories.

I would argue this one, I think. It cannn work, but it's all in the handling. So what else is new? Some of my very favorite stories do this, or something very much like it, and it works beautifully--because, as the story is written, the author doesn't have to tell me what it is. I get it. I already know, or will very shortly.

My best example is Susan Perabo's (mainstream story) "Explaining Death to the Dog." It's nnnot precisely this, as the epiphany is on the reader's part, not the character's. But the effect is similar to a well-written character epiphany story. I read it. I thought, "Hmm.." I stood up, walked across the room, and then got it like a sledgehammer to the forehead

[limyaael]

It didn't work with the story in question. Six editors, of whom I was one, all read the story and were puzzled by what the revelation at the end was supposed to mean. Given what the author did elsewhere in the story, I really think that she was more interested in showing off. And I'm always in favor of clarity before any big moral message or Deep Meaning. If multiple people, all of whom are reasonably intelligent, don't get it, then the problem is the story's, not the readers'.

[limyaael]

Thank you. ;)

[sleepingfingers]

Wow, this is such a wonderful rant. I can't help but agree with you on every single point, especially on point four. One of the major reasons that I never got past one-fourth of the fantasy novels I borrowed is that I had gotten lost on the very beginning of the novel, when the author dumped on me half a dozen complicate character names and expected me to remember them all. I didn't, of course, so I'd have to glance back every other sentence to re-read just who that character was and just what he had said several dialogue lines before. When that happened, I gave up on the novel altogether.

Thanks for the rant! :)

[limyaael]

You're welcome. Point 4 is a big one for me because almost all the fantasy novels I really like don't overwhelm the reader with names; they pile up only slowly, and the reader has a chance to get used to important new characters before new important ones are introduced. If many minor characters do show up, they're not as important. Even better, the whole plot doesn't depend on remembering who Lord Mentioned-Once-On-Page-Fifty is, which is something I find deeply, deeply annoying.