Lit major. Better than all the writing courses I took. Love his advice on rules- go at it from what's in you. That's the real stuff. I hear that over and over. Makes the most sense.
I like Child's comment at the beginning on "tell, don't show" but I don't know that it's entirely correct. Obviously, the example he gave made sense, but you do want to make the reader "visualize" what you as a writer are seeing in your mind's eye. James Lee Burke does and excellent job of this. You can actually see in your imagination what he is seeing because it is so vividly told. - But again that comes back to Child's comment in that it IS how he is WRITING it that makes is possible to visualize.
Excellent presentation. Very generous of him to offer this level of insight into his processes and approaches. It's refreshing to listen to someone who honestly wants to communicate, has perceptive things to say, and is not just trying to be clever and promote himself.
Exactly. I think Michael Connelly is great at that-- He'll bring up something, and then tell you what the underlying relevancy of that is. This usually has to do with new characters, historical details related to LA, police procedure or forensic techniques. All that is done through telling but all the antecedent events related to that piece of fact is very much being shown to us.
I've never really viewed the show, don't tell thing like that. For me it has always been about the emotions, trying to convey emotion without explicitly telling the reader how the character feels. The example he gave with the mirror just seems like regular telling. I mean what is the big difference between that and just plain describing the character in the end? It's still describing the character. Still uses the same words.
I think he's referring to something known as 'tipping the author's hand', which basically means (if you're unfamiliar with the term) that you break the readers immersion by doing something unrealistic in an otherwise realistic scenario. As he mentioned, that's not something people do. Although, to some extent I disagree with that because on occasion I'll look in the mirror and actually think about things like that-- the bags under my eyes after a long night of restlessness, the illusion of balding in particular lighting, the color of my eyes after being reminded of them by someone else. Things like that.
There are also two types of writer ? First, those who learn , stick to the rules , and are accomplished writers. We may even remember them years later . The other type is like Mr Child . They were genetically designed to be creative writing artistes . Trial & error, relentless in the search for their voice . It took Mr Child ten books to do this. I wish to write about what moves me , and keep doing this until the world sees what I see . I also need to accept that this may never happen, and this is not my primary reason to construct fiction. I would have given up years ago if it was not for Mr Child , and an English teacher back in the 70’s who was hated by the head of department for his absolute unconventionality. Is it possible that they are related ?
