HI,
quick comments on the comment. ^_^
comments##

--- Larry F <lwf58@earthlink.net> wrote:

Gary Kleppe wrote:

OK, overall, could've been worse, could've been

better. The storytelling  was quite thick with

explanations that tended to

crowd out the drama and  humor. Try to concentrate

more on the story and

characters and keep the  exposition to a minimum.

    I think I have to disagree with Gary on this. 
That "show it,
don't say it" bias on the list is just that: a bias.

##Bias: An inclination or preference,  esp. one that
interferes with impartial judgment. 
IMO this is NOT a matter of bias but rather of
judgement about what constitutes good writing.

 It ignores the
fact that professional writers often use extensive
exposition, and are
as prone as any to skim over scenes rather than
scripting out
everything with character dialog.

###??? I think the point was to AVOID scripting
everything out with dialog.

    As an example of this, I'll point to Robert
Heinlein.  Heinlein,
"the dean of science fiction", would spend pages of
his books
explaining in excruciating detail how some
apparently obvious thing
worked... 

<SNIP>

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Starship
Troopers", are hip deep
in pointless explanations.  It doesn't seem to stop
people from buying
the books, generation after generation... or me from
replacing my
copies as they wear out.

##With all due respect in Heinlein's case it was never
pointless.  There was always a reason for his
exposition. Further, Heinlein was a writer of such
stature that he could sell a grocery list to a
publisher.  IMO the point is not that exposition
should NEVER be used but that it is difficult to use
well. And in this particular story a different
approach might have yielded better results.

    My point in writing this note?

    Everyone has different styles of writing. 
Instead of saying "your
way of writing is wrong", why not say "okay, if you
want to write that
way, how can you write it so that it works better?".
 Explanations
have their place in writing, whether or not any
individual personally
cares for them.

##IMO it is not a matter of whether an individual
personally cares for �explanations'.
Of course explanations have their place. The question
is whether or not the explanations work. Do they help
or hinder the story? Are they seamlessly woven into
the fabric or do they act as a speed bump? IMO the
explanations MUST be woven into the fabric of the
story rather than dropped into the story as a large,
indigestible lump.  
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