Mark Shurtleff writes about what Sebastian Palm wrote about
what Thermopyle wrote:

Um.  You didn't get the point.  They could have been in
school.  They could have been outside.  They could have
been on the moon eating green eggs and ham.  There's no
way for the reader to know where they are, what they're
doing, or who all is there.  It's the fictional 
equivalent of putting the reader in a dark room and then
having speakers' faces light up as they announce their
presence by talking.  It's very bad writing.

Considering how much you were harping about unnecessary
filler - do we really need to know anything else than
that Ami got questioned on her findings, and didn't have
any (or whatever)?

Now, this complaint is just silly.

No, it's not.  Much the opposite. 

Just how difficult IS it to figure out that the three
girls in that scene are at school during lunch break?

Not that hard.  On the other hand, if you just wrote out
what happens in the end in point format, I could probably
figure out most of the rest of your story, too.  That
doesn't make it good writing.

What Thermopyle is complaining about is the lack of setting in
the scene: descriptions of who's around, and where they
are, and what they are doing.  That's not "unnecessary
filler," that's exactly what differentiates enjoyable prose
from the script format.  You can leave it out for certain
types of dramatic effect, but none of those seem to be at
play here.  

Taking even so much as a short paragraph to set the stage
does wonders for helping immerse the reader in the world
you're trying to create.

Bjorn

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