Writing Craft
The hard part is not deciding whether a scene should explain itself. It’s deciding how much work the reader ought to do before the scene starts behaving like a scene.
Too much clarity and it turns into a briefing. Too little and the reader is left doing unpaid clerical work, piecing together facts the page has refused to admit. Subtext is useful, but it is not a virtue on its own. Sometimes a line needs to say the thing plainly, because the alternative is merely coyness with better manners.
The real test is whether the moment has pressure. If it does, the information usually finds its own shape.
Too much clarity and it turns into a briefing. Too little and the reader is left doing unpaid clerical work, piecing together facts the page has refused to admit. Subtext is useful, but it is not a virtue on its own. Sometimes a line needs to say the thing plainly, because the alternative is merely coyness with better manners.
The real test is whether the moment has pressure. If it does, the information usually finds its own shape.
Sometimes the scene starts behaving like a scene only after someone wants something badly enough to be rude about it.
A lot of drafts fail because they treat information as the event. It isn’t. The event is the argument, the refusal, the small lie told under pressure. In The Quiet Orbit I keep having to remind myself that Mara can notice every broken record in the station and still need someone to care, or to block her, before the thing actually moves.
A lot of drafts fail because they treat information as the event. It isn’t. The event is the argument, the refusal, the small lie told under pressure. In The Quiet Orbit I keep having to remind myself that Mara can notice every broken record in the station and still need someone to care, or to block her, before the thing actually moves.