At 07:38 AM 08/02/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>All the dialogue throws some readers off. A lot of
people have the same
>reaction to K. C. Constantine's books.
Extended passages of description and exposition are what I
think Elmore Leonard means by "the stuff nobody reads" that
he leaves out of his own writing. I think of Leonard chiefly
as a strong stylist, creating scenes
(usually with lots of sharp dialogue) that leave the reader
to determine what characters think by what they say and do.
As for description, I like to get just enough to keep me on
track as I fill in with details of my own. That helps bond me
to the reading experience. It becomes a co-op project between
me and the author. It's the application of that old saw
"show, don't tell."
My feeling is that this is why so many of Leonard's books
translate so readily into film and television scripts, which
of course also depend upon scenes. Leonard's popularity
suggests to me that writing in scenes is one way that the
development of film and television technologies has affected
writing in the last half of the twentieth century.
My point is that I think "show, don't tell" is almost a
characteristic of hard boil, and frequently, if perhaps a
little less so, of noir.
Yet, basic as "show, don't tell" is, my own reading
experience tells me that many publishers and editors (not
all) seem to prefer to tell. It also strikes me that a lot of
novels are fleshed out with "show AND tell": present the
scene then tell the reader what is to be drawn from it.
Filler, in other words, to get to that magic 300 page count.
Assuming these editors and publishers know their markets,
these preferences would be true of readers too.
Am I all screwed up, or just describing two different readers
of books: those who watch telly, and those who don't?
Best Kerry
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