Comments on: ApolloCon workshop — thoughts on cleverness http://www.patricesarath.com/gordath-wood/apollocon-workshop-thoughts-on-cleverness/ Writing lessons and the writing life Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:44:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Patrice Sarath http://www.patricesarath.com/gordath-wood/apollocon-workshop-thoughts-on-cleverness/comment-page-1/#comment-7814 Patrice Sarath Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:33:02 +0000 http://www.patricesarath.com/gordath-wood/apollocon-workshop-thoughts-on-cleverness/#comment-7814 Yeah, withholding information is rank cheating. The reader has to know what the protagonist knows, either at the same time as the protagonist or even a little bit before. By the way, one of the best bits of creating tension by letting the reader in on crucial information, but not allowing the characters to know it, comes in Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch. It's a wonderful bit of, dare I say it, clever writing, but the cleverness is in the service of the plot. (I won't tell you what the bit is, because if you read the book -- the sequel to the Lies of Locke Lamorra -- you will want to have that same sense of anticipation.) Yeah, withholding information is rank cheating. The reader has to know what the protagonist knows, either at the same time as the protagonist or even a little bit before. By the way, one of the best bits of creating tension by letting the reader in on crucial information, but not allowing the characters to know it, comes in Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch. It’s a wonderful bit of, dare I say it, clever writing, but the cleverness is in the service of the plot.

(I won’t tell you what the bit is, because if you read the book — the sequel to the Lies of Locke Lamorra — you will want to have that same sense of anticipation.)

]]> By: Bethe Ann Bugbee http://www.patricesarath.com/gordath-wood/apollocon-workshop-thoughts-on-cleverness/comment-page-1/#comment-7812 Bethe Ann Bugbee Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:43:13 +0000 http://www.patricesarath.com/gordath-wood/apollocon-workshop-thoughts-on-cleverness/#comment-7812 YES! YES! YES! This so reminds me of a conversation I had with someone just a year ago. We were talking about how he was trying to build tension in the begining chapters of a novel. Instead of letting the conflict and tension all come out of the action it came from the writer withholding information from the reader. This required lots of "clever" (convoluted) storytelling to avoid letting the reading know things that the POV character was saying and doing. I think that one of the main problems with such writing is that it only works for the first read. A really great story will retain the reader's attention through multiple reads. Using a sudden twist or withholding information only really works the first time through. YES! YES! YES! This so reminds me of a conversation I had with someone just a year ago. We were talking about how he was trying to build tension in the begining chapters of a novel. Instead of letting the conflict and tension all come out of the action it came from the writer withholding information from the reader. This required lots of “clever” (convoluted) storytelling to avoid letting the reading know things that the POV character was saying and doing.

I think that one of the main problems with such writing is that it only works for the first read. A really great story will retain the reader’s attention through multiple reads. Using a sudden twist or withholding information only really works the first time through.

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