One pet peeve I have in writing is when people try to impose rules on the language that are not actually in the language, and (d1) pretend that they are.
Take, for instance, the meaning of "and".
Sometimes "AND" does mean simultaneity; sometimes it doesn't. And (d1) sometimes an editor or writer's group will hallucinate a pseudo-linguistic rule that has no basis in the language. Please note that those three cases do NOT necessarily happen at the same time. In this case they aren't related by anything but the point I'm trying to make.
Try and (d5) understand the point. (definition 5 means "in order to").
Neither Webster's nor the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) indicate that the word "AND" *always* means simultaneity. The primary meaning (d1) in Webster's Unabridged (1977 Encyclopedic version) is "also". The derivation in Webster's indicates that the original meaning was "thereupon, then, next". And (d1) there are several column inches of different definitions in the OED.
So I'm going to post this post and (d3) get to printing today's stories. That's two things I'm going to do, listed together, and you might think by definition 1 the word "and" indicates that they are linked or grouped in some way. Not necessarily by happening at the same time. Perhaps they are happening in a short sequence. Or perhaps they are related in theme. Or perhaps, as in this case, one is causing the other or enabling the other, which is definition 3. In which case, they could not possibly be simultaneous.
It's as easy as adding two and (d2) two.
Showing posts with label Editorial Fad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorial Fad. Show all posts
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
And then?
There's a whole bunch of people who write professionally who get tied up in rules about words. One editorial fad that an editor friend of mine seems to have fallen into is the idea that "and", used as a conjunction between independent clauses, means that the two clauses must occur simultaneously.
She starts by accepting this arbitrary rule that someone hallucinated, then writes a sentence like:
She then says that sentence is wrong because Joe didn't open and walk at the same time.
Well I'm here to say that "and" doesn't always mean simultaneity. In plain American English, as it is used by humans, "and" can mean sequence just as well as it can mean simultaneous action.
When I say, "I ate dinner and dessert", do I have to mean that every bite of dinner was mixed with a bite of dessert? Not on my planet.
When I say, "I drove to the store and bought a gallon of milk", do I have to mean that the milk was bought during the drive? Obviously not.
Changing that conjunction from "and" to "and then" may be more specific, but it results in an extra word.
Purists, like Uncle Jim over at Absolute Write, say that "and then" is never correct, because at least one word is excess. This comes from the journalism school of writing, where every word must be savagely assassinated if possible because you have to pay for telegrams by the character. Did I mention it's an old rule? Then Uncle Jim unfortunately perpetrates the same "the word 'and' means only what I say it means" line of manure.
I say, all three constructions obviously mean the same thing in English. Use whichever one sounds the best in context of your story.
Final statement: the rule is only necessary where (1) there might be confusion about whether the actions in the sentence happen at the same time, and where (2) that confusion matters to the story or the reader. If those two are both the case, you can save two words by using a punctuations mark: a period.
(Use semicolon only if you are an expert.)
She starts by accepting this arbitrary rule that someone hallucinated, then writes a sentence like:
Joe opened the door and walked out into the hall.
She then says that sentence is wrong because Joe didn't open and walk at the same time.
Well I'm here to say that "and" doesn't always mean simultaneity. In plain American English, as it is used by humans, "and" can mean sequence just as well as it can mean simultaneous action.
When I say, "I ate dinner and dessert", do I have to mean that every bite of dinner was mixed with a bite of dessert? Not on my planet.
When I say, "I drove to the store and bought a gallon of milk", do I have to mean that the milk was bought during the drive? Obviously not.
Changing that conjunction from "and" to "and then" may be more specific, but it results in an extra word.
On the one hand, if you have "then", which is called a "conjunctive adverb" when performing that function, you don't need "and" - "and" is completely optional. (If present the word "and" demotes the word "then" to a plain adverb.) On the other hand, unless the reader has a reason to believe that Joe can walk through closed doors, then the sequence obviously follows from the order of the sentence, and "then" is unneeded.
Purists, like Uncle Jim over at Absolute Write, say that "and then" is never correct, because at least one word is excess. This comes from the journalism school of writing, where every word must be savagely assassinated if possible because you have to pay for telegrams by the character. Did I mention it's an old rule? Then Uncle Jim unfortunately perpetrates the same "the word 'and' means only what I say it means" line of manure.
I say, all three constructions obviously mean the same thing in English. Use whichever one sounds the best in context of your story.
Final statement: the rule is only necessary where (1) there might be confusion about whether the actions in the sentence happen at the same time, and where (2) that confusion matters to the story or the reader. If those two are both the case, you can save two words by using a punctuations mark: a period.
(Use semicolon only if you are an expert.)
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Confidence
So, I've been fighting this left-brain/right-brain battle for a few months, and I've finally gotten back the attitude that writing is more important than method of writing.
Okay, so I'm writing again, and maybe a little blogging as well.
I just found a little item on confidence by Murderati author Toni McGee Causey.
I have to agree that confidence accounts for a lot in writing. Which is one of the reason that the "show not tell" maxim is poisonous to young authors. Honestly, do you think Neil Gaiman has a problem with telling? If he wants to tell, he tells. And he does it with confidence, style, and masterful language.
Hat tip, Janet Reid.
Okay, so I'm writing again, and maybe a little blogging as well.
I just found a little item on confidence by Murderati author Toni McGee Causey.
I have to agree that confidence accounts for a lot in writing. Which is one of the reason that the "show not tell" maxim is poisonous to young authors. Honestly, do you think Neil Gaiman has a problem with telling? If he wants to tell, he tells. And he does it with confidence, style, and masterful language.
Hat tip, Janet Reid.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Professional Authors and Gateway Standards
Randy Ingermanson has some interesting things to say about writers. He divides pre-published writers -- most of us at NTSFW -- into peer groups like a high school: Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors.
Seniors are people who
A) regularly write luminous prose,
B) have developed many contacts in the industry,
C) continually write and send excellent queries and/or book proposals,
D) regularly are requested for sample pages,
E) often get encouraging rejection letters from agents and editors,
and so on.
They are operating on all cylinders as a near-pro writer, but are still unpublished. Seniors are also frustrated beyond belief.
For Juniors, the above adjectives and adverbs become less superlative, and for Sophomores, they become pretty spotty. Let's not talk about Freshmen.
Honestly applying the above standard criteria, I believe that most of us in NTSFW are Sophomores and Juniors. Despite now getting paid for ghost writing, and having a novel under contract, I consider myself a Junior who is concentrating on becoming a Senior.
The standard of work for a Senior to graduate to professionally published author is higher than the standard of work for a professional author to continue publishing. This is a gateway standard, not really a double standard, because you only have to meet it once. It may seem painful when you are on this side of it, but you'll be quite glad for it once you have earned your way through the gate.
* * *
Why does the gateway exist? At least three practical reasons.
First, your first published novel has no time requirement. You literally have no deadline, so you can make it as perfect as your ability allows. Everything you write after that will have deadlines, and will have to be just good enough.
Second, there's the obvious matter of name recognition-- to be a good risk for publication, a novel by a nobody has to be better than a novel by a known person, who a certain number of prior readers will buy on the strength of the prior book. (Actually, psychology shows that on average they will actually *enjoy* the book more when it is by an author that they already enjoy than if the same work were written by an unknown. One of the various psychological "priming" effects.)
Third, closely related to the second-- as you gain a track record, you will have more leverage to keep the "darlings" that you really should have killed, if you had possessed enough sense to take the excellent advice of your agent and editor. Your work will not be improved as much in the editing process. Do you suppose anyone says "no" to Stephen King?
So, there are a number of reasons that professionals might be able to publish a product that a first-time novelist cannot. And all of them make sense, no matter how painful they are to first-timers like us.
* * *
But there's another major factor involved. Perceptual bias on the part of the writer-reader. Writers are the harshest critics, especially those of us who are learning to write, and trying to develop a particular set of workable rules for our own writing.
We are so busy training ourselves to not make certain so-called "mistakes" of writing, that we diminish our enjoyment of alternative forms. In essence, we judge a work by the "mode" that we are attempting to learn to write, rather than evaluating it on its own terms.
Take a painting as a metaphor. Looking at a French Impressionist masterpiece, we could evaluate it as a incompetent piece from the POV of classical photorealism, horrible from the POV of cubism, and/or pedestrian from the POV of surrealism. And it is.
So what?
Honestly, I tried to reread Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn last year, and couldn't get a dozen pages due to the excessive use of misspellings to represent dialect. This is a book I absolutely loved as a boy, and can't bring myself to read now.
Likewise, I only managed to get about halfway through Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell, which won the 2005 Hugo award. There was a plot there, and a fascinating universe, but I kept waiting for the *story* to begin. Because of my training as a writer, I wanted to connect to some particular character, rather than bouncing around the universe observing things occurring to a range of people, from a distance. The novel's style was modeled after a Regency (Jane Austin-type), but with scholarly footnotes that led ever deeper into the lore of Clarke's world. Readers and Hugo voters loved it. Someday, I might untrain myself so I can love it too. But not today.
How does this apply to us as "junior" and "senior" writers?
Remember that the rules we are taught have limited applicability. (Although we may not be aware of the exact limits.) They describe one particular mode of writing.
Remember that the vast majority of all things written and published do *not* belong to that particular mode which is being vaunted.
Remember that awards are won by those who create their own mode, not by those deciding to slavishly adhere to a mode designed by others.
Remember to read widely, especially among acclaimed books, to diversify your repetoir, to stretch your abilities, and to find new things that are fun for you.
Remember to read as a reader first, to experience the effect of a work, THEN go back and read as a writer to find out how that effect was achieved. Don't dissect the dog until you're done playing "fetch".
Pay attention to how all the parts work together. What did the writer gain by violating your standard rules? What did she lose? What other adaptations was she forced to make, and how did they work together?
And above all...
Feel free to abandon a work if you are not enjoying it, even if it IS famous. Life's too short to read bad books.
Seniors are people who
A) regularly write luminous prose,
B) have developed many contacts in the industry,
C) continually write and send excellent queries and/or book proposals,
D) regularly are requested for sample pages,
E) often get encouraging rejection letters from agents and editors,
and so on.
They are operating on all cylinders as a near-pro writer, but are still unpublished. Seniors are also frustrated beyond belief.
For Juniors, the above adjectives and adverbs become less superlative, and for Sophomores, they become pretty spotty. Let's not talk about Freshmen.
Honestly applying the above standard criteria, I believe that most of us in NTSFW are Sophomores and Juniors. Despite now getting paid for ghost writing, and having a novel under contract, I consider myself a Junior who is concentrating on becoming a Senior.
The standard of work for a Senior to graduate to professionally published author is higher than the standard of work for a professional author to continue publishing. This is a gateway standard, not really a double standard, because you only have to meet it once. It may seem painful when you are on this side of it, but you'll be quite glad for it once you have earned your way through the gate.
* * *
Why does the gateway exist? At least three practical reasons.
First, your first published novel has no time requirement. You literally have no deadline, so you can make it as perfect as your ability allows. Everything you write after that will have deadlines, and will have to be just good enough.
Second, there's the obvious matter of name recognition-- to be a good risk for publication, a novel by a nobody has to be better than a novel by a known person, who a certain number of prior readers will buy on the strength of the prior book. (Actually, psychology shows that on average they will actually *enjoy* the book more when it is by an author that they already enjoy than if the same work were written by an unknown. One of the various psychological "priming" effects.)
Third, closely related to the second-- as you gain a track record, you will have more leverage to keep the "darlings" that you really should have killed, if you had possessed enough sense to take the excellent advice of your agent and editor. Your work will not be improved as much in the editing process. Do you suppose anyone says "no" to Stephen King?
So, there are a number of reasons that professionals might be able to publish a product that a first-time novelist cannot. And all of them make sense, no matter how painful they are to first-timers like us.
* * *
But there's another major factor involved. Perceptual bias on the part of the writer-reader. Writers are the harshest critics, especially those of us who are learning to write, and trying to develop a particular set of workable rules for our own writing.
We are so busy training ourselves to not make certain so-called "mistakes" of writing, that we diminish our enjoyment of alternative forms. In essence, we judge a work by the "mode" that we are attempting to learn to write, rather than evaluating it on its own terms.
Take a painting as a metaphor. Looking at a French Impressionist masterpiece, we could evaluate it as a incompetent piece from the POV of classical photorealism, horrible from the POV of cubism, and/or pedestrian from the POV of surrealism. And it is.
So what?
Honestly, I tried to reread Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn last year, and couldn't get a dozen pages due to the excessive use of misspellings to represent dialect. This is a book I absolutely loved as a boy, and can't bring myself to read now.
Likewise, I only managed to get about halfway through Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange and Mr Norell, which won the 2005 Hugo award. There was a plot there, and a fascinating universe, but I kept waiting for the *story* to begin. Because of my training as a writer, I wanted to connect to some particular character, rather than bouncing around the universe observing things occurring to a range of people, from a distance. The novel's style was modeled after a Regency (Jane Austin-type), but with scholarly footnotes that led ever deeper into the lore of Clarke's world. Readers and Hugo voters loved it. Someday, I might untrain myself so I can love it too. But not today.
How does this apply to us as "junior" and "senior" writers?
Remember that the rules we are taught have limited applicability. (Although we may not be aware of the exact limits.) They describe one particular mode of writing.
Remember that the vast majority of all things written and published do *not* belong to that particular mode which is being vaunted.
Remember that awards are won by those who create their own mode, not by those deciding to slavishly adhere to a mode designed by others.
Remember to read widely, especially among acclaimed books, to diversify your repetoir, to stretch your abilities, and to find new things that are fun for you.
Remember to read as a reader first, to experience the effect of a work, THEN go back and read as a writer to find out how that effect was achieved. Don't dissect the dog until you're done playing "fetch".
Pay attention to how all the parts work together. What did the writer gain by violating your standard rules? What did she lose? What other adaptations was she forced to make, and how did they work together?
And above all...
Feel free to abandon a work if you are not enjoying it, even if it IS famous. Life's too short to read bad books.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Passive Voice Education
IN HONOR OF STRUNK AND WHITE:
Many notes are posted around the Internet about the passive voice, half of them about how the passive voice should always be avoided, and the other half about how the first half should be taught exactly what "passive voice" means.
In the 1970's, educators were convinced that they should use a philosophy -- one hesitates to say "methodology" -- called "natural language instruction". These educators congratulated themselves on their sophistication, but many failures occurred as a result of those teaching methods. Students who did not take foreign language instruction were trained improperly, if at all, in the subject of grammar. There followed a corresponding increase in lack of knowledge about the passive voice, and about other grammatical concepts.
Nevertheless, many of the omitted grammatical terms and concepts are admittedly overcomplicated and beyond the needs of typical Americans. As with psychological terms, words having to do with the simpler grammatical concepts are stretched to uses beyond their actual denotations, to cover conditions that may have different technical terms but a similar "flavor". This extension of concepts beyond their defined bounds is found useful by many people.
With this convenient extension, the necessity of learning terms such as "mediopassive" and "stative", which are useless to the majority of people, is avoided.
POP QUIZ - how many of those sentences are technically "Passive voice"? Show your work in the comments!
Many notes are posted around the Internet about the passive voice, half of them about how the passive voice should always be avoided, and the other half about how the first half should be taught exactly what "passive voice" means.
In the 1970's, educators were convinced that they should use a philosophy -- one hesitates to say "methodology" -- called "natural language instruction". These educators congratulated themselves on their sophistication, but many failures occurred as a result of those teaching methods. Students who did not take foreign language instruction were trained improperly, if at all, in the subject of grammar. There followed a corresponding increase in lack of knowledge about the passive voice, and about other grammatical concepts.
Nevertheless, many of the omitted grammatical terms and concepts are admittedly overcomplicated and beyond the needs of typical Americans. As with psychological terms, words having to do with the simpler grammatical concepts are stretched to uses beyond their actual denotations, to cover conditions that may have different technical terms but a similar "flavor". This extension of concepts beyond their defined bounds is found useful by many people.
With this convenient extension, the necessity of learning terms such as "mediopassive" and "stative", which are useless to the majority of people, is avoided.
POP QUIZ - how many of those sentences are technically "Passive voice"? Show your work in the comments!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Stephen King and Unnecessary Words
Debra L Schubert's recently posted (here and here) about Stephen King's On Writing, an interesting book to struggle with, and one from which I have already posted a short excerpt over on White Flow
.
Here's one of the key ideas she pulled out:
This idea is very dangerous if you misunderstand it. Sure, eliminate words that don't do anything. Pay close attention to intensifiers like "very" and "excessively", which often weaken the construction of the sentence they are in. Pay attention to meaningless verbal tics, to avoid... like... extra STUFF... that... like... slows down the STORY.
On the other hand, look at popular authors like George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling -- and, ahem, Stephen King -- and tell me, please tell me, that there are no words that an editor could cut if she wanted to...? Tell me that every single word and paragraph is there in service to the story...?
It just ain't so. Words do not merely impart meaning. They also add to cadence, to flow, to the sound of the sentence in our mental ears, to meter, to flavor. So-called extra words can be useful to calm the pacing during a reaction scene, or to give a sensation of floating to the reader.
WORDS DO THINGS!
Words are exceedingly delicious. Make your sentences tempting, not just "sufficient".
Hat tip Spy Scribbler.
Oh, King also made a dubious differentiation between plot and story. Which, I believe, is a factor in why his novels are so long.
.
Here's one of the key ideas she pulled out:
7) Eliminate ALL unnecessary words. Seriously, all of them. This is different than "Kill your darlings" (which SK did NOT pen, btw). This refers more to the excess words we writers place in sentences because we're so darn smart, lazy and enamored with description.
This idea is very dangerous if you misunderstand it. Sure, eliminate words that don't do anything. Pay close attention to intensifiers like "very" and "excessively", which often weaken the construction of the sentence they are in. Pay attention to meaningless verbal tics, to avoid... like... extra STUFF... that... like... slows down the STORY.
On the other hand, look at popular authors like George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling -- and, ahem, Stephen King -- and tell me, please tell me, that there are no words that an editor could cut if she wanted to...? Tell me that every single word and paragraph is there in service to the story...?
It just ain't so. Words do not merely impart meaning. They also add to cadence, to flow, to the sound of the sentence in our mental ears, to meter, to flavor. So-called extra words can be useful to calm the pacing during a reaction scene, or to give a sensation of floating to the reader.
WORDS DO THINGS!
Words are exceedingly delicious. Make your sentences tempting, not just "sufficient".
Hat tip Spy Scribbler.
Oh, King also made a dubious differentiation between plot and story. Which, I believe, is a factor in why his novels are so long.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Sky Above Me...
Allen Abp148 wrote a post recently about "How much Description is too much?", where he lists three types of writing he finds excessive:
I'm not sure I understand what the problem might be with the above phrases. Presumably, Allen is claiming that the phrase "above me" and "below me" are redundant, since the sky is always above and the ground is always below.
But can't there be value in calling the reader's attention to the fact that, well, "me" is in the picture, in relation to that sky or ground? Why not?
I mean, honestly, is there a rule that you can't remind the reader that the main character or narrator is there, in the picture? I often see sentences like, "Jane could see [or Jane saw] Dave stab the knife into John's pants and draw blood". and I wonder if "Jane could see" or "Jane saw" might better be deleted. Perhaps it's more immediate to say "Dave stabbed the knife into John's pants and drew blood". But isn't something also gained by reminding the reader that it's Jane's story in which Dave and John are fighting?
And, besides that, isn't there a difference in cadence and rhythm if you add "above me" rather than delete it? And isn't much of writing about such choices of the sound of words and lines and sentences and paragraphs, and how the words draw the reader on into your word and your characters?
This all harkens back to the editorial fad of trying to kill every last word and line that is not essential. That might be a good idea if you are sending the story by Western Union teletype... errr... sorry, no such technology anymore... typing it on a cell phone, maybe? Writing a Twitter novel?
But it's not a given for anyone else.
Write whatever works. Make it sound good, make it draw the reader in and lock them into the viewpoint character, (if any). Make them care.
The first is obvious description. Obvious description is the type that leaves people saying “duh” and putting the book down. Things like “The sky above me”, “The ground below me”, don’t laugh, I’ve actually read these in published books.
I'm not sure I understand what the problem might be with the above phrases. Presumably, Allen is claiming that the phrase "above me" and "below me" are redundant, since the sky is always above and the ground is always below.
But can't there be value in calling the reader's attention to the fact that, well, "me" is in the picture, in relation to that sky or ground? Why not?
I mean, honestly, is there a rule that you can't remind the reader that the main character or narrator is there, in the picture? I often see sentences like, "Jane could see [or Jane saw] Dave stab the knife into John's pants and draw blood". and I wonder if "Jane could see" or "Jane saw" might better be deleted. Perhaps it's more immediate to say "Dave stabbed the knife into John's pants and drew blood". But isn't something also gained by reminding the reader that it's Jane's story in which Dave and John are fighting?
And, besides that, isn't there a difference in cadence and rhythm if you add "above me" rather than delete it? And isn't much of writing about such choices of the sound of words and lines and sentences and paragraphs, and how the words draw the reader on into your word and your characters?
This all harkens back to the editorial fad of trying to kill every last word and line that is not essential. That might be a good idea if you are sending the story by Western Union teletype... errr... sorry, no such technology anymore... typing it on a cell phone, maybe? Writing a Twitter novel?
But it's not a given for anyone else.
Write whatever works. Make it sound good, make it draw the reader in and lock them into the viewpoint character, (if any). Make them care.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Maria Snyder on Show and Tell
Lots of authors have written on this particular item, but I really like Maria V Snyder's take on the subject. In particular, she talks about exactly how to show things.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Show and Tell
Lots of people write about "Show vs Tell". It's a good concept to be aware of, but it should be and in the phrase, not vs.
What do I mean?
Well, let's start with being honest. If you write prose, it's all tell. Except for little visual tricks, illustrations, doodles, perhaps visual page layouts when you are describing a sign, or other modifications of form- except for those, everything you are doing is telling.
Everything is telling.
It isn't so in movies, where almost everything should be visual, but in prose, everything is telling. Even when you go so far towards subtle detail as Raymond Chandler's "A line showed on her jaw", you are still just telling about the line on the jaw. Okay, Chandler didn't tell that she was angry, he told a detail that allows the reader to infer two levels - that her jaw muscle was tightening, and that it was anger that made it happen.
But it's all tell.
The question is, what level of detail are you telling? Is the level of detail appropriate to your story and your audience?
Look at the following sentence, and then decide whether it is showing or telling.
Well?
If you've fallen for the "Show vs Tell" fad, you probably said "tell."
Nope.
The correct answer depends upon context. It is impossible to know without seeing the scene and the surrounding phrasing. Look at it in the following paragraph:
In this case, "John loved Marsha" is a detail regarding the current emotional situation in the family. If you buy the "show vs tell" concept, it is a "show" statement.
Really, any sentence or detail can be a "tell" at one level, while it is a "show" at the next higher hierarchical level. The proper question is, what layer of detail is appropriate to the audience and the purpose of the scene?
More later.
What do I mean?
Well, let's start with being honest. If you write prose, it's all tell. Except for little visual tricks, illustrations, doodles, perhaps visual page layouts when you are describing a sign, or other modifications of form- except for those, everything you are doing is telling.
Everything is telling.
It isn't so in movies, where almost everything should be visual, but in prose, everything is telling. Even when you go so far towards subtle detail as Raymond Chandler's "A line showed on her jaw", you are still just telling about the line on the jaw. Okay, Chandler didn't tell that she was angry, he told a detail that allows the reader to infer two levels - that her jaw muscle was tightening, and that it was anger that made it happen.
But it's all tell.
The question is, what level of detail are you telling? Is the level of detail appropriate to your story and your audience?
Look at the following sentence, and then decide whether it is showing or telling.
John loved Marsha.
Well?
If you've fallen for the "Show vs Tell" fad, you probably said "tell."
Nope.
The correct answer depends upon context. It is impossible to know without seeing the scene and the surrounding phrasing. Look at it in the following paragraph:
John loved Marsha. John's brother Abel loved Grace. Marsha loved Abel, but had an obvious liking for Grace as well. And then there was Prudence, who thought her brothers would be better off staying away from the brothel completely.
In this case, "John loved Marsha" is a detail regarding the current emotional situation in the family. If you buy the "show vs tell" concept, it is a "show" statement.
Really, any sentence or detail can be a "tell" at one level, while it is a "show" at the next higher hierarchical level. The proper question is, what layer of detail is appropriate to the audience and the purpose of the scene?
More later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
