the writer's block |
The blog
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the writer's block |
The blog
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One common pitfall writers continue to get stuck in is exposition quicksand. What is exposition quicksand? Well it can be a number of things. Sometimes it is when a writer tells the reader what happened in summary, glazing over the highlights and then moving onto another ‘part’ of the story, which is also just a summarization of events. Other times its descriptions saturated with adjectives and images that are down right beautiful but honestly, unnecessary. And then there are moments where the writer info dumps about the world and how it works.[1]Whatever the case may be, before we know it we are neck deep in information that our readers probably don’t need in order to understand what is happening in the story.
A little while back I reviewed Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, commending her for her ability to create characters that are exponentially flawed and yet so undeniably likable. Camille Preacher, Flynn’s narrator, is a frustrating character not only because she withholds information from the reader but also because there are countless moments where she makes catastrophically bad decisions. |
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August 2019
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