This week’s video shows how an annotated volume of George Eliot’s classic Silas Marner sapped the story’s power through over-explanation.
Video Transcription: Because it’s so important that our readers get what we’re trying to say in our stories, it can be tempting for us to explain things point blank at every juncture. Avoiding confusion is vital. However, when we fail to master the art of subtlety, we not only rob our stories of added power and depth, we also frustrate readers with our patronizing attitude. An annotated volume of George Eliot’s classic Silas Marner
offers an interesting example of how over-explaining can weaken even a strong story.This particular version of Eliot’s story of a miser’s redemption at the hands of an orphan girl was edited by a professor who apparently felt his readers wouldn’t be able to grasp the nuances of Eliot’s writing unless he explained them in the footnotes. For example, at certain crucial stages of the plot, the editor takes Eliot’s delicate “showing” of the protagonist’s growth from reclusive miser to loving father and packages it in a single sentence of description that, although it may perfectly explain the author’s intent, kills its power instantaneously.
The goal of every author is to write a story so strong and deep that it doesn’t require any commentary. Some of the most powerful stories in literature are those that offer characters and events with hardly any explanation. Watch out for places in your prose where you effectively show your character’s development or your story world—and then guard yourself against sucking the color right out of these scenes by imprisoning them in careful explanations. Believe in your writing, and allow it to stand on its own.
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Story by K.M. Weiland
Tags: Description , Showing , Telling
This is something I have always struggled with! I have to regularly remind myself to trust the reader and back off on the explanation. But along with trusting the reader, it's also a matter of trusting that your writing will do the job you expect of it. Thanks for this post! I found it very useful :)
Sometimes it's easier (and more mentally reassuring) to explain things in full in the first draft, then go back during the edits with an eye for paring the prose down to the essentials.
In my line of work, I deal with people on a daily basis that not only have to be told that 2+2=4, but have to be shown how to count on their fingers to obtain the answer. So, it's hard for me to break away from that when I write and just trust that the reader is smart enough to know what I'm trying to say. Though possibly, those who read are smarter than those who don't, and at work I may be dealing with non-readers. :D
I tend to vote for the Readers Are Smarter ballot myself. ;)
So damn right.
I hate it when literature professors add their I-am-the-professor-who-knows-everything-and-you-are-stupid notes to classics. And I always skip the 30-page professor-introductions to War and Peace and Brothers Karamazov. Leave the classics alone
Cold As Heaven
Cold As Heaven
I'm always interested in the analytical view of classics, particularly if they provide a historical context. But the editor of this particular book was more condescending than any I've ever read.
Yeaaah, I'm working on this. I like to explain things to my readers, in case they don't "get" something. I don't want them to be lost, after all. LOL
But as an agent during a one-on-one critique told me: Trust The Reader. He/she is smarter than I realize!
Objective readers are really invaluable in helping us know when we've explained too much and when we've explained not enough.
Honestly, I think we're on the same wavelength with our blogs. On Dec 14 I posted a blog titled Sometimes the devil is in too many details.
I gave two specific examples from The Hunger Games and Neverwhere that show how two bestselling authors refused to go into unnecessary descriptions, when they easily could have.
This idea is completely new to me, but it's a lesson I need to learn. Explaining or detailing everything can make writing (and reading) tedious. Stick to the relevant information, and leave the rest to the reader's imagination.
Fiction is one of the best frontiers of imaginative participation. Most readers appreciate having the opportunity to let the story bloom in their own imaginations. The trick is figuring out just the right balance between enough detail and not enough.