Monday, July 14, 2014

Description by omission

I guess I can  understand now why this author does all her descriptions in place of pronouns rather than as part of the narrative. Check this out:

"This must be important to you," he said, not unkindly.

Um, that's not actually a description. That's like if someone said, "What do you look like?" and I replied, "Well, I don't have black hair, my eyes aren't yellow, and I'm certainly not a narwhal." I'm pretty sure a sketch artist would have a hell of a time figuring out what I look like from that description.

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