- Juliette Wade on How much description?
My general rule for description (of people or places) is that you need to stick with the rule of relevance: if it’s relevant, describe. If it isn’t, don’t. It sounds simple, but evaluating the degree of relevance in any location is where the tricky part starts. There are three big kinds of criteria I generally use to assess this: point of view criteria, plot criteria, and story criteria.
I get a lot of stories for Kaleidotrope where I learn more about a character’s hair and eye color than a do about who they are or why they’re doing something. Most of the time, if it’s just window dressing, you can drop it. Writing isn’t a visual medium. You have the reader’s imagination to help you, and moreover will often have a less satisfying story if you don’t let it. [via]
- I really like Warren Ellis’ challenge to artists to redesign Superman…as if the artists had never heard of Superman. Some of the results are really interesting.
- Along a slightly similar route, the Hypothetical Library: “imaginary book covers designed for actual authors.” [via]
- And along a very slightly similar route, John Seavey imagines a universe in which only the first Star Wars movie is canonical.
- And finally, I just like this quote from Jonathan Carroll, so I’m posting it.