One spring I was hiding our girls' Easter baskets, accompanied by the boyfriend of my 19-year-old. I opened the door of the old playhouse and put her decorated basket smack dab in the middle of the table in the middle of the room. Mark looked at me questioningly.
"Isn't that a little obvious?"
I replied, "I know her. She'll look in the playhouse, but she'll never see it right in front of her face."
And I was right. She looked in the playhouse, under the table, around the table, in every corner, then closed the door and went hunting elsewhere. Too busy looking to actually see.
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At the latest meeting of my writers' group, we had an interesting writing prompt. We each chose playing cards, then had 17 minutes to write a story or piece about anything we chose, but in which we had to mention the suit of the card, the colour of the suit, and the number or face on the card. We could be glaringly blatant or only hint at the components. Then, the group had to guess what our card was, based on the story we read after 17 minutes of writing.
I had the Queen of clubs, so my story included a black lab named Queenie. Later, when I read the story to the rest of the group, most of them got the suit and the colour but couldn't figure out the number/face card. Somehow, the name Queenie went right over their heads. And I thought I'd been so obvious.
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What you see is not what others see. We inhabit parallel worlds of perception, bounded by our interests and experience. What is obvious to some is invisible to others."
-- George Monbiot, British journalist and author --
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It's striking that what might seem obvious to us isn't obvious to others. I suppose that's why we need to know who we want our writing to reach. But that can be tricky too.
I once wrote a story for an American children's magazine in which the students come in from recess and change from their outdoor shoes to their indoor shoes. The question that came back to me was, Why do the children have two pairs of shoes? Is it customary in Canada for students to continually change shoes from outdoor to indoor and vice-versa? I had just assumed this was the protocol in all elementary schools. Apparently not in the US.
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I've discovered, as far as my blog goes, it's easiest for me to write if I have in mind one specific person to whom I'm writing. When I think of writing to that one person, I know how much information is just enough, and where I'm being too obvious. It's so much easier to write to one person. Then, when others become my readers too, it's a bonus.
It's a delicate balance to say what we need to say without getting bogged down in the details ... making it too obvious. Would you agree?
I just finished reading a cozy English mystery in which I knew who the murderer was AND where the body was hidden before I was half done the book. It was so obvious. How disappointing!
Our readers need to know just enough to move the story/article forward and yet not too much to bore them. For myself as a reader, once I feel like I'm getting too many unnecessary details I quit reading.
But that's just me ...
Other people like lots of details ...
Depending on the topic ...
Oh dear, this is getting complicated.
What kinds of tricks or methods do you use to keep your writing balanced between too obvious and just enough information? I'd really like your feedback on this, because the deeper I get into this topic, the more complicated it seems.
Obviously.
~~~
Feature photo by Jill Wellington from Pixabay
Joy writes from lake land Alberta where she lives with The Cowboy, a couple of seniors and a couple of pets. Usually her writing is a bit more coherent, but right now the meds for her sinus infection are making her a little loopy. You might find a better example of her writing at her blog, Scraps of Joy, but maybe not.
