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Saxony Tarn · 09-04-2002, 03:48 PM

well said!

about the only thing i could add, Morquesse, is that TIMING IS EVERYTHING.

by this i mean that, at the end of that description is something you're not expecting. Example of something like this, i have in my fanfic 'a certain Tolkien character' believed dead but actually returning home alive, climbing up the last stair to find the door to his chambers barred. He & his companions remove the bar and i proceed to give a brief overview of the layout of the suite... then hit you at the end of the paragraph with the "minor detail" that all the furnishings have been removed. (Gee, Boromir, they're really happy to see you, aren't they?) This then allows me to have them go search that level for a storeroom, and i can space my description of the furnishings over their extracting them from storage and setting them up (so as not to qualify for an Overkill award) while a certain other Tolkien character gets in a few good lines and yet another waits for his cue to drop in on his way down from a palantir-gazing session and demand to know who's causing all this racket.

In 25 words or less, set up the environment in which we're liable to overlook this little technicality, then hit us with it. Once we've stopped reeling, you can expand on it at your leisure. Of course you don't want to overdo this technique with the wrong audience -- some more fragile readers may get whiplash! Me, i have a large collection of Sapir & Murphy's Destroyer books (the literary equivalent of unfiltered smokes and moonshine) so i'm quite used to it -- and you can probably quess that they're old hands at this trick.

s.t.

09-04-2002, 03:48 PM	#677
Saxony Tarn Wight Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: a western shore Posts: 132	well said! about the only thing i could add, Morquesse, is that TIMING IS EVERYTHING. by this i mean that, at the end of that description is something you're not expecting. Example of something like this, i have in my fanfic 'a certain Tolkien character' believed dead but actually returning home alive, climbing up the last stair to find the door to his chambers barred. He & his companions remove the bar and i proceed to give a brief overview of the layout of the suite... then hit you at the end of the paragraph with the "minor detail" that all the furnishings have been removed. (Gee, Boromir, they're really happy to see you, aren't they?) This then allows me to have them go search that level for a storeroom, and i can space my description of the furnishings over their extracting them from storage and setting them up (so as not to qualify for an Overkill award) while a certain other Tolkien character gets in a few good lines and yet another waits for his cue to drop in on his way down from a palantir-gazing session and demand to know who's causing all this racket. In 25 words or less, set up the environment in which we're liable to overlook this little technicality, then hit us with it. Once we've stopped reeling, you can expand on it at your leisure. Of course you don't want to overdo this technique with the wrong audience -- some more fragile readers may get whiplash! Me, i have a large collection of Sapir & Murphy's Destroyer books (the literary equivalent of unfiltered smokes and moonshine) so i'm quite used to it -- and you can probably quess that they're old hands at this trick. s.t. __________________ <-- who, me? Take the Ring? Betray the Fellowship?? Nah -- couldn't be ME, i'm too cute...