-Ernest Hemingway
This is what I'm trying to make my basic approach to writing. I think it's boring to have somebody else do all the imagination work for me when I'm reading. I just need the writer to be the spotter while I do heavy lifting.
Application koan!
My readers are slightly smarter than I think they are.
If I can't omit something, my story is too long.
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Poaching is Bad
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250 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - ?
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I love Hemingway, and I think he was a master at the principle you stated.
ReplyDeleteHowever, "Hills Like White Elephants" may be the one story in which he leaves out too much. I don't know anyone who "figures it out" without a little bit of help.
And that's not what a story is -- figuring it out, as if it were a puzzle.
Yet, I completely agree -- the best writing leaves just enough out so that the reader has to put it together.
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ReplyDeleteI like "Hills Like White Elephants", in the sense of how it made me feel after I finished reading it. I didn't know what the subtext was, but I knew that there was subtext and could see the glimmers of the conflict. Sometimes that's enough.
ReplyDeleteIt helps that I trusted Mr. Hemingway not to be a jackass writer and be quasi-mysterious and faux-symbolic, so while reading his story that made me good again I eventually teased out a rough image of the subtext. Still not sure What Happens Next though.
Of course, this is the only short story I know that requires a spoiler alert for its subtext.