# The Reader's Intelligence



## M. LeRenard (Mar 17, 2011)

So I recently finished writing this book I've been working on for... a long time now, and throughout most of it, rather than blatantly throwing important details out there in broad daylight, I instead couch them within other things, like dialogue or simple actions on the part of the person speaking.  So a character might tell a person "Good day" while raising an eyebrow, and the reader is supposed to infer from that that this character isn't so much saying "Good day" as asking how that person's day has been, and that he's assuming it's been not that great.  Just to give an example.  Basically, you have to pay attention to not just the words that are being spoken, but the way they're being shown to be spoken, the response, and the circumstances in which they're being spoken, in order to fully understand what they mean.
Now, I love it when books do that kind of thing to me, because then it turns the book into a much more entertaining mental exercise than just some guy telling me a story about a pirate, or whatever.  It's neat to go through and figure out little details and things, and makes it feels more realistic since real life is full of such insinuations and assumptions and hidden cultural oddities and what have you.  I love TV shows that do this as well, like House or Lie To Me.
But at the same time, I know a lot of people hate it when a story is anything less than 100% direct.  I know one common complaint (which I always hated) I got on Critique Circle was people saying I needed to describe more things in more detail.  You know?  For a sci-fi piece, explain the political setting, the reason the floor is made of metal, why the currency is so worthless, blah blah blah.  But I don't like to do that: I like to describe the atmosphere of a place and have the reader take an educated guess about all those things instead.
Anyway, I guess the point of this is to ask what people prefer when reading; a story that makes you feel dumb when you're reading it, or a story that makes you feel dumb _for_ reading it?  Or put differently, do you like it when authors are more or less blatant?


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## dinosaurdammit (Mar 17, 2011)

Dumb when reading because I often pull out a dictionary to look up words and thus learn in the process.


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## Daisy La Liebre (Mar 17, 2011)

It's what all literature should be like. That's how you immerse the reader in the story, because they're creating the scene in their head rather than just you telling them what's going on.


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## Nylak (Mar 17, 2011)

To me, a story doesn't have to be 100% direct.  Sometimes that's just annoying and wordy anyway.

But I _hate_ when authors of fantasy/sci-fi completely leave important details up to your imagination.  For example, the Pern series frustrated the fuck out of me since the author never went into depth about anything, she just kind of figured you'd figure it out on your own.  And you didn't half the time, or whenever you thought you did you'd just be proven wrong in the next book.  Annoyed the piss out of me.


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## Poetigress (Mar 17, 2011)

Depends on the reader. Some people read for entertaining mental exercise and want complex layers in everything. Some people read for pure entertainment or escape and don't want a story to be a puzzle. And some (maybe most?) are somewhere in between. This is one of those things where you can drive yourself crazy with second-guessing and third-guessing and on down the line. Probably the only thing to do is get a few betas and see how much range you get, but even that would only help so much, as I think it's more an issue of taste than anything.

I know what you mean about the "I want everything explained" type of critique. For some reason, that's the most common thing that comes up in crits for everybody, I think, and maybe it just means you're getting their curiosity up, and they interpret that as "I need to know more about this right now" instead of just "this intrigues me and raises questions in my mind." (I read a blog post recently on "how to translate critiques," and I'm trying to remember if they considered "I want X explained" to be the critter really saying "I'm bored" or "I'm confused" or what, but I don't remember what blog it was, and after several Google searches I can't find it again.) 

Like Nylak said, you don't want important stuff left out so the reader's completely lost. But for the little stuff that fills out a world or fleshes out a character, I think it's like everything else in terms of taste -- you please yourself and figure some will be there with you and some won't.


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## Daisy La Liebre (Mar 17, 2011)

Poetigress, could I get a link to the said blog, please?


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 18, 2011)

Nylak said:


> For example, the Pern series frustrated the fuck out of me since the author never went into depth about anything, she just kind of figured you'd figure it out on your own.  And you didn't half the time, or whenever you thought you did you'd just be proven wrong in the next book.  Annoyed the piss out of me.


Well, I've never read anything from Pern, but I know what you mean.  Now, I'm actually okay with authors leaving out major important details, as long as they somehow get around to it eventually, because that means they've thought about it and have made sure to get everything straight and clear throughout the work as a whole.  But I've also read stories (and it sounds like Pern is this way?) where they leave out important details only because they forgot to put them in there in the first place, and so the reader just ends up getting stranded.  Then the whole story gets confused, and you end up with huge gaping plot holes or something.
I don't think I have this problem, but then again, I might.  When you're working with a complex narrative, it's tough to keep it all straight in your head.



			
				Poetigress said:
			
		

> For some reason, that's the most common thing that comes up in crits for everybody, I think, and maybe it just means you're getting their curiosity up, and they interpret that as "I need to know more about this right now" instead of just "this intrigues me and raises questions in my mind."


Really....
Too bad you can't find that blog.  That would probably be an interesting and useful read.  I've stopped using CC because it's actually gotten to the point where I don't find critiques from random strangers at all useful anymore.  It's like, I know me and I know what I want, and other people are no longer helping me find out how to get it, unless they also happen to know me and know what I want.  You know?  I'd like to think I'm past the whole 'show don't tell' and 'don't repeat the same word so much' kind of stuff, and I've had people lecture me on CC about the difference between 'breathe' and 'breath' when it was clearly just a typo.  So that kind of critique is not useful, since it's telling me nothing at all about, you know... the story I wrote, and how to make it better?
But if I knew the implicit reasons behind certain things, that might help give me a new angle on otherwise worthless critiques, and I could start being able to glean things from them again.


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## AshleyAshes (Mar 18, 2011)

Shouldn't 'Good day' in that form them be 'Good day?'? If I say 'Good day' while meaning to ask someone if their day was good or not, the inflection indicates that it's a question. So I think it should certianly have a question mark and with that question mark (much like the inflection I'd use if I spoke it in that context), would clearly indicate that it's a question and not a well wish.


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## Folgrimeo (Mar 18, 2011)

More blatant for me. I always imagine the characters and settings and dialogue in my head, so they fill up most of the subtleties automatically. In the case that I misread something, I might pretend a clapboard appears for another take, and they usually joke around, or I just run with a humorous misreading (like when Basil threw a pin to Matthias, I imagined the pin stuck to Matthias's fur and he went "ow". For the next five minutes Basil was laughing his butt off. Then I re-read and had the scene go the normal way). So in short, I want it blatant because chances are I'm not 100% focusing on the words in the first place. I won't feel dumb. I usually don't see when a book is being Mr. Exposition or bad writing, I only notice when a book is boring. Also, I don't care for an abundance of detail - once you take a whole page to describe a tree, I'm throwing the novel out the window.

As I've learned from Fire Bringer, I don't care for pretentious moods either. Still haven't made it past the second chapter because everything has to have such importance... and I can't keep straight who is who when everyone's a deer, everyone has weird names, and their personalities aren't distinct enough for easy remembering.


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## Poetigress (Mar 18, 2011)

Jared said:


> Poetigress, could I get a link to the said blog, please?


 
Like I said, I looked for it but couldn't find it again. I wander around so many of them, usually linked from writers I follow on Twitter, that if I don't bookmark something it can be hard to track it down later. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark this one. :/ But I'll definitely post it here if I run across it again.



M. Le Renard said:


> I've stopped using CC because it's actually gotten to the point where I don't find critiques from random strangers at all useful anymore. It's like, I know me and I know what I want, and other people are no longer helping me find out how to get it, unless they also happen to know me and know what I want. You know?



*nods. That's pretty much why I haven't been there in a while. I have heard it said, though, that online crit groups are mainly good so that you can eventually find one or two critters in the group who do get what you're doing, and then can seek them out privately. That's probably why most of the better action on CC for experienced writers tended to be in the private queues. I think you do hit a point where what you really need are a few trusted betas who are familiar with your work, know your goals, and are roughly at the same level you are. The tricky part is how much time and effort it seems to take to build those kinds of relationships. I've also considered trying out Critters or the OWW sometime in the future, because they seem far more geared to professional publication than the public queues on CC, but for now I'm mostly going it alone and seeing what the editors think. I've come to the conclusion that good critique can definitely help, but critique in and of itself isn't necessarily the big cure-all for improving your writing, or the _only_ way to improve, the way it gets touted.


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## quoting_mungo (Mar 18, 2011)

When it comes to questions and exclamations, there's punctuation for that, as Ashley touched on. I'd get really annoyed really fast if an author decided to replace question marks with body language, and even faster if they (more realistic as it may be) noted, say, what part of the sentence the pitch rose in or whatever.

Leaving some things up to the reader's imagination is fine. Leaving things hanging because you want an opening to stick things into the holes later (which is what Anne McCaffrey does with Pern, which together with her attitude of "I don't care about canon; people will buy my books anyway" leads to the series being as much retconning as story) is bad form. If you leave something out, you should know what it is you're leaving out, and why. I may not take the time to explain X detail in this particular story, even if I have a good grasp of it, because I think X isn't really important to the story at large. But if the story _centers_ around X, leaving it up for the reader to figure it out is (usually) not a very good idea.


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## Poetigress (Mar 18, 2011)

I think this is the blog post I mentioned, although apparently I remembered it as being far more in-depth than it actually was. :/ The comments are pretty good, too:

http://nancyfulda.livejournal.com/288940.html

And I found it again via this search engine for writing info, which is awesome:

http://hiveword.com/wkb/search


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 18, 2011)

AshleyAshes said:


> Shouldn't 'Good day' in that form them be 'Good day?'? If I say 'Good day' while meaning to ask someone if their day was good or not, the inflection indicates that it's a question. So I think it should certianly have a question mark and with that question mark (much like the inflection I'd use if I spoke it in that context), would clearly indicate that it's a question and not a well wish.


You don't necessarily need the inflection, I don't think.  Just say "Good day," and then raise your eyebrow.  I guess if you wanted to be more obvious, you could put the question mark on there, which is kind of what this thread is about.
Plus, putting the question mark in there gives it a slightly different meaning, adds a hint of concern, whereas leaving it out makes it more of a "I recognize you're not having a good day, and am giving you the chance to vent to me if you'd like."
It's one of the reasons I like to do things like that: subtlety allows for a wide range of possibilities, allowing for a more sophisticated dialogue.
Obviously you could go overboard, though.



			
				Folgrimeo said:
			
		

> I usually don't see when a book is being Mr. Exposition or bad writing, I only notice when a book is boring.


Of course.  I'm guessing most of the reading populace is like this, which means it's definitely something to take into account if you want a book to sell.



			
				Poetigress said:
			
		

> I've come to the conclusion that good critique can definitely help, but critique in and of itself isn't necessarily the big cure-all for improving your writing, or the only way to improve, the way it gets touted.


I got a lot out of critique early on, and I definitely recommend it for, say, low-intermediate stage authors who are still figuring out the basics, but yeah; because it's a creative medium, at some point listening to critiques just turns into the realization that some people just don't get it, and others just don't like it, and that has nothing to do with how well you've written it.  So I could see how a private critique group would be much more beneficial.


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## Altamont (Mar 18, 2011)

Just to put in my two cents, I think the two defining factors determining the amount of explanation you want in a book is based on two things: Your intent, and your target audience. For the latter, it's really all up to you; are you writing for the kind of audience you know will want things laid out pretty clearly, or do you want to attract people who enjoy ambiguity and interpretation. That latter, though, is what I think is the more interesting. Sometimes explaining things clearly impacts the story itself, entirely separately from the reader, and as the author you need to decide whether or not that's the way you want your story to go. 

Now, I don't know if you all are familiar with Cormac McCarthy's  'The Road', but it's a brilliant novel that features very very little in the way of explicit description or backstory, and leaves almost everything outside of the interaction between The Man and The Boy up to the readers imagination. Thematically, I think this really added to the broken, empty air the story had; it accentuated desolation, and focused on the weight of human interaction in times of desperate survival. 

Personally, I know a lot of people who really didn't like how vague the book was; they wanted to know why the world was destroyed, where the characters came from, etc. And the funny thing is, there is a very similar book of survival in the face of apocalypse written from that very design perspective (supernatural elements notwithstanding), Stephen King's 'The Stand'. 

Looking at McCarthy's slim and devastating novel compared to King's epic tome, it's interesting to see the difference the approach has on the narrative itself. The ambiguities of The Road highlight the contemporary human struggles and the relationships that develop within that tiny bubble of the Man and the Boy, where King's in-depth approach to back-story, exposition, and building the logic of the world places much more emphasis on the impact of the struggle, the epic nature of the quest.

In the end I think the reader's intelligence has little to do with it, because the making ambiguous of details and leaving much up to the reader's interpretation should be a stylistic and thematic choice, something you want to deliberately communicate to the reader. It turns the question from "How much should I tell the reader?" to "Why should I tell this to the reader?"


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## BRN (Mar 18, 2011)

'Baww it's my style'?

Joking aside, I've always preferred writers who credit their readers with an intellect and general education. Iain M. Banks is one who comes to mind; Alastair Reynolds, another. There are times that both spend a page or two describing an individual scene - there are other times when they don't have to describe a thing and the audience can still feel the moment. 

I think the skill as a writer comes in knowing when description is neccessary, where it's warranted, and when it's not needed.
What a reader can infer about a scene without the author's frank explication can be far more valuable if it's left to be inferred. Yet, leaving the audience to their devices can feel like poor writing if it's used at the wrong times.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 18, 2011)

Altamont said:


> It turns the question from "How much should I tell the reader?" to "Why should I tell this to the reader?"


I like this.  I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds right.



			
				SIX said:
			
		

> 'Baww it's my style'?


Uh-huh, yeah.
No really, I think the reason people get so annoyed by that is that it's a legitimate point if you happen to know what you're doing.  But lots of people say it simply because they don't feel like actually learning the craft.  It's that shitty Hippie mentality that everybody is special applied to the arts, making it sound like there's no wrong way to work in the creative enterprises.  Except that, you know... there is.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Mar 19, 2011)

Sometimes there is too much detail. I like knowing things in the book, but let me build my own world. Let me perceive what I want to perceive. Let me dream!


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## BlackDragon007 (Mar 19, 2011)

The reader has no intelligence. Assume that whenever you start writing so your story doesn't get too implied. Also understand that people like to feel smart, so adding in those details that people can figure out will make them be more interested in the story. I'd say 49% Indirect 51% Direct.


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## foozzzball (Mar 20, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> Anyway, I guess the point of this is to ask what people prefer when reading; a story that makes you feel dumb when you're reading it, or a story that makes you feel dumb _for_ reading it?  Or put differently, do you like it when authors are more or less blatant?


 
Ideally, you never write anything that makes someone feel dumb. And being direct can make them feel extremely dumb. What you want to write is something with enough layered meaning everyone can feel like they get it, with the impression that there is always more to finnangle out of this story. But the layered stuff cannot be closed off - if it's closed off, indistinct, unclear, that's just shoddy. 

Writing between the lines is like any other kind of writing - it takes skill to do well. It should be clear, concise, and get its message across. The reader is never 'dumb' for failing to get it, the author's the one who's an idiot for leaving the reader behind.


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## Kadrian (Mar 22, 2011)

I don't think you're going to find an easy answer to this one.  It depends on the type of story you're writing, the audience you're targeting, and the specific tastes of the individual readers.  Even within the book it depends on what you're leaving to the imagination.  Put in too much detail and the reader gets bored and wishes you would just get on with the story.  Put in too little and the reader is left confused, unable follow what is going on.  And that's just the stuff that YOU can control.  You can't control your readers' attitudes.

From the very outset I'm willing to invest more time and attention to a printed book than I am to something I see posted on a forum.  I know that the book has been cleaned up, edited, and judged to be worth the expense of printing by someone in the business who knows what they're doing.  But stuff on the forums....  Sadly, as hard as I try NOT to assume that what I'm about to read on a forum is just more uninspired slush, I find it really hard to give what I'm reading the attention it deserves.  So, if someone like yourself writes something excellent that requires a bit of concentration to fully appreciate there's a fair to middling chance that I'll skim over important details and be left with a strong feeling of WTF??? when I'm done.  A critique from an intelligent reader with such a viewpoint is no better than one from a reader who hasn't the brain cells to comprehend the work if he tried.

Literary fiction is an art.  It's intention is to make people think.  It takes a good literary mind to appreciate it and such minds are in short supply.  That's why literary stuff is confined to small magazines that pay in copies or a quater cent per word if they pay at all.  Commercial fiction is written to entertain.  Everything is made crystal clear so that it doesn't require much thought.  Readers of commercial fiction don't want to think. They want to be taken on a wild ride and for that they'll gladly pay good money.

I had the same issue with "How Cruel the Wolf."  I left it vague at the end because making it clear just didn't feel right, but I tried to leave enough clues so that readers who actually paid attention could figure out what was going on.  Some get it and some don't.  Poetigress's suggestion of creating a private circle of beta readers who know you and your work is probably the best idea.


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## Ariosto (Mar 24, 2011)

The way you describe your writing style reminds me of Flaubert.

Personally, I like it when the reader has to think in order to decipher a book's intent. It creares atmosphere and makes the story much more appealing,since the reader is given both freedom (in the sense its imagination is stimulated and can do just about anything with the setting) and work.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 25, 2011)

Kadrian said:
			
		

> That's why literary stuff is confined to small magazines that pay in copies or a quater cent per word if they pay at all.


That, or The New Yorker.  But that particular kind of literary fiction is terrible anyway, because it makes you think until you realize that it could be interpreted however you like.


			
				Martino Venustiano Rosendo Zorrilla said:
			
		

> The way you describe your writing style reminds me of Flaubert.


I put in about 0.001% the amount of time into word choice as Flaubert does.  I don't think it's even a remote comparison.


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## Ariosto (Mar 26, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> I put in about 0.001% the amount of time into word choice as Flaubert does.  I don't think it's even a remote comparison.


 
I do not know. The "focusing on other details" part reminded me a little of his style (he switches focus many times in "L' education sentimentale", from the characters' state to... the curtains, this meaning they do not really care for others or their situation). Although yes, nobody writes three tales in fifteen years and spends most of that time correcting word by word and sentence by sentence.


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## Nameless Vixen (Apr 4, 2011)

I write in a style that gives the reader a sense of camaraderie with the characters by allowing the reader to develop a relationship with the character. When you first meet a person, you tend to be analytical and the person tends to be very detail-oriented, while later in the relationship, these things are implied. In a way, my style kind of subtly breaks the fourth wall in that the characters expect the reader to understand how they operate by the story's conclusion. Therefore, my story tends to glide gradually from direct to indirect, I guess. Do note this is still experimental and everything, but it seems to be a valid method of doing things.


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## shmoo (Apr 4, 2011)

I suppose it depends on what _you _want to write and what the  reader wants to read.  I think that you should write what you feel like  writing, and if people are are interested in it then they will read it.   I reckon this would work unless you had to aim for a certain group or  type of reader etc.  Write how you feel.  If you feel attached to your  characters then the chances are that your readers will feel that  attachment through your writing.

As for too much detail as opposed to an element of ambiguity - I say do the heck whatever you want.

If you have to structure a book around your readers then (in my opinion)  it won't entirely reflect the way you want the story to pan out.  Let  the readers come to the story as opposed to bringing the story to the  readers.

I recently started writing (it's fun, I'm thinking about publishing  books when I'm older after University and if I have the ability) and I  ended up (so far) writing very "in detail".  I suppose that's because I  enjoy an emotional rollercoaster when I read, and the best way I thought  I could deliver that was through vivid description and a very strong  conveyed sense of the main character.

Ultimately, I think it all comes down to you, the writer.  If you want  to be detailed, be detailed.  If you want to be vague, be vague.  If you  want to do anything inbetween, then do so.  As long as you yourself are  invested (mentally and through effort) in your story then it should  come naturally.  It all comes down to the author's own tastes and  preferences, I suppose.  I mean, if you decided to spend a whole lot of  time and sheer effort into producing a book, then (for the good of the  book as opposed to the good of your wallet) you'd want to write it the  way you want to, right?

The reader's intelligence may be important, but the writer's an idiot if he/she constructs an entire fictional universe whilst being cautious and wary of the readers intellect.  The reader's intellect shouldn't be something to worry about (assuming it's the quality of the actual book that truly matters as opposed to it's popularity or criticism that it receives).

This is all just my opinion, though, so please don't take it the wrong  way.  I've only written a little and I'm young (16 years old), but I've  read enough fiction and whatnot that (I believe) I know what I look for  in a story.  I don't think there could be anything more torturous than  changing the way you write, restricting your own freedom, in order to  satisfy a target group of readers.

(Sorry, but I have to do this, despite how cheesy it sounds xD):
_Be true to your writing and your writing will be true to you <3_

Sorry for the wall of text :[


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