When The Writer Is Seen At Work, The Writing Doesn't Work
Gary Provost wrote this in a chapter on subtlety. It's excellent advise. Here's something else he wrote:
Consider first the spell cast by reading. You're alone as you read, yet you hear my voice. You don't know me. I don't know you. But we're both acting as if the other were a real individual composed of flesh and bones. The words that I'm addressing to you aren't being uttered now. They were recorded months ago, perhaps years ago. I might be thousands of miles away. I might be dead.
Gary succumbed to a heart attack on May 10th, 1995.
3 comments:
Great example, shame about his passing.
The author's presence has always felt to me as though it should be like subtitles in French films. After a while I forget I'm reading the dialog.
As a writer I want to disappear into the background, be that disembodied voice, or, if it's first person, put on the mask of the protagonist and be him or her for a bit.
The author's voice should be like a magic trick, leaving the reader wondering how they did it when they couldn't actually see it.
I was talking about this with a friend the other day, about how the moment when someone says something is "good writing", it stops being that (unless of course you are in a workshop or class).
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