Booking Through Thursday #2

Posted September 19, 2013 by Lisa Mandina in / 6 Comments

Well, I could have saved my review of The Dream Thieves for today and posted a Waiting on Wednesday yesterday, but I was ready to post my review.  So, here we go for my second time of Booking Through Thursday:


Connected to last week’s—it’s one of the ways writing has changed. Books from a century or two ago spent huge swaths of text describing locations and character traits, but modern writing does all of this in shorthand. You might know a character is short with blond hair and blue eyes, but the author leaves the rest for you to figure out on your own. The writer might tell you the story takes place at a beachside town, but leaves the details to your imagination. Why do you suppose this is? Is it that we have shorter attention spans these days? That, bombarded with video and photos as we are, we don’t NEED every detail of an unknown scene described, because we have a stock of images already in our heads?

Now, since I didn’t participate last week, I’m not sure how to connect it, but I will answer this question. And I’d actually have to say I disagree with this a bit.  And the reason I disagree comes from the book that I just finished, The Dream Thieves.  I feel as if that author, Maggie Stiefvater really does describe in great detail the people, the settings, etc.  So while I think maybe some authors don’t spend as much time on that, I think maybe it has more to do with the specific author’s writing style and technique.

How about you?  What do you think of today’s books?  Do you feel that more of the details are left out because of the reasons listed above?  Or do you feel there are other reasons for it?  Or do you, like me, think it all depends on the author, and maybe even the type of book?
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6 responses to “Booking Through Thursday #2

  1. I think there's definetly a style change today. I was reading some stories from the 30's and they're so full of info, today that would be called an info dump or too much exposition. I think today writers are told to edit harshly and show, don't tell but back then there was a lot of telling. 🙂

    As to which I prefer, I sometimes think the modern style because I'm used to it now, but in those older stories you don't have to guess as much because if they want you to know something, they tell you. 🙂 I guess ir depends on the reader.

    • I know there is a lot of difference today. But my point was that some authors do still have a lot of description. Like you I prefer today's style. It means I can read more!

  2. I, myself is not a fan of too much description. I don't want to get bogged down with verbose account of how a character's eyes sparkle in the dying light of dusk. I'm more of a meat and potatoes kind of girl. Now, if we're talking poetry, however. It's a different matter altogether.

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