11 thoughts on “Saturday Stuff”

  1. I read the Escalation/Expectation stuff and thought about Chekhov’s Gun – if Ensign Chekhov has a phaser on the mantle in the first act, somebody’s gotta get stunned before the final commercial. You expect it. I remember reading Manhunting and in the very first scene, thinking “Chekhov’s Skinny Dip” – somebody’s going to get stunned (and he was!)

    1. We were watching a Studio Ghibli film – Pom Poko, and something strange occurred involving testicles. I turned to my son and said “they’re Chekov’s Testicles. I bet they come back in the finale” and so they did. Very odd film.

        1. For those of us (me!) who read Chekhov’s Testicles too quickly and got the impression there were tentacles AND testicles involved! Lol!

  2. Milton was a good boy. I am so sorry. I am going outside and play with our good girls. It goes so fast.

  3. I just read the Escalation / Expectation post also. I’m not a writer, but I am learning so much! Thank you to both you and Bob. (And I love the snarky comments when you both fall off-topic!)

    Also, very sorry to hear about Milton. Virtual hugs. I keep thinking I want another pet, but I don’t know if I can suffer the inevitable loss. My heart goes out to you!

  5. I just tried to leave a comment on HWSWA but it keeps wanting me to sign in and create a password, and I don’t wanna. I just wanted to say thank you both for that discussion – it’s stuff I’m wrestling with right now, trying to make sure my middle doesn’t sag, and trying to reign in the Exposition Fairy. The discussion about keeping it to exposition that the reader needs now may be helpful, and I think I need to go back over things have another look at it, but it’s hard to know where the line is between over-exposing and dropping the breadcrumbs that my characters are going to need.

    1. I go with “Is this something the character would naturally say or think in this situation?” plus “Does the reader want to know this now?” Note: not “need to know” but “want to know.” Readers will swallow a lot to get a piece of info they’ve been curious about. AKA: set it up.

  6. I can’t help it. I am a fan of info dumps. I will happily take a long detour through the Berlin Airlift before getting back to the story. (I have read many many many Victorian novels. You can’t survive a lot of those if you hate info dumps.)

    I am sorry about Milton. It hit me hard because on Tuesday three of my favorites at work came in with severe illnesses and by Thursday two of them were dead. Grieving in unison with you.

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