Comments on: Subtlety in Writing http://toosigma.com/archive/2005-07-28/subtlety-in-writing-2/ far from normal Mon, 21 May 2012 01:51:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Phil http://toosigma.com/archive/2005-07-28/subtlety-in-writing-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Phil Sat, 30 Jul 2005 20:18:06 +0000 http://toosigma.com/archive/archive/2005-07-28/subtlety-in-writing-2/#comment-2 To answer the question of subtlety one has but to consider the audience that is the aim of the project. If one is writing with intellectual elites as the target audience, then there is probably no such thing as "too subtle". On the other hand, if the audience is somewhat less sophisticated, then the author must consider how the various plot elements will be perceived by the middle of that target audience. Every story and every idea originates from the context of our own intellectual level as writers. From there, we must filter what we are taking for granted based on our own experiences from those who have a more general background. In some cases this is as simple as explaining what certain acronyms mean when they first occur. In all cases, however, we must understand that there are those who know or intuitively understand far more or far less than we do. Given this fact, it is important that we gather feedback from several different sources, of which a majority are in the target audience. If one person found the foreshadowing to be too obvious, but almost everyone else found it to be about right, the writer will know that he/she is probably on the right track. To answer the question of subtlety one has but to consider the audience that is the aim of the project. If one is writing with intellectual elites as the target audience, then there is probably no such thing as “too subtle”. On the other hand, if the audience is somewhat less sophisticated, then the author must consider how the various plot elements will be perceived by the middle of that target audience.

Every story and every idea originates from the context of our own intellectual level as writers. From there, we must filter what we are taking for granted based on our own experiences from those who have a more general background. In some cases this is as simple as explaining what certain acronyms mean when they first occur. In all cases, however, we must understand that there are those who know or intuitively understand far more or far less than we do. Given this fact, it is important that we gather feedback from several different sources, of which a majority are in the target audience. If one person found the foreshadowing to be too obvious, but almost everyone else found it to be about right, the writer will know that he/she is probably on the right track.

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