Notice how the title of this post is an example in itself. I didn’t say “How to Do ‘Less Is More’ in Fiction”, or anything like that. Yet still, you figured it out. The meaning was conveyed.
Of course, this blog post is nonfiction, which makes it about facts. Fiction is about affect, which makes “less is more” even more crucial.
Why?
But because learning how to “less is more” in fiction allows you precisely to strip any excess preoccupation with facts and focus on conveying this affect.
I have partly talked about this before, mostly in my posts on narrative exposition and over-explaining, so feel free to take a look at those two posts as well. You’d also learn a lot reading about the lessons from my poem shuffler program.
In this post, we’ll instead focus more on, well, how to less is more in fiction. In other words, I’ll show you some practical tips on how to make sure you strategically withhold some truths from your readers.
