antennapedia

Am now home from work with soul-destroying, painkiller-resisting headache of wanting to lose lunch. Ulch. Serious badness, and I'm going to put a pillow over my eyes in another second. Before my head exploded I wrote this:

This is what it's all about. At least for me as a writer. It's the same point as the John Gardner "describe the barn" exercise.

Describe a barn from the point of view of a man who has just learned that his son has been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, the war, or the death. (The exercise should run to about one typed page.)

Okay. That's not what it's all about; there are other things. But that's a big one.

There are so many ways of writing that page of description. So many correct answers to the problem. And the process of evaluating those answers is so difficult. synecdochic gives one method of approach & evaluation.