The funny thing (to me) is that I was talking about the exact opposite type of writing to Tolkien's-- like, JKR's is really quite different 'cause the writing style itself isn't big on long paragraphs of rambling prose description. She's more with the dialogue and action, but the effect is similar, though one is overly complex to the point of being didactic & the other overly simplistic, also to the point of being didactic. It's odd how overdoing things in either direction sort of achieves comparable effects in some readers, anyway.
I was just reading the last book in Alison Croggon's fantasy series, and it has something of Tolkien's weakness in terms of visual description-- though what bothered me more was over-defining other things, more intangible and value-oriented things like people's personalities and overall moral/social issues ingrained in the story. I think visual description taken by itself is just 'heavy' (drags you down) rather than intrusive in the same way telling you what to think and forcing you to know extraneous things about characters or their behavior is intrusive. In other words, some things are more painfully clunky and even pointless, whereas too much physical description is just... overbearing. I dunno if that makes sense :>
I think that while anti-fanfic sentiments may sometimes figure into it, people are plenty obsessed with info-dumping and are anal about all the details being 'clear' even without that. I think of it as native to the writer, something they naturally do, basically.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-03-07 03:43 am (UTC)I was just reading the last book in Alison Croggon's fantasy series, and it has something of Tolkien's weakness in terms of visual description-- though what bothered me more was over-defining other things, more intangible and value-oriented things like people's personalities and overall moral/social issues ingrained in the story. I think visual description taken by itself is just 'heavy' (drags you down) rather than intrusive in the same way telling you what to think and forcing you to know extraneous things about characters or their behavior is intrusive. In other words, some things are more painfully clunky and even pointless, whereas too much physical description is just... overbearing. I dunno if that makes sense :>
I think that while anti-fanfic sentiments may sometimes figure into it, people are plenty obsessed with info-dumping and are anal about all the details being 'clear' even without that. I think of it as native to the writer, something they naturally do, basically.