Does zooming in help us zoom out?
jonathanjames851481.substack.com
Does zooming in help us zoom out?
Little visual anecdotes (often in the form of personal stories) are powerful ways to visually connect meaning to the main idea. For example, compare, “I was crying in the car,” with “As soon as we got onto 295 South I started crying.” The second one isn’t just more vivid, it hooks the visual into the theme of the essay (which is about moving across
... See more“If I told someone to be more vulnerable in an essay or book, what I would mean is that not everything the reader needs is making it onto the page,” I wrote to her. “You want people to understand and relate to your story, not just intellectually but viscerally—but there are certain tools and information you have to give them to do that.
Jess Zimmerman • A Cow with a Hole in It
Avoid vagueness in descriptors and exposition by using specific, concrete language. If the vision is vague to us, it will be vague to our readers. A storyteller may say that her protagonist “experienced an unpleasant feeling.”