Maybe something about curtains? Or fieldstone?
April 13, 2012 5:54 PM Subscribe
Can you find this essay on what writing is like?
Vague memories begin.... now. I am looking for a blog post or essay or article. It was a metaphor for how writing a story (or maybe a book) is like the process of making a doll house (or maybe a gingerbread house? Or a diorama?) The upshot was that you pay attention to all of these careful details, and then set the whole thing on fire, and when your audience looks at it, some of them will think you should have done some things that you tried to do but didn't work out, and you'll quietly hate them; and some people will notice things that you put in, but that you never thought anyone would notice, and you will quietly love them.
It might have been written by Mary Robinette-Kowal? Maybe? Or linked at some point by Making Light, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear?
This is going to drive me insane until I find it.
Vague memories begin.... now. I am looking for a blog post or essay or article. It was a metaphor for how writing a story (or maybe a book) is like the process of making a doll house (or maybe a gingerbread house? Or a diorama?) The upshot was that you pay attention to all of these careful details, and then set the whole thing on fire, and when your audience looks at it, some of them will think you should have done some things that you tried to do but didn't work out, and you'll quietly hate them; and some people will notice things that you put in, but that you never thought anyone would notice, and you will quietly love them.
It might have been written by Mary Robinette-Kowal? Maybe? Or linked at some point by Making Light, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear?
This is going to drive me insane until I find it.
Response by poster: (Belatedly) THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH.
posted by Andrhia at 5:37 PM on April 15, 2012
posted by Andrhia at 5:37 PM on April 15, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:49 PM on April 13, 2012 [3 favorites]