iceberg theory
“What makes a world feel ‘fleshed out’ and deep? ”
It’s been many months since I posted here on the blog, and that’s for many reasons. But I won’t go into them… I’ll just put this here for your consideration. Someone on Reddit asked the question above, and here’s the reply I gave.
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This morning I've been reading Fritz Leiber stories. They're not all fantasies— some are sci-fi, some are horror, some are glowing hybrids. But they feel rich for, I think, the same reason that the drawings of a master are so valuable for a fellow artist to look upon.
Who was it who said the majesty of an iceberg comes from the fact that nine-tenths of it is underwater? That sense of power held back is what makes a master artist so mesmerizing, giving depth to what they create. When you look at one of Gustav Klimt's drawings, you know perfectly well that the man understood the construction of the thing he was depicting, fully and absolutely, and was now going beyond that simple ability to depict and instead was thinking on paper. Thinking thoughts wider and brighter than yours, letting you see them, making you grateful you got that chance.
So. On to writing.
If a writer describes something in ways that are simple yet wholly new— or uses well-worn old phrases with a wink and nod that brings them startling freshness— or gives the sense that what s/he has put on the page is in no way the entirety of her imagination on the subject, but only the most immediately necessary fragment from some neatly stored vastness— then we feel the weight. And we love it.
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Since writing this, I’ve found that the originator of “iceberg theory” is said to be Hemingway. And you can see some of Klimt’s drawings in high-def scans here.
