[stylist] Hemingway quote

[Chris Kuell]

Hey Brad,

I've heard the gist of that quote before, and now it's got me thinking. I'm 
currently winding up a novel about a blind massage therapist caught up in a 
sticky love triangle, and after writing the first 5 chapters in third person 
POV, I started over again and have been writing it in first person. The 
reason for the change was that 1. people generally prefer the stories I've 
written in the first person , and 2. I wanted potential readers to be inside 
the head of a blind guy. It's been interesting, but very challenging to pull 
off an entire novel. I belong to a critique group, and 2 'complaints' I've 
received are that I never describe my main character, or my other characters 
visually, with the exception of one luscious female, but even then it's a 
description of her fabulous body, and the reader, like the character, knows 
nothing about her face, eyes, smile, hair, etc... I know all the books about 
craft tell you that you need to get in a description of your main characters 
early, and I've noticed that most novels do. But, in Hemingway's novel 'For 
Whom the Bell Tolls, the main character has a fling with a former female 
prisoner, I forget her name but it begins with a P (Pia?), and Hemingway 
describes only her short hair and the hat she wore. I've tried the 
remembering-a-photograph technique, but it strikes me as awkward and I cut 
it out.

The second criticism is that people are interested in technology, or how my 
character 'does things. This is where your Hemingway quote came to mind. I 
know how Dan, my character does things, and I've mentioned a few, but I 
haven't gone into detail, which I feel is appropriate. He's got a computer 
with a screen reading program, which I mention in chapter 1 with about that 
much detail, and from then on he just uses his computer. I don't mention how 
he tells time, or pays his bills, although at one point I say a friend 
helped him go through his mail. I say he takes the bus, but I don't say how 
he finds the bus or puts his money in the little thingee. He cooks, but I 
don't describe how he cooks, etc... In part, I think it's more natural--I 
mean, if he wasn't blind and you said he cooked a lasagna, you wouldn't want 
to know how. And in part, I just think it's awkward. Several years ago I 
read a novel with a blind character. The character lived in Baltimore, and 
to the author's credit (it was a sighted writer), she'd obviously done her 
research, and showed it off--too much, in my opinion. She stopped the flow 
of the story every time she had to take half-a-page to describe how the 
blind lady did the mundane things we all do in life.

Anyway, your post made me think of it.

chris