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In a tight long story, as in The Hobbit dovetailing into The Lord of the Rings, character expo occurs only as-needed. By Return of the King, every reader with normal perception is long familiar wit...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:39:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35677 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
A. S. Templeton
·
2019-12-08T08:39:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
In a tight long story, as in _The Hobbit_ dovetailing into _The Lord of the Rings_, character expo occurs only as-needed. By _Return of the King_, every reader with normal perception is long familiar with a hobbit's baseline appearance. Only distinguishing and changed bits are mentioned, e.g. especially curly hair on the feet, or Merry & Pippin's altered appearance thanks to drinking Ent-draughts. Aside from their being a sign of poor writing, I find rehashed character expo-dumps to be a boring irritant: boring because they are unnecessary, irritating because the writer seems to be expressing not just a lack of confidence in her storytelling but also a low opinion of the reader.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-04-28T15:55:19Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 3