Hemingway's Iceberg Principle

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." -- From Death in the Afternoon

As you think about your inquiry topic for this week, keep this principle in mind. It's interesting to me that the principle works on at least two distinct levels: 1) as a method of writing fictional prose--of discerning through the drafting and revision process the absolutely vital words, details, information and cutting all the rest as an ultimate act of respect for an intelligent reader; and 2) a critical tool for analyzing and interpreting the stories, which so often offer us a small detail or action as a substitute for a greater whole. For example, think of the ruins that open both "End of Something" and "Big Two-Hearted River"--both subtle, visible reminders of deeper scars within Nick's psychological landscape, his psyche. Once you wrap your head around these concepts, a story like "Big Two-Hearted River" ceases to be a story about nothing and becomes as alive as Nick seems to feel in returning once again to the restorative natural landscape of his youth.