From Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb (dir. Lizzie Gottlieb, 2022). Robert Caro speaking:
“How do you make the reader feel how desperate a man is, not just read it, but feel it, but see it, and feel it himself, feel this desperation of Lyndon Johnson himself? And right on an index card and Scotch-taped to the lamp in front of me: ‘Is there desperation on this page?’ And I can't tell ya how many days that card stays up there.”In the documentary, there’s a different card taped to the lamp.
[“The only thing that matters is what is on this page.” Click for a larger view.]Also from this movie
Robert Gottlieb on editing
comments: 4
As a sometime-editor (or friendly reader) I’ve argued with creators about this:
The reader will only know what’s on the page.
What did you put there?
As Elaine sometimes says to me, “No one will understand this.” (Too little context or explanation.)
Yes, a writer has to be excellent to get away with “bad” writing.😆
(
(The rest of us have to explain ourselves clearly—or try to.
I’m thinking of Hilary Mantel saying she’d rather baffle than overexplain. Not that I have found her baffling.)
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