Why “Show, Don’t Tell” Is the Great Lie

[Cole Parker]

Except that's not how this story reads. I think this is the first book I've read of hers, but she shows quite a bit of skill. Her writing doesn't have as transparent a structure as you suggest you don't like.

I think this is basically a truism, and one of the reasons I say there are few hard and fast rules for writers: good writers can overcome problems in structure and characterization and plot that weaker writers will stumble over.

C

[Rutabaga]

That's good, because otherwise it would seem to me like watching a poker game where you could see every player's cards.

R

[Merkin]

Part of each person's own experience of life is in meeting, greeting, and getting to know and understand other people around him, understanding that may be great or small or mistaken, but driven by his ability to extend his individual and limited view of the world.

I suggest that the experience I speak of is replicated when we read fiction written in the first person. Because the first person narrative's point-of-view is so similar to our own we find an easy acceptance of that form for storytelling. On the other hand, multiple first person narrative clashes directly with our own experience as individuals, and is therefore very hard to accept. it especially seems quite unnatural in those cases where, as readers, we have been led by the strength of the narrative to identify strongly with one character whose particular point-of-view we then come to expect.