This is where I want to start collecting examples of writing that amazes me because I can’t figure out how certain authors who have the same alphabet and dictionary as I have can put plain old letters and words together in a certain order that makes me go “How the heck did they *do* that!?” 1. In “[Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird](https://drive.google.com/file/d/13o7S_o-Pfc9TiGYjeqvRsL9coyBkTdGe/view?usp=share_link)” by Toni Cade Bambara, the “narrator” voice of the story is, in a way, *not the main character.* She characterizes, both directly and indirectly, *other* characters as having wisdom, experience, and emotional depth that seem beyond her own comprehension. This is a technique you can find in lots of stories, where the POV voice is more subdued or neutral or less “interesting” than other characters that the story is in some way “about.” Other examples include Nick vs Jay Gatsby in *The Great Gatsby* and Jack Kerouack vs Neal Cassady in *On the Road.* I wonder about the relationship between this technique and perhaps a writer’s need to subordinate their own ego in service of the story, in order to unleash the open minded curiosity that leads to real connections with *other people.* 2. *Incluing* — This isn’t a specific textual example *per se,* but a nice articulation of an effective technique for imparting information by organically embedding it in the point of view and flow of the text, instead of interrupting yourself to explain it. It lets the reader *experience* the information instead of having to leave the magic of the fictional world to basically listen to a lecture. I stumbled across the word via [this Wayback Machine archive of an old livejournal post](https://web.archive.org/web/20111119145140/http:/papersky.livejournal.com/324603.html) (!?), so hopefully it’s still there. Just in case, here’s one of the examples they were discussing: 1. > “The door dilated” (Heinlein, _Beyond this Horizon_) is incluing. Stopping the story for an infodump about how traffic lights work and how amazing this is (Heinlein, _Job_) is incluing about how the person doing this comes from a world without them. It's just plain more interesting to read about the shadows growing more purple as the red sun sets, and then later have someone out early seeing the blue sun rise, than to start off with the astronomy of binary stars -- even if you do want to get into that, getting into it when the reader already cares about the shadows is better. 2. Later on in the same post, there’s a good suggestion for a question you could ask in one of your [[revision projects]]: 1. > The problem with \[incluing] is when it doesn’t work, whatever it was doesn’t make sense. This is why my primary question to beta readers is “Please tell me if anything doesn’t make sense”.