Voltaire and the Unsaid

This morning, I read a very interesting quote by Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire). He wrote, “The secret to being a bore is to tell everything.”

One can only guess on the ultimate purpose of the quote, but I think that it can be adequately applied to the writing process and what it means to create literature that is titillating and descriptive, but not full of exasperating exposition.

So, what does it mean to be a “bore” in writing fiction? Many people believe that Charles Dickens was/is a bore in his stories because he goes into excruciating detail on the smallest of aspects of the narrative. Some believe that this is because he was paid by the word while others simply thought he was a perfectionist who wanted to cover eight different issues of morality or philosophy in a single paragraph. But, being longwinded or employing the use of exposition is not necessarily preservative of this idea that Voltaire wrote on. It is important to understand the difference of saying a lot and saying a lot of words.

The difference is key. Dickens, though longwinded and very keen on detail, had a lot of content within his novels. Though he said a lot, there was a lot to be said and may ideas and concepts that he wanted to cover within the scope of his novels.

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It should also be noted that the novels by Dickens that we see today were not how they were meant to be read; Dickens released his works in serialized segments within periodicals that were released to the public in chunks. So, when you pick up a Dickens novel, picture it as being 1/10^th the size over the course of several months—this will make it far more digestible.  

But, I digress.

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Voltaire wrote about telling “everything;” or, saying much when saying little would be far more interesting. Just because writers like Dickens wrote a lot doesn’t mean that he said everything that was underlying. As a reader, it is our job to see the unseen; to look past the surface level and determine what is going on below.

So, I could tell one story in two different ways:

“It was rainy and I went to the store. I went to the fruit aisle and picked up some oranges. They seemed to be a little over priced, but my doctor said I needed more vitamin C because of my frequent colds, so I got a few of them and went to the check-out. The cashier was wearing a red vest and chewing gum loudly. She was pretty and her hair smelled a lot like lavender soap, but I was in a hurry.  She smiled at me and then gave me the receipt. I took the receipt and then I went out of the store and rushed back home.

--or—

“On a dreary afternoon, I came across one of the most beautiful women I had ever set eyes on. She smiled at me slightly as we crossed paths, imprinting within me a haunting image of her picturesque smile and lavender-scented hair. “

The first story is basic exposition. It tells you the play-by-play; even going so far as to tell you what you don’t need to or want to know. The second story condenses this and speaks more about the emotions of the situation as well as the meaning of the story—not just to the reader, but to the speaker as well.

To create a good story, the writer doesn’t have to explain every detail to the reader. 21^st century readers are smart—they can make up the blanks on their own. Creating a good story means making the reader feel something. Ironically, readers feel more from omission than they do from all-inclusion. They want to use their imaginations. If they didn’t, they would go to a movie or watch a television show. They come to books to think.

So, what Voltaire means is, “In order to be interesting, keep some things unsaid.”