"As you know, Bob --" Kablooie!

During my lecture on "Showing, Not Telling" at the Surrey International Writers' Conference back in October, I was asked when it was okay in fiction to have one character lecture another, and I said: "When the other character is desperate to know what the first one knows." The example I gave is a speech by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry:

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Make all your lectures like that, and your audience won't even notice that it's being lectured to. ;)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site