2/2/13--Hacking Away.

Higher emotions are what separate us from the lower orders of life. Higher emotions...and table manners.
        --Deanna Troi, Star Trek Next Generation Commander.



What separates a hack from a higher order writer? I have a lot of possible answers...

--not belching at the table (sorry--my Grampa Thomas always threatened to get the Emily Post ETIQUETTE book out of the bookcase but I never saw it happen!)

--clarity

--good grammar

--characters that are believable, with quirks that make them interesting and dialogue that sparkles

--the ability to create a suspension of belief for the reader...that is, my alternative to reality is so good that the reader jumps on in with both feet and stops listening to that whining little voice that says, "It's only make-believe."

--the simplest and best answer: does the writing move the reader, eliciting empathy or action or laughter or tears or refreshed spirit or firmed-up resolve?

 I just read the third book of Richard Paul Evans' WALK series...and the author does a great job of delivering his message with simplicity, amidst a plot with enough twists and turns to hold my interest. Am also rereading THE HOBBIT--wow, talk about eliciting empathy, with a plot that lures me onward in a phantasy-land that is oh-so-believable. Tolkien, a definite hero, and the author of 4 of the 10 books I'd pack for my life-long exile on a desert isle! (I know, you'd rather be on the dessert aisle!)

Silly puns (is that a redundancy?) aside...read anything lately that moved you?