Reading Between the Lines

I don’t know about you, but I love it when authors manage to say things without actually saying them.  Subtlety in writing is an artform that fewer and fewer authors seem to grasp, but when I read this recently I had to laugh:

She climbed the stairs to the second level, where cool marble floors gleamed and the scents of wax and the freesias in their Chinese vase on the hall table greeted her in a silent benediction.  There was much to be said for silence.  Perhaps Mama had not yet returned from paying her afternoon calls.

Lady of Devices – Shelley Adina

Take either of those last two sentences on their own and they sound like fairly simple, innocuous observations.  Put them together like this and they say so much more!

Now that’s good writing!