The iceberg principle - dont share everything you know
Summary
- The knowledge that is shared in writing should be like the tip of the iceberg.
- The hidden knowledge adds the grace and confidence to the part that is shared
Details
- Similar to the 80/20 rule, or know more than you say, own more than you show, etc.l
References
Quotes
This advice reminds me of other writing advice, this time from Ernest Hemingway:
"I’ve seen the marlin mate and know about that. So I leave that out. I’ve seen a school (or pod) of more than fifty sperm whales in that same stretch of water and once harpooned one nearly sixty feet in length and lost him. So I left that out. All the stories I know from the fishing village I leave out. But the knowledge is what makes the underwater part of the iceberg."
An iceberg? Hemingway explains further in another passage: The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one eighth of it being above water.
Hemingway is saying that what you see in a piece of his writing is the tip of the iceberg. There’s more knowledge going on behind the scenes. He’s not telling you everything he knows, yet that knowledge is adding grace and confidence to his writing. This philosophy Hemingway shares is so beautiful, and rings so true to what I’ve learned as a writer, it deserves its own keyword. I call it the Iceberg Principle.