Here’s a clever piece of writing advice: when your plot involves your characters carrying out a plan, don’t tell us what the plan is unless it is going to fail. If it’s going to fail, the reader needs to know what it is beforehand in order to understand how it falls apart. If it’s not going to fail, then it’s pointless to explain it to your readers twice. In The Spy who Came in from the Cold, John LeCarre doesn’t tell us about Britain’s […]