14 Talking About Narrative: Cognitive Estrangement & Arresting Strangeness Identifying the Fantastic

And in three words heinlein creates an entire science fictional universe because doors do not dilate.

What we have in this paragraph is pretty much straightforward normal description and yet because of word choice erickson is building up tension and suggesting the fantastic without overtly spelling it out.

This is one that because technology has changed it's actually changed the meaning of this metaphor that gibson is using but it has something of the same effect it's less effective now it's less powerful now than it used to be but it still has that element to it.

And again one simple change and yet orwell creates something amazing and something different and something strange and something unsettling and so it's a very powerful technique.

Suddenly from this you get this sense of tolkien forestalling and playing out the tension of holding off on describing the fantastic element but also giving you context to what's going on.

Sanderson immediately is at penis to try to explain to you to minimize the impact of this strangeness and to get you acclimatized to it as quickly as possible and you know this has the effect of making the fantastic reality the baseline reality quickly as quickly as possible.