Random note, it’s amazing how much the iceberg theory has been used to apply to so many unrelated ideas. 🙂

In my experience there are two capacities to share detail, explicit and implicit. The iceberg theory is probably the furthest extreme of implicit detailing that I’ve come across and I can totally be with, that this is on the opposite end.

Something Hemingway did note in regards to the iceberg is that if the writer knows what they are writing and write it truly enough. That what the writer intends will come across implicitly.

It’s the “knows what they are writing" that I think gets lots of writers into trouble. Hemingway didn’t start at full implicit it was developed over time. I would say it’s an advanced tactic that takes some practice to execute well.

All told, in our writing drafts if we put more than we need, then we can always pull details back before the final version and just from the merits of doing that the other components of the story have probably shifted enough that it’s more true than if they weren’t initially included.

Thanks for bringing this idea into the conversation! This is so interesting to consider! 😃