"My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening." Emperor Joseph to Mozart in Amadeus (Orion Pictures 1984)
While this particular post is part of the "Lessons Robert Jordan Taught Me" series, my reading of the Wheel of Time has primarily reinforced what I've already learned on my own: sometimes, there is just too much information.
I first started writing The Famous Mrs. Darcy out of sheer boredom. The problem was, I didn't really have a plot in my head, so I decided I would make up for Miss Austen's lack of contemporary detail and historicity. I would make my story about the difficulty Lizzie had adjusting to her new life and Mr. Darcy's unyielding family and fill up my tome with lots of luscious locales, grand palaces and fancy clothes beautifully illustrated in a vivid pallet of words. The end result was a disaster. The atmosphere was so thick, you had to use a machete to hack your way through it.
