i haven't thought about it as narrator's secrets -- but what is worth reading is precisely my problem. I have a poetic bent that gets carried away, and so what ends up happening is that I leave in a bunch of flowery passages that I just can't bear to cut, but i take a cleaver to most of the rest of the mechanics in the story. ends up feeling disjointed, I think.

Scoresby

It’s like that joke about the violin maker who was asked how he made a violin and answered that he started with a piece of wood and removed everything that wasn’t a violin.

Yea, I know what you mean. I guess the important thing is that what gets put in is worth reading.  Narrators usually have special privileges and secrets and information and I guess its worth asking yourself, what those secrets are and why does your narrator have them.

the_stacker_muse

William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211 (2011)

billytheked

> It’s like that joke about the violin maker who was asked how he made a violin and answered that he started with a piece of wood and removed everything that wasn’t a violin.

(Relevant, from the interview) 

Yea, I know what you mean. I guess the important thing is that what gets put in is worth reading.  Narrators usually have special privileges and secrets and information and I guess its worth asking yourself, what those secrets are and why does your narrator have them.