I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly why I’ve been so obsessed with The Locked Tomb for the better part of a year by now, and I think I’ve finally been able to draw some useful conclusions. Here’s my analysis of Tamsyn Muir’s writing, and, specifically, how Muir uses information to drive a plot.
For me, and for most fiction writers, one of the most critical elements which drives the plot of a story is the information you choose to give to the reader, and the information you choose to withhold. It is my opinion that no one uses (and arguably misuses) information as beautifully as Muir does. Muir is surgical both in the way she delivers information to the reader, and the way she fails to deliver information to the reader. Most writers aim to feed the readers information about the story, bit by bit, letting the reader finish the picture. Muir uses this idea, but her writing is so lush and so sharp is that the information she gives us is distorted almost beyond recognition, but just coherent enough that the reader can guess at the bigger picture. This method of delivery persists from the inciting incident, basically up until the climax.
By the climax, we, the readers, have recieved just enough information to guess at the direction of the story, but we recieve so little information that we are still scrambling for more. It is at this point where Muir finally reveals one or two critical pieces of information, and when she does, the true stakes of the conflict hit the reader with, as Muir would put it, the inexorable weight of a gravity collapse. The truth is that Muir has been building suspense for an entire novel, but it’s hard for the reader to conceptualise truly how dire the situation for the characters is because we have been left in the dark. We were crawling at a snail’s pace, and so we didn’t sense the danger until we stood before the precipice.
I was going to include specific examples of what I’ve just described, but I changed my mind, and I’ll explain:
If you’ve read The Locked Tomb, you know what I’m talking about (my heart shall never be whole again).
If you haven’t read The Locked Tomb, read it! It is lush, dark, vivacious, and many other adjectives which make it inclear whether I’m describing a book or a person.
Ahem. Anyway. TazMuir, I love your writing, and Alecto the Ninth will be my end, as swift and sure as the hammer to the oxygen-sealant machine of my childhood.
at this point i will take whatever locked tomb content tazmuir wants to give whenever she wants to give it to us. she could be like “sorry guys no alecto news this year :/ it’s looking like a five year projection before release :/ but here’s a chapter written from marta dyas’s perspective at canaan house. here’s a limerick about what would have happened if harrow had never opened the locked tomb. here’s valancy trinit’s personal diary” and i would be absolutely and perfectly content
this sucks so bad i need to [remembers that The Work relies upon my continuance and i may not end my own life through suicide or through carelessness] blow up the saint of duty
