Couldn't have said it better myself - really, I couldn't.

My far better-read brother emailed me this article some time ago, after I posted my first rant about World War I films. I finally read it (I know, shameful). It's a piece by G.K. Chesterton about the sort of stories people were writing about the Great War, and it pretty much said a lot of what I said, but in a more organized fashion. I particularly like this paragraph:

"Lastly, let us remember as a general principle that opinions should be stated as opinions and convictions as convictions. We must not be impatient because these statements are called abstract. Whereas some charming romance about mud and blood and disemboweled horses is in comparison beautifully concrete. We are not savages, to express ourselves only in picture-writing. We are civilised men, acquainted with mathematics and metaphysics, and presumably capable of thinking in terms of thought. Certainly if we ever lose that power, it will be a worse relapse into barbarism than the worst war in the world."

It almost makes me want to take a creative writing class just so I can tell them that when they get all "show don't tell" on me. Not that I don't think there is a place for description - Chesterton was an unparalleled master at describing how things looked, right down to lighting and "camera" angles!