Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory and How It Changed Sentences Forever
When the grandfather of sentences speaks, you shut up and listen.
Somewhere in the middle of Parisian 1923, Ernest Hemingway found himself in a cafe on the Left Bank writing a story called “Out of Season” and going about his day as normal. Such was life for writers of the Lost Generation.
Little did he know at the time, but that would be the story that changed everything. If not for him, for everyone else. This was the story that truly but the Iceberg Theory on the map. In the essay “The Art of the Short Story”, Hemingway summed up the theory in a way only he could, writing:
“A few things I have found to be true. If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened. If you leave or skip something because you do not know it, the story will be useless.”
“Out of Season” became the story most widely associated with the Iceberg Theory, but honestly you can apply it to 99% of Hemingway’s work.
What is the Iceberg Theory?
The core ethos of the Iceberg Theory is simple: know everything about your characters and story, but write very little. As writers, it is our job to play God when we write, yet in Hemingway’s eyes, we must resist holding our reader’s hands.
Give them just what they need to understand, drop hints as breadcrumbs throughout the piece, but don’t go over the top and spoonfeed them the plot. Always trust their intelligence; anything less is an insult.
At the time, this was revolutionary stuff. The idea of less being more in a literary context was a stark contrast to mainstream thought at the time, which heavily preferred the Romantics approach to literature.
But his idea stuck and took a stranglehold over Modernist letters. Over the next fifty-odd years, hyper-masculine prose dominated the American Canon, with Hemingway right at the forefront of it all.
Evolving the theory through Nick Adams and his river
Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory wasn’t just an experimental technique that he dabbled in and out of throughout his career. No, it was a way of life. And like the writer himself, it grew and evolved with his life and words.
Through his often-used character Nick Adams and the short story “Big Two-Hearted River”, Hemingway offered another masterclass on the Iceberg Theory. Reflecting on the story in “The Art of the Short Story”, Hemingway offered:
“[Big Two-Hearted River] is about a boy coming home from the war. So the war, all mention of the war, anything about the war, is omitted.”
Take a moment and think about how difficult it would be to write a war story without the war. Now imagine if you managed to pull it off. That, that, is why Hemingway is so special, and why his work has stood the test of time and remains widely studied today.
“Hills Like White Elephants” and its missing word
In my opinion, however, “Hills Like White Elephants” is the best example of the Iceberg Theory. And honestly, it just might be the greatest short story ever written..
On a surface level, the story couldn’t get any more boring. A mundane conversation with the sole purpose of passing time as a young couple waits for their train headed to Madrid. That’s it, nothing more. No “action” whatsoever.
Despite Hemingway’s refusal to ever use the word directly, it’s obvious what the story is about. We follow the couple through a conversation that has no end (or at least not one we’re privy to), and are left without answers.
But that’s what makes the story so special. It’s the most beautiful piece on abortion ever written, but it doesn’t say “abortion” even once. It hardly even alludes to it, yet we all understand. He trusts our intelligence and our ability to connect the dots for ourselves; he refuses to hold our hands.
“The test of any story is how very good the stuff that you, not your editors, omit.”
So, next time you’re working on a story, think about the Iceberg Theory. Back your readers to think critically and do the leg work required to “get” your work. Remember, less is more. There’s nothing worse than a story full of overwritten purple prose that talks down to the reader.
