Also known as the "theory of omission," the iceberg principle was proposed by Ernest Hemingway: "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." This principle is about dignity and movement in fiction. Leaving out the obvious makes writing more dignified because it is not bloated with details that make the reader's experience with the story too easy. These omissions help move a story along because the reader is permitted to witness just enough to figure out what is happening.
Read the passage from Death in the Afternoon (1932) on character and ice-bergs.
