© 2026 Beth Alvarez

In Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway explored a writer’s search for meaning and the nature of life. While the book is a nonfiction piece about bullfighting, the most-quoted bit of wisdom within it is about creating compelling fiction. The Theory of Omission, also known as the Iceberg Theory, became a staple in every fantasy author’s toolbox.

The idea is that if a writer truly understands the world they’ve created, then omitting certain pieces of information will make a richer story. An author’s knowledge about their world should be like an iceberg: 80 percent remains invisible to the reader, but we know it’s there because it supports every visible part of the story. But how do we create such icebergs? Stories don’t simply crack off and fall into the sea the way real icebergs do.

Let’s look at two examples from authors whose names are now synonymous with fantasy.

J.R.R. Tolkien built his iceberg from the bottom up. He made a robust mythological world to support a fictional language, which was his true passion. The story of Frodo and the Ring, the 20 percent of his story iceberg we see, emerged naturally when the foundation that spawned Middle-earth gave rise to a simple question: “What would happen next?” From there, The Lord of the Rings was born.

C.S. Lewis built The Chronicles of Narnia from the top down. Narnia came from a vision of a faun in a snowy wood that Lewis knew would lead to great adventure. But to reach it, he had to create the invisible 80 percent of the iceberg and form a world where his vision could realistically take place.

Which direction should you go to create your story? Both are great choices, but you probably already have your starting point and simply need to identify it.

Characters, dialogue, the events in your story, and the setting are the tip of the iceberg. If this is what you have, you’re building from the top down.

Cultures, values, laws, and magic systems are all parts of the underwater foundation. If your idea revolves around these, then you’re building from the bottom up.

Once you know the direction you need to grow to create a compelling fantasy world, you’ll discover what can be left out, creating the information gaps required to make your story feel truly rich!

“If a writer of prose knows enough of 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 an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

– Ernest Hemingway in Death in the Afternoon, 1932

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Beth Alvarez is a multi-award-winning and Nebula-nominated fantasy author who lives in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and a very mean cat. When not writing, she enjoys drawing, sewing for her collection of Asian ball-jointed dolls, and making her husband spar in the kitchen so she can write better combat scenes. The cabinets will never forgive her. Her latest book, The Cinders and the Crown, is a fairy tale mash-up combining Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.