"…Conroy suggests that writers imagine their readers carrying a backpack up a steep mountain. As the reader ascends the mountain - that is, as she proceeds through the story - every piece of information is a rock that the author is instructing the reader to pick up and place in the backpack. Upon reaching the end of the story, this backpack will be bulging with details and events and scenes and characters, and if the reader starts unpacking the bag and finds that she shouldered any unnecessary rocks, the story has failed and the reader no longer trusts the reader."