Pope in the Pool

I never heard this before, but with the conclave going on, it seems apropos:

I got this term from Elizabeth George’s wonderful writing reference, Write Away.  She talks about creating scenes with an eye towards making interesting action, rather than simply a few “talking heads” getting across information through dialogue.  She uses the acronym “THAD” to describe it – a Talking Head Avoidance Device. 

A similar technique, mentioned in a more irreverent writing reference guide, is Blake Snyder’s wonderful description of the Pope in the Pool trick. He wrote about needing to have the Pope get some information in dialogue, but they didn’t want the scene to be boring – so they set the conversation in the Vatican’s pool as the Pope was swimming.  Which made everyone think whoa, I didn’t even know the Pope had a pool! What could’ve been static and stereotypical suddenly

Yardley, Cathy - Rock Your Revisions

I know that the picture is a pope off, but it's the only one close enough to merit a posting. I found it on DailyEdge. Secondly, it is a terrific way to remember that it's important to spice up the writing to keep the readers interest.