I adore reading long narrative magazine pieces (when they're good, not self-indulgently long) but I'm terrible at that kind of writing. Should I try to learn it, or should I stick with my strengths and stay focused on ideas and analysis?
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Replying to @sonyaellenmann
do you mean the style of like, feature stories in the atlantic/new yorker/etc that always start with something like
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Replying to @alicemazzy @sonyaellenmann
a description of scenery/landscape or a person in a specific place as a means of immediately establishing a setting?
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Replying to @alicemazzy
lol yes, I admit that I am basic but more broadly I mean stories that focus on a character and that character's experience / journey as a lens for a larger issue, rather than going straight to the object level
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Replying to @sonyaellenmann
ha nono not making fun (admittedly I hate most of these things) but
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Replying to @alicemazzy @sonyaellenmann
the secret is if you want to do things like this but don't have the ear yet to weave it all together all you have to do is write two pieces
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Replying to @alicemazzy @sonyaellenmann
write the narrative of the character, write the analysis of the situation, chop both up into sections, alternate between pieces' sections with fancy section breaks
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Replying to @sonyaellenmann
if there's one thing I learned from english program it's aside from legitimate Great Works, anything of any apparent depth or quality can be constructed according to a process
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and once you work out the process you can more or less paint by numbers a brand new thing arranged in a similar form and evoking similar emotions
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