The thing about the wildly oversimplified advice about efficiency is is that people don't really consider that everything you put in a book *does something* It's an open question if it does it well, or if there's another way to do it better, sure, but it all does something
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
We all know that there's no such thing as "small talk" really The difference between a close friend and a passing acquaintance is the small talk There may be a handful of important, intimate conversations but those could only happen as a result of hours and hours of small talk
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Everything a writer writes is a little bit of characterization, a little bit of info about what kind of person you're talking to and what kind of world they're drawing you into The overall effect of a book is ultimately shaped by every page you sat through
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
A lot of people who want every writer to be Hemingway don't seem to fully get this Terry Pratchett and David Foster Wallace both used footnotes and digressions for very different purposes but neither Discworld nor Infinite just would be the same if you chopped all that out
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Not just that "the story wouldn't be as fun or as interesting", it literally WOULD NOT BE THE SAME STORY Every digression is a set of brushstrokes in the painting just as much as any of the "major plot points" are
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Indeed, the idea that the "plot points" are the important thing is frequently all messed up and backwards Often the plot is just a damn skeleton, an excuse to talk about the stuff the author wants to talk about, it doesn't actually matter
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Certain zealots -- people with a CinemaSins obsession with "plot holes" -- think of this as a critical flaw in a story Even if the plot doesn't have "holes" they get up your ass about how the plot needs to have a "structure", Hero's Journey shit Don't take them too seriously
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
It's like getting all pissed off at Van Gogh because he, unlike his colleague Emile Bernard, didn't make nice clear outlines around the shapes of stuff he painted "You should be able to tell what a drawing is of if you subtract the color -- his paintings are NOTHING but color"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Nothing about Moby Dick (an example I'm kind of fixated on because it's this byword for "long, boring novel" that I read at a young age and fell in love with) would be improved by making the "plot clearer"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Moby Dick -- like all books -- is actually a story about only one character doing one thing, the story of the author writing the book Melville's OOC digressions about whaling and shit are just as much part of "the story" as the actual shit happening on the Pequod
2 replies 1 retweet 19 likes
Moby Dick is a book about Melville being a weird dude whose life was all distorted and twisted and warped around this part of his life most people find horrifying and disgusting and scary -- his career of murdering beautiful creatures at sea and slicing off their fat to sell
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
The book is a book about a man trying to make a human connection, to get you to understand this strange alien world that made up such a huge part of his life Geeking out at you about all the knots he learned to tie is one tactic The made-up story about Ahab's leg is another
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
But they are all part of the same thing Just like Hal Incandenza's personal life story is only one thread in Infinite Jest, and possibly not even the most important one
1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes - Show replies
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