A Treatise on Short-posting
and before you say it, yes, I know there's a 100-word minimum
Sky pigeon-lover


Age: 6 | Height: | Race: OOC Account | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: - Strg: - Dext: - Endr: - Luck: - Int:
Played by: Sky Offline
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Posts: 8 | Total: 131
MP: 50
#1
You probably haven't noticed that I've been nearly-dead for nearly two weeks, or if you did notice, I'm nearly certain you have an ongoing forum thread with me. To you, I'm awfully sorry.

In my bits of wasted time spent neither sleeping nor studying, I've often found myself lying in my nearly-grave, not writing. Instead, I was raining down second-rate memes upon the Discord server the way Oprah showers audiences with kitchen appliance recommendations, or I was thinking about exactly why I couldn't write. Now, I'm sure most of you think posting here is splendid. I agree! I love this world with its odd-duck characters and its saucy god of the sexual revolution, but as much as I adore this site, I don't feel like I ever make headway on a scene when I post. It's like running on a treadmill: first you think, "Oh terrific, a way to run without leaving my gym!" and then you figure out that it's boring when you're not actually going anywhere, which is why you inevitably realize that you should be outside like a normal person instead of in your gym imitating a hamster, you treadmill-loving nincompoop.

Rather than throw up my hands and allow my characters to embrace Mort and asphyxiate from the fumes coming off his sweatshirt — haven't you noticed he never takes it off? I assume divine BO has somewhat toxic properties — I'm going to try something new. From now on, you may take these as signs that I'm giving up on life:
- I'm making the dialogue in my posts a different color so you can pick it out easily
- I'm summarizing what I just wrote in a footnote like I'm creating my own, pitiful Spark Notes version so my would-be readers can do well on the pop quiz
- I'm writing so much narration that you actually started thinking about your groceries halfway though a sentence

You see, if it's not useful to anyone, why on Earth am I writing all this filler? If I want to give my writing a shot at being nearly decent, I need to make sure it can move fast enough to catch the reader, so I'll start by learning to cut empty words like an athlete (or Oprah, in equal measure) cuts empty calories. Short. Sweet. Maximal dialogue. When my characters can't say things, they can think things or do things, and as I sit here contemplating becoming nearly-undead, I know I don't want to narrate Ingrid flipping her hair for the nearly-eight-millionth time because, quite honestly, nobody cares.
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The Best
Incredible Incredulator

Age: 38 | Height: smol | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Halo
Level: 0 - Strg: 108 - Dext: 42 - Endr: 8 - Luck: 4 - Int:
Mowgli - Mythical - Crazy fire-breathing horse
Played by: Odd Offline
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Posts: 1,398 | Total: 16,193
MP: 3059
#2
AGREEEEEEEEE.

You see, if it's not useful to anyone, why on Earth am I writing all this filler?

SO MUCH THIS. I hate 18 years of exposition. #1 I don't have access to your characters' thoughts or any of the memory-backstory that's floating around in their heads. Honey once described writing posts as writing a gift for your partner, and the worst kinds of gifts (for me anyways), are 8 paragraphs that ultimately amount to "so and so is standing in a field doing fuck all". I also HATE bitchy narration, or when arguments just as a preamble. Had so and so voiced those thoughts aloud, I'd have reminded him of.... It's just passive-aggressive. Honestly, I just gloss over all the inner-emotive and monologuing because my character won't know about it.

Thanks to Honey I've really made my writing much more efficient and intentional (when I'm not being lazy). Don't describe the sky to me, the dew on the grass or any of that nonsense. Tell me what's important for the mood you're setting, but be brief about it. Choose your adjectives sparingly (not you Heather, ilu) and leave out all the rest. I don't need a comprehensive and detailed description of where you're standing in the fields. It's the fields, and honestly, the firmness of the soil, an errant bird in the sky, or the feel of the wind probably doesn't matter to me (unless it does for intentional stage-dressing of course).

I used to look at my long posts and feel proud of them, but really, it was just a burden to me to have to dedicate an hour to write ONE THING and my partner to be like "oh look at all of this nothing to reply to".
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