Don't Run into the Woods • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#41

Post by ncr100 » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

asylteltine wrote: post #11

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #2

there’s something about this writing style that really annoys me and detracts from the message. if you’re going to ignore the rules the payoff needs to be worth it otherwise you’re just being… self-indulgent?

I agree I hate this style and the bold words make it slower to read. If you hold so much, then everything else is just fluff so get rid of it.

That reduction in process is ineffective when participating in introspection.

This is a blog about marrying creativity and technicality, guiding writers who are creating story content for video games.

In this case the author appears to be attempting to help encourage the reader to be introspective and uncover their own feelings as their play testing in progress video games, as part of the development of story content, in order to facilitate expressing human emotions.

Human emotions are notoriously tricky to express. People can go their whole lives without developing emotional intelligence. I would imagine that effective storytelling about people involves a certain amount of emotional intelligence. This article to me is instruction on training one's own emotional intelligence.

What do you think about that?

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#42

Post by Notatheist » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

rileymat2 wrote: post #24

Perz1val wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often read texts (blogs, articles, long comments, etc) out of order, skipping whole paragraphs, coming back if I feel like I missed a detail. Just going fast. This post is entirely incompatible with that. Not only that, the combination of thin, serif, monospace font on a white background is distracting, but also like 1/4th of the text is bolded, further messing up how I think what is important. Like it is trying to…

> coming back if I feel like I missed a detail How do you know you are not missing a ton of important meaning? I feel like I know people that do this and are clearly missing major points by substituting their on beliefs in.

We do miss out on a ton of important meaning. On the other hand we skip over a ton of unimportant meaning writers bloat their articles with. I need paragraphs and sentence structure as a kind of bounding volume hierarchy though...

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#43

Post by LegibleCrimson » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

ncr100 wrote: post #35

LegibleCrimson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This style mimics how I think, but my thinking is a disorganized mess. Before giving my thoughts to somebody else, I usually consider them, sort them, and put them into a form that is easier for somebody else to understand. Usually, this includes a reread and editing. I agree that this writing style mimics thought. I don't want to read disorganized thoughts, though. It's not a huge issue, because the length of this p…

> my thinking is a disorganized mess Ouch! The expectation that your thinking is encyclopedic in its comprehensiveness and structure is a pretty tall standard to live up to in my opinion. I feel empathy for you.

That's not the expectation. The expectation is that everybody's thinking is a stream of thoughts very specific to the person and context. It's not naturally conducive to another person's consumption, or to long-term or comprehensive understanding.

My thinking is a disorganized mess because that's the nature of thought in the first place. Your thoughts are everything you are experiencing or considering as you experience or consider them. The vast majority of them are gone within moments after you've thought them, to never be remembered again.

The thoughts that stay are the ones that you consider, run over in your head a few times, and have taken the opportunity to organize in your head a bit more. True stream of consciousness is not usually enjoyable to read (and I'll note that this article is not true stream of consciousness, but rather minimally organized thoughts).

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#44

Post by ncr100 » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

mpalmer wrote: post #18

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #2

there’s something about this writing style that really annoys me and detracts from the message. if you’re going to ignore the rules the payoff needs to be worth it otherwise you’re just being… self-indulgent?

My theory - based on nothing - is that a lot of people "think in video" now. They don't read writing, they read subtitles. So when they write, what they're doing is narrating the images and ideas playing out like a movie in their head. Unfortunately most narration needs pairing with an image to make sense.

I do agree that people think differently these days vs 20 years ago, based on my own personal experience which is not nothing, and I would argue your "based on nothing" is based on your personal experience :-)

I like this articles point that the emotion of the moment is really what matters and the challenge for writers is to identify the emotion that is evoked through the wide smattering of situations a dynamic video game puts its players through.

I think it goes beyond video.

Back to speculating about society and its thinking, we spend a lot of time consuming media packages presented to us on our cell phones or tablets or computers. That's a repetitive process. This sounds like training to me. The mode is a screen or two screens if you've got multiple monitors, some kind of touch or hand-driven browsing device might come out or a touch screen. And yeah, the images can flicker on the screen like a captivating campfire, engorging you in a dazzling array of light and sound which can tickle your funny bone or involve you in a sad moment.

It's like life for all of us media consumers has become predictable, because you can visit and revisit these experiences.

Life of course is not that predictable, it is chaotic and as adults we only learn how to protect against the radically horrible potential outcomes of life through skills and learning from other people's mistakes.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#45

Post by LegibleCrimson » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

doodpants wrote: post #9

I grew up playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and the like. For me, the whole point of a video game is the gameplay, not some story that the creator wants to tell. I barely tolerate narrative in video games, and mercilessly skip cutscenes whenever possible. I have no interest in playing any of these so-called "walking simulators". But maybe that's just me.

> I have no interest in playing any of these so-called "walking simulators".

Me either, but I have nothing against people who enjoy them, and it does seem like a fun enough writing exercise to create one as a writer.

Not everything needs to be for me. I never want to play a walking simulator, but nobody's making me, so whatever.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#46

Post by ghodith » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

ncr100 wrote: post #41

asylteltine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree I hate this style and the bold words make it slower to read. If you hold so much, then everything else is just fluff so get rid of it.

That reduction in process is ineffective when participating in introspection. This is a blog about marrying creativity and technicality, guiding writers who are creating story content for video games. In this case the author appears to be attempting to help encourage the reader to be introspective and uncover their own feelings as their play testing in progress video games, as part of the development of story content…

Are you the author? Somewhat strange to so defensively respond to every critical comment in this thread in the same manner.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#47

Post by itishappy » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

LegibleCrimson wrote: post #33

itishappy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the opposite boat. This style nicely mimics how I think. I find the types of fragment in the article align with the boundaries of each unit of thought in a manner that quite clearly approximates my internal dialog. I think your examples does a disservice, as your breaks do not follow such rules.

This style mimics how I think, but my thinking is a disorganized mess. Before giving my thoughts to somebody else, I usually consider them, sort them, and put them into a form that is easier for somebody else to understand. Usually, this includes a reread and editing. I agree that this writing style mimics thought. I don't want to read disorganized thoughts, though. It's not a huge issue, because the length of this p…

> I don't want to read disorganized thoughts, though.

See, this is where I differ (potentially from most, given the responses here). I love reading "disorganized" thoughts because they aren't random, they follow the writers train of thought. This gives insight not just into the content of their mind, but the structure! How fun!

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#48

Post by ncr100 » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

LegibleCrimson wrote: post #43

ncr100 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my thinking is a disorganized mess Ouch! The expectation that your thinking is encyclopedic in its comprehensiveness and structure is a pretty tall standard to live up to in my opinion. I feel empathy for you.

That's not the expectation. The expectation is that everybody's thinking is a stream of thoughts very specific to the person and context. It's not naturally conducive to another person's consumption, or to long-term or comprehensive understanding. My thinking is a disorganized mess because that's the nature of thought in the first place. Your thoughts are everything you are experiencing or considering as you experien…

Ahhh, I see where you are coming from. That you have less shame than I thought for yourself when you say "mess". Thanks for clarifying my perception. It looks like instead it's more appropriate to talk about synchronizing with the intention of the author?

To back up for a second and provide context, I was keyed up after reading and really focusing in on the parent commenters criticality, mocking and shaming. I perceived it as a judgmental characterization of the author of this piece of story writing guidance. So when I came across your comment I thought you might be beating up on yourself to echo the emotional sentiment of, and to try and build a bridge between the parent commenter and the article writer. I wanted to provide a counterpoint and some support to you.

Now I guess that my reaction to the article is different, less about a jarring sensation of discordance where I'm expecting you know organized bulletized conventional grammar explaining some subjects, and recognizing instead a person who's trying to help fiction writers to access their feelings. I see the author chose to do this through a tongue in cheek way of writing whimsical prose using little punctuation and lots of white space.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#49

Post by ncr100 » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

justinator wrote: post #40

ncr100 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they're doing this for a purpose? Why would you think that they chose to write like that? From what I gather reading the footer of the web page they are a trained writer. Like they have potentially a degree in the English language from a school. What are you getting at with your pile on criticism? Tell us what you really think... About what is acceptable, about what your expectations are, about effective…

One can do a lot of good in the World just by reading Strunk.

Cute and to reinforce my point I think the intention of the author was not to provide a technical treatise but instead to use whimsy to help story writers access their emotions, by invoking and emotional response in them.

It is telling to be that this thread of commenters is focused on criticizing the style, here. That's kind of fascinating to me.

Re: Don't Run into the Woods

#50

Post by jvanderbot » Thu, Nov 16, 2023, 4:45 PM UTC

ncr100 wrote: post #38

jvanderbot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not start with a linear narrative? use all the techniques we already know and feel them in video game form? have you heard of walking simulators? They're just that, with one or two twists. Yet... I'm not saying you should show it to anyone if you're not ready. This sounds like ... rambling. There's no connection between any of the lines. If you're brainstorming, brainstorm. I suspect that's what this is.

Wow that's harsh. I don't understand why you're saying that, here. Is this a backhanded compliment? Do you think they're being particularly effective because they're trying to evoke crackheads? I don't think that piece of writing is intended to be a technical treatise on creative writing. Instead, it to me reads as a tool to help technical writers for games to elicit effective story content that has an impact on the…

> Wow that's harsh.

Totally true. I downregulated the feedback to be a little more kind.

My experience living in LA may have colored my response.

To address the meat of your response > it to me reads as a tool to help ...

I don't see why this even qualifies as tool. There's no summary, not flow of logic, no conclusion really, just some thing a former mentor used to call a "walk through the garden of thought".

Sure, the thoughts look pretty to you, but you need to cultivate it for your audience, which usually means getting to the point and providing evidence or information clearly. If you cannot do that, at least be engaging, so that the reader sticks with you until you reach your point.

This writing style just doesn't do either of those things. It's confusing to jump from line to line and have to fill in a lot of gaps, it's not easily scanned for relevant points (every line is bolded and separated from text), it just ignores everything we know about presenting information.