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Acute Grill
Dec 9, 2011

Chomp

Cease to Hope posted:

So I guess you never read the sixth book, where the happy ending is that the main character is allowed to have secret trysts with the underage daughter of another character because she's possessing the body of an adult woman who hates the main character so it's totally okay. It's two different kinds of rape in one!

:stare: I didn't actually finish the series, no. I didn't even know there were more than five books until years after I'd moved on. What the gently caress.

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Anais Nun
Apr 21, 2010
The Writer's Block Daily Thread. This one's always good for a laugh, with validation-hungry tropers pleading for someone, anyone, to pay attention to them and the anime inspired 'novel' they wrote 1000 words of last night and will probably never look at again.

Someone was actually thinking of submitting this cri de coeur as an Elance profile.

quote:

Honestly, it's hard to sell myself as a freelance writer. Most of my training and experience to this point has been in photography. ...But I'm looking to move into a career that doesn’t require buying thousands in gear, driving all over the state, and wasting time on Craigslist dipshits who decide to pay you in middle fingers. Seriously, my car can't take that much longer.
So, why not writing? I enjoy it and I’m pretty confident in my abilities. (As you can see, I tested in the top ten percent for three different types of writing... Ladies.)
...But there’s one major hurdle: I’m a community college dropout up against hundreds of English M As. (Not to mention roughly half the population of India.) Even worse, I'm still unproven, with nothing worth speaking of in the way of published work. To no one’s surprise, two comic scripts, a creepypasta, thirty-odd TV Tropes articles, and several thousand forum posts aren’t much of a portfolio.
So here’s my offer, Elance: until I make a name for myself, I will do your bitch work. 500 words for $10? Absolutely. A 70, 000 word novel for $50? Sure, why not? Rent’s late this month. Can't afford to be picky. Five articles for a bowl of rice? gently caress it: throw in a packet of soy sauce and you’ve got a deal.
In the past year, I've taken jobs that involved canvassing some of Brooklyn’s poorest neighborhoods in the dead of winter for $9 an hour, wrapping hot dogs, and telemarketing. Don't try me, son. So while all those stuck-up professionals with their marketing degrees and years of experience are whining about not being able to get more than a hundred dollars for their precious keystrokes, I will write your stuff for a third of that. And I will write it so hard.

And then if you go back a few pages you get this.

Eye'm the cutest! posted:


I work in a school and the Girls [bathroom] is routinely worse than the Boys. Routinely. Across grade levels and it doesn't matter if it's staff or student.

Happy Halloween! :gonk:

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I like the price scale which charges $10 for 500 words, but only $50 for 70,000. I'm sure that both will be of equal quality because they'll both be garbage, but that's one hell of a pricing scheme.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Why would you ever hire someone who wrote that? He's actively trying to unsell himself.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Anais Nun posted:

And then if you go back a few pages you get this.

Did he write them both?

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Mors Rattus posted:

Why would you ever hire someone who wrote that? He's actively trying to unsell himself.

The only criterion for a writer on TVT is "wants to be a writer real, real, real bad," so I can see how you could extrapolate from that and try to cultivate a professional persona of raw, seething desperation. This guy also seems to be going at it from the perspective of "writing is easy, I can just crank out a poo poo-ton of words so I may as well sell them cheap," which fits with the general TVT "just crap out as many words as you can and you too will be a Real Writer!" philosophy. (I don't know anything about the freelance writing world, and I imagine a good chunk of it is word-crap scutwork, but surely even then you have to word-crap to very specific guidelines.)

I also really want to live in the world where this guy will be commissioned for a 70,000-word novel for cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked. Is there any part of the publishing world that isn't flooded with lovely unsolicited manuscripts that they could probably get for free if they didn't care about quality at all? I imagine he's thinking of movie tie-in novels and stuff like that, but even then being the goddamn lowest bidder is not really helpful, unless you want to be hired to novelize Animal Soccer World.

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

Antivehicular posted:

I imagine he's thinking of movie tie-in novels and stuff like that, but even then being the goddamn lowest bidder is not really helpful, unless you want to be hired to novelize Animal Soccer World.
Who wouldn't jump at the chance? :confused:

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
In fairness, I would absolutely buy a novelization of Animal Soccer World.

But let me ask you a question: do you want kids?

quote:

Well, my oldest brother was born just under a year after me, so that has me tolerating a baby or a toddler from my birth ('cause I'm not gonna give myself a pass here) to the day my oldest brother turned 3. Which would've been in 1993. In 1994, my next brother was born, so that has me growing to hate kids from my birth (1989) to 1993 and then again from 1994 until 1997. The next child was born in 1999, and the one after that in 2000 - so from 1999 to 2003, I was again learning to hate kids. Well, I moved from my parents' place in 2005, some time after yet another child was born. (There was one more after that.)

So, years of me growing to hate kids versus years of me not growing to hate kids:

Hating kids: 1989-1993, 1994-1997, 1999-2003, 2005 /stop count 'cause I no longer had to live with my brothers. So, about 12 years.

Not hating kids: 1993-1994, 1997-1999, 2003-2005. 6 years or so.

That has me learning to hate kids for two thirds of my childhood. Well, I like less than one part in three of every child, so that can't be right.

Anais Nun
Apr 21, 2010

Metal Loaf posted:

Did he write them both?

No, that's Major Tom. Who works in a school.

DaveWoo
Aug 14, 2004

Fun Shoe
Today's Chainsawsuit made me think of Tropers.

Arc Hammer
Mar 4, 2013

Got any deathsticks?

Anais Nun posted:

No, that's Major Tom. Who works in a school.

And apparently inspects the women's bathroom.

Razorwired
Dec 7, 2008

It's about to start!

Arcsquad12 posted:

And apparently inspects the women's bathroom.

The loud Tropers are usually janitors or cart collecting robots.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

crowfeathers posted:

But let me ask you a question: do you want kids?

The fact that he gets confused because his math must be off, because he spent one-third of his childhood not hating children but he still hates more than two-thirds of every child, is so delightful. BEEP BOOP CANNOT COMPUTE, CORE PROCESS "HATE_ALL_CHILD.EXE" IS NOT RESPONDING, FATAL FLAW REPORTED IN SELF-ANALYSIS MODULE

Apple Tree
Sep 8, 2013

Antivehicular posted:

(I don't know anything about the freelance writing world, and I imagine a good chunk of it is word-crap scutwork, but surely even then you have to word-crap to very specific guidelines.)

Nope. Word count is one of the things you get on a brief - but as often as not, the challenge is keeping the count down. There's only so much space on a book jacket or a pamphlet page, and you have to be able to get the necessary message into a finite space while still matching the required tone. Even a long commission has to have a high content-to-length ratio; you can't just waffle and pad. Every word matters.

Also, you need to be a functional human being, because there are always going to be rewrites and discussions. 'Overinvested and desperate' just spells 'a nightmare to work with'.

There's a reason why we charge the rates we do: it's skilled work. Also because it's not a loving hobby: like everyone else, we need money to live on and some of us would like to eat fresh vegetables. So gently caress you, troper, for trying to devalue the labor of people like me. And for calling copy writing 'bitch work'. It's an honest trade, not a last resort for failures with a big ego. There is no 'bitch work'. You do every job to the best of your abilities - and if you can't grasp that, you can't write.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Apple Tree posted:

Nope. Word count is one of the things you get on a brief - but as often as not, the challenge is keeping the count down. There's only so much space on a book jacket or a pamphlet page, and you have to be able to get the necessary message into a finite space while still matching the required tone. Even a long commission has to have a high content-to-length ratio; you can't just waffle and pad. Every word matters.

I stand corrected, and yeah, that makes sense; I apologize if I implied that freelance writing is in any way an unskilled occupation, because it's obviously not. I'd love to see this guy apply his strategy here to other skilled jobs: "okay, so I wanna be a carpenter, but my only experience is that I've assembled my flat-pack bookcases, and I took a semester of shop in middle school. How can I compete with the existing talented, properly trained labor force? I know! I'll be desperate as gently caress and work so cheap they won't bother to notice I don't know the difference between a screwdriver and a power drill! I'll put up a house for fifty bucks! This is surely a better strategy than actually getting training in my field!"

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I'd just like to point out that, judging from his costs, for two hundred bucks he'll write 1.3 million words, longer than Remembrance of Things Past.

Hedgehog Pie
May 19, 2012

Total fuckin' silence.
The writers here will be aware of the oft-repeated maxim, "There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.", which I feel like could really apply to such many Troper efforts. The problem is that the site has a couple of elements - most particularly its dry categorisation and ingredient process approach to art - that imply a writer can just spew anything out onto a page and it'll be immediately acceptable.

Writers know this isn't the case. I love writing; while I'd shy away from calling my stuff "really good", it's still a long, hard process. I'd even go so far as to say that academic criticism "flows out of me" easier than creative writing.

This even applies to the some of the most experimental consciousness prose. See this display of Samuel Beckett's short story 'Ping' for instance and you'll very quickly get the impression that was anything but written randomly.

Samuel Beckett posted:

We don't have an article named Main/SamuelBeckett. If you want to start this new page, just click the edit button above. Be careful, though, the only things that go in the Main namespace are tropes. Don't put in redirects for shows, books, etc.. Use the right namespace for those.

In all fairness there is a Waiting for Godot page. It doesn't really have anything of note, just the usual awful and condescending terms like "True Art is Incomprehensible".

EDIT:

Wait, wait, hold on. They have a page for "School Study Media", which is for collecting together "Those works of fiction that people tend to study at school, often called the "canon"." Now, I don't have a problem with people trying to compile canons, even though it's a pretty tetchy term that's constantly evolving. Heck, schools and universities in the UK have made a point of going outside the traditional canon in recent years when it comes to English classes, in order to reflect a changing, more multicultural environment. I don't really understand what the point of putting together this particular list is but what jumped out at me is this:

TV Tropes posted:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is apparently used to teach meme theory.

I love Metal Gear Solid 2. I'd even go so far as to call it my favourite ever video game! ... but is this actually a thing? Or was it just hearsay and TV Tropes really just couldn't go one list article without referencing either video games or anime?

On a lighter, more nerdygoon note, I'm unsure as to why Alexander Nevsky is listed there. I love Eisenstein, but in my experience Strike, October and Ivan the Terrible are far more likely to be used in film classes (Potemkin already being listed).

Hedgehog Pie fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Nov 1, 2013

Strom Cuzewon
Jul 1, 2010

Hedgehog Pie posted:



I love Metal Gear Solid 2. I'd even go so far as to call it my favourite ever video game! ... but is this actually a thing? Or was it just hearsay and TV Tropes really just couldn't go one list article without referencing either video games or anime?


I've heard that lots of times.

Only from TVTropes.

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Strom Cuzewon posted:

I've heard that lots of times.

Only from TVTropes.

It's not unheard of to do stuff like this in education (my personal favorite is studying Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3 in psychology courses, because Anakin exhibits textbook borderline personality disorder), so on one level I wouldn't be surprised. MGS2's climax, while doing a ton of weird poo poo, does manage to get the basics of meme theory right enough to be a decent introduction to the concept for someone who's otherwise unfamiliar.

But on the other hand, I've never seen any evidence of this claim, and there's probably a much easier way to introduce someone to it than the end of MGS2.

Apple Tree
Sep 8, 2013

Hedgehog Pie posted:

The writers here will be aware of the oft-repeated maxim, "There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.",

It's certainly oft repeated by people incapable of producing good writing.

I wonder what TVTropes thinks of rewriting? Hm, let's see, first hit:

quote:

Rewriting Reality

Now the giant Brain was trapped in Fry's book, full of plot holes and spelling errors.

Writers are used to the power of stories to evoke feelings and create new worlds: in some stories this is explicitly possible, as a form of magic.
Rewriting Reality is a form of magic where the invocation is writing — or in more recent tales, typing. Usually it is one specific object that the writing works with, such as a Reality Writing Book, a typewriter, a sketchpad or a PC. It is sometimes based in mythology where a creator god "writes" the "Story" of history. The device might come from a mysterious deal, a magic spell, a technical device gone strangely wrong, editing the Tomes of Prophecy and Fate, or it could just be, y'know, there.

In some cases, the user may not even know about the power: an author may use a cursed device to create some form of unstoppable monster, or cause all sorts of wacky hijinks for his friends. Or it may be used purposefully but unwisely, taking the statements with cruel literal-mindedness. Or perhaps the Big Bad has just found a new source of fun.

The ensuing mayhem can often be stopped by destroying the object that caused it, or killing the writer, which may, or may not, lead to a Snap Back or the writer waking to find it All Just a Dream... Other methods may involve working within story rules, either playing to or breaking the conventions of the story's genre.

Compare with Author Powers, in which a character within the story has this sort of power because they are an author interacting with their creations. Unlike this trope they don't necessarily need a writing device for this, though.

Also compare with Art Initiates Life where the visual arts shape reality, or Formulaic Magic where it is pure mathematics that will change reality. See also I Know Your True Name, Language of Magic, and All Just a Dream.

Not to be confused with figuratively rewriting reality.

Ooh, the power to make things actually happen with your writing! That's gotta be a favourite with them. It's meta and flattering all at the same time, and it doesn't actually matter whether the writing's any good because it makes magic and that means it must have some kind of meaning!

Apple Tree fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Nov 1, 2013

Razorwired
Dec 7, 2008

It's about to start!

Cleretic posted:

It's not unheard of to do stuff like this in education (my personal favorite is studying Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3 in psychology courses, because Anakin exhibits textbook borderline personality disorder), so on one level I wouldn't be surprised. MGS2's climax, while doing a ton of weird poo poo, does manage to get the basics of meme theory right enough to be a decent introduction to the concept for someone who's otherwise unfamiliar.

But on the other hand, I've never seen any evidence of this claim, and there's probably a much easier way to introduce someone to it than the end of MGS2.

Yeah, it's like when Warcraft nerds jumped on the whole, "Real economists study the cash flow in the Auction House!" While it's true those economists aren't saying that your Dragonrider Spear is worth real world money. In fact, if they really wanted to an economics class could run an experiment in which they crashed the game economy. Because there's no real repercussions for loving with your Internet Dragonbux.


Apple Tree posted:

It's certainly oft repeated by people incapable of producing good writing.

I follow an editor's group on Facebook. On December 1 last year they posted an image reading "Congratulations! Now make 21 more drafts of that NaNoWriMo monster and we might publish it!"

Djeser
Mar 22, 2013


it's crow time again

Apple Tree posted:

Ooh, the power to make things actually happen with your writing! That's gotta be a favourite with them. It's meta and flattering all at the same time, and it doesn't actually matter whether the writing's any good because it makes magic and that means it must have some kind of meaning!
Myst was a cool series with great lore and not even tropers can ruin Myst. :colbert:

Myst character sheet for Catherine posted:

Hot Mom

At least it's Catherine and not Yeesha. :unsmith:

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

Razorwired posted:

Yeah, it's like when Warcraft nerds jumped on the whole, "Real economists study the cash flow in the Auction House!" While it's true those economists aren't saying that your Dragonrider Spear is worth real world money. In fact, if they really wanted to an economics class could run an experiment in which they crashed the game economy. Because there's no real repercussions for loving with your Internet Dragonbux.

Right. There's been some genuine economics studies of Eve Online as well, because it's a flawed but workable example of huge numbers of people playing around with true deregulation -- and thus getting scammed all to hell.

But those economists also know to stay the hell away from it, because it is crazy.

Lowly
Aug 13, 2009

Antivehicular posted:

I'd love to see this guy apply his strategy here to other skilled jobs: "okay, so I wanna be a carpenter, but my only experience is that I've assembled my flat-pack bookcases, and I took a semester of shop in middle school. How can I compete with the existing talented, properly trained labor force? I know! I'll be desperate as gently caress and work so cheap they won't bother to notice I don't know the difference between a screwdriver and a power drill! I'll put up a house for fifty bucks! This is surely a better strategy than actually getting training in my field!"

I'm pretty sure the guys my former landlord hired as handymen did exactly this.

But as someone else said, writing freelance isn't just making GBS threads out words as fast as you can and being done with it. Your client will have edits and rewrites and pretty soon your $50 job is stretching out for months. There are some clients who are looking for the cheapest bid and care less about quality of writing, but whether the client is looking for a high-end writer or not, they are going to be looking for someone whose specialty matches their project, whether that's SEO, B2B/B2C marketing, legal writing, educational writing, blogging, etc. Everyone's just going to skip right past his profile to the one that has the keywords they are looking for.

I never understand people who look at a website like elance and think that THIS is the venue where being edgy is really gonna pay off.

Hedgehog Pie
May 19, 2012

Total fuckin' silence.

Apple Tree posted:

It's certainly oft repeated by people incapable of producing good writing.

Hm? Maybe we have a conflict of opinion here but I certainly don't write my best without redrafting and editing, so it's a worthy lesson in my eyes (unless I'm really dreadful after all?). I mean, Hemingway is supposed to have done upwards of 40 drafts for a lot of his work, right?

TV Tropes posted:

Rated M for Manly: Hemingway was the epitome of manhood

See, TV Tropes thinks that's a good model to follow.

Thinky Whale
Aug 2, 2012

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Fry.

Hedgehog Pie posted:

I love Metal Gear Solid 2. I'd even go so far as to call it my favourite ever video game!

Are there global meetings for all of us who feel this way? It should be easy to reserve a place, you'd only need seating for, like, six.

I thought I'd take a look at the page for The Forever War, a good sci-fi book written by a Vietnam veteran about how strange and alienating it would be to go off to fight aliens and come back to a world hundreds of years later that's now nothing like the home you knew. Everything's different; government, money, how people function in society, sexual mores.

About half of the trope page is about the sex part.

Mikedawson
Jun 21, 2013

TV Tropes was an embarrassing and shameful part of my underclassmen high school years. One thing I recall a lot of was nerds overselling stuff and trying (and failing) to be funny.

I decided to look at the Welcome to Night Vale page, because that's popular and very different than the usual poo poo they consume. The worst part was when they called Cecil a deadpan snarker, the official TV Tropes label for "I like this character".

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
An attempt at comedy backfires in Translation Train Wreck

quote:

Find times the transfer to are negative. Additionally find times she false distort velocity with it honorarium and initial position cranial trauma by subdivides a galaxy capturing wall.

See of leaf, occurence transfer a selection disowned of the word selection and grammar the pole-sitting this parseable entry the is kingdom untainted of Kauderwelsch one, has property left a in salvage the coal-eating iron-track wagon death one a transfer the series.

His illegal in product the of transfer market, determined where field common of " team" the lokalisierung; it to makes place little, little bonus and chance language the she' also speak; translation straight of the also little of not or knowledge demand a arrival, power of computation that preoccupation with solidity by structure and the, requirement what or are use of directed of power-loom transfer monkey apple carburetor.

This leads an good and evil transfer of regular, but much applicable general right to many the translation with interesting jingle has.

Of sister the trope and foolish without viewpoint translation of. The frequently wire drawing the translation with of the ricorsiva. Possible of having the alsosaying indebtedness götterdämmerung transfer.

Face with to submersible delta has of the, selected normally client fact in UBS ventilate to and also aspects, additionally atendimentos in respect delta the copy of.

Face with additionally vehicle my pneumatic shock absorber of Aalen full is, plantations else punishment observance universales conjunction and humour intention is English, character in where invented alcanga it, this tongue number in small whole part of external indicator verpfuschen has. On they hand separate observe in salsa choreography has of mot one.

Jay O
Oct 9, 2012

being a zombie's not so bad
once you get used to it

crowfeathers posted:

An attempt at comedy backfires in Translation Train Wreck

Backfires? Au contraire, that's the most genuinely humorous thing on the whole of that site and I'm shocked the more humorless tropers haven't accused it of being unhelpful and "fixed" it.

FAKE EDIT: "More humorless" tropers ha ha what am I talking about.

DoctorPresident
Jul 21, 2012

Mr Tastee posted:

deadpan snarker

quote:

Ann Coulter is legendary as a kind of Trope Codifier for American Politics. When you read any of her columns or books at random, it's not too hard to see why....

quote:

Japanese rocker Gackt is a weird version of this. Instead of saying things that are sarcastic or cutting, he instead says things that are deliberately absurd, nonsensical, or lewd, but always with a straight face. One particularly infamous joke has led some fans to think that he seriously believes he's a 496 year old vampire.

quote:

Jhonen Vasquez has an extremely deadpan, macabre, and sarcastic sense of humor. Its really quite fascinating. He said once on his blog that he would do a fact each day about Invader Zim, and most of them were'nt even facts, but fake stories he made up, such as kids in a control group dying from how scary ZIM was, Richard Horvitz being drunk at work and screaming at everyone in his Dagget voice, and even a fake interview where Rikki Simmons (the guy who voiced GIR and Bloaty) where dark powers overcame him and he killed everyone in the room.

quote:

The man that Colbert parodies, Bill O'Reilly, is another example. When Jon Stewart took him out of context and snarked about how Bill is "looking out for a poor, dwindling minority", implying that that rich were who O'Reilly was talking about, O'Reilly turned it into an Insult Backfire with the following:

Stewart: I shouldn't poke fun. Bill's just standing up for a shrinking, exploited minority.
O'Reilly: "That's absolutely correct. I'm standing up for Americans with common sense.

It really should't surprise me that these people don't even have a congruent definition of what a deadpan snarker should be.

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012
It's always seemed to mean "guy who is a sarcastic rear end in a top hat to everybody at all times", aka a Joss Whedon character, and it struck me as odd they'd idolise that kind of person so much. But all I really needed to say to explain it was "Joss Whedon" I guess.

Edit: Having checked, they define Deadpan Snarker as just someone who makes sarcastic remarks. That seems overly broad to the point of uselessness.

Flesnolk fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Nov 3, 2013

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

Flesnolk posted:

That seems overly broad to the point of uselessness.

TvTropes.txt

JackMackerel
Jun 15, 2011

Jay O posted:

Backfires? Au contraire, that's the most genuinely humorous thing on the whole of that site and I'm shocked the more humorless tropers haven't accused it of being unhelpful and "fixed" it.

FAKE EDIT: "More humorless" tropers ha ha what am I talking about.

Fast Eddie and several hangers-on (I'm too kind to say dicksucks) throw bitchfits whenever an article copies whatever it's about, like that.

^^ Oh, God. I remember when a brave little trooper (troper, whatever) happily announced on the Troper Tales page that he solely existed to annoy the gently caress out of assholes, and proceeded to tear into every insufferable entry left on the page. (Granted, it was still insufferable, but drat if it's not like watching Hitler and Stalin fight to the death.)

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012

JackMackerel posted:

Fast Eddie and several hangers-on (I'm too kind to say dicksucks) throw bitchfits whenever an article copies whatever it's about, like that.

I think that was actually a rare instance of tropers noting when something had been thoroughly run into the ground. For a while, "self demonstrating articles" were a thing, but it got to the point where everything on the site was like that and the community got sick of it. I could be remembering wrong though.

Apple Tree
Sep 8, 2013

Hedgehog Pie posted:

Hm? Maybe we have a conflict of opinion here but I certainly don't write my best without redrafting and editing, so it's a worthy lesson in my eyes (unless I'm really dreadful after all?). I mean, Hemingway is supposed to have done upwards of 40 drafts for a lot of his work, right?


See, TV Tropes thinks that's a good model to follow.

Well that's me told. Guess I'd better work on my manliness. :argh:

What I mean is that yes, of course there is such a thing in the world as okay writing that can be knocked into better shape. But there's a fuckton more writing that's not good, never will be good and no amount of rewriting could possibly fix, unless you began the 'rewrite' by Mickey Finning the original writer and putting someone else on the project.

People of that kind - people to whom the only good editorial advice you could really give would be 'Shut down your Word program, take a few deep breaths and start making a list of other things to do' - absolutely love any saying that can be used to justify their stuff being poo poo. Denying the existence of non-poo poo is very popular among lovely writers. Because actually, there is such a thing as a good first draft. Probably a perfect first draft is rare to mythical, but to say there's 'no such thing' as good writing just isn't true, and kind of insulting to a lot of writers. I've seen plenty of good first drafts in my time.

Some people use sayings like that to help themselves relax and get less self-conscious. The tropy type, on the other hand, often uses them to pretend that nobody's any better than them anyway so being a completely crappy writer doesn't mean they aren't a WRITER.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008
Of course there are exceptions to most first drafts not being that great and people that misuse helpful advice to justify their shittiness. It's just a helpful statement to people to remind them of the importance of editing and rewriting. Tropers that try to use that phrase to justify how lovely their first drafts are are also the sort of people that completely miss the part about needing to edit and rewrite.

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

Apple Tree posted:

Well that's me told. Guess I'd better work on my manliness. :argh:

What I mean is that yes, of course there is such a thing in the world as okay writing that can be knocked into better shape. But there's a fuckton more writing that's not good, never will be good and no amount of rewriting could possibly fix, unless you began the 'rewrite' by Mickey Finning the original writer and putting someone else on the project.

People of that kind - people to whom the only good editorial advice you could really give would be 'Shut down your Word program, take a few deep breaths and start making a list of other things to do' - absolutely love any saying that can be used to justify their stuff being poo poo. Denying the existence of non-poo poo is very popular among lovely writers. Because actually, there is such a thing as a good first draft. Probably a perfect first draft is rare to mythical, but to say there's 'no such thing' as good writing just isn't true, and kind of insulting to a lot of writers. I've seen plenty of good first drafts in my time.

Some people use sayings like that to help themselves relax and get less self-conscious. The tropy type, on the other hand, often uses them to pretend that nobody's any better than them anyway so being a completely crappy writer doesn't mean they aren't a WRITER.

Who are these mythical writers who consistently pump out good first drafts? Because every writer I've heard of who's styled themselves a "one draft wonder" is a loving hack who suffers from George Lucas Syndrome. "Good writing is rewriting" coming out of the mouths of every professional editor/writer I've read means, "No, you're not special. It's ok for your first draft to suck, but we don't want to see it. Shut the gently caress up and learn how to edit." Only tropers can twist that phrase to mean the complete loving opposite of what it means.

Stating that all first drafts need heavy editing is not insulting to writers, because most pro or semi-pro writers are not deluded enough to think the sun shines out of their assholes and that every piece of unedited word spew they crap out comes out rainbows. Sure, there are plenty of Phillip Jose Farmers in the world who managed to get their lazy one-draft garbage published because it had other things going for it, but the quality of their writing remains complete poo poo. Like George Lucas, they may even make a fuckton of money at it, but their dialogue is still stilted expository poo poo and their plots are full gaping holes bigger than Goatse's anus. That is what happens when you don't loving edit, and no, there are almost no exceptions.

What you are basically saying is some people are just magically that good and others will never be. Bullshit. Anyone can learn to write if they bust their asses, read a ton of good writing, and learn from the masters. Of course you can't improve in a vacuum or a hugbox because you're not getting any instruction. Yes, it's fair to say tropers should just stop writing, but only so long as they do nothing but sit on their asses injesting pop culture all day. Some idiots on TVTropes or any number of fanfic sites will grow the gently caress up someday (I hope), gain some life experience, and learn how to apply themselves. There's a reason why most writer's careers happen after 30. It's because it takes them that long to write something that's worth a drat. For those who never grow the gently caress up and hide in a hugbox all day, they'll probably suck forever. Oh well.

Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Nov 3, 2013

Apple Tree
Sep 8, 2013

Stuporstar posted:

Who are these mythical writers who consistently pump out good first drafts?

:shrug: Professional writers I've worked with. Calm down. How about some content?

I hit the 'random' button, and got this oddity:

quote:

Character Roster Global Warming

When a video game first in the series is released, it will often have a slow, powerful fighter or two. However, as the series increases and more characters are added, the number of Mighty Glacier characters often stays the same, resulting in a gigantic roster with only one or two big heavy guys. Hence, Global Warming.

Compare The Smurfette Principle, which gives this treatment to female characters.

This is a good example of why TVTropes is such a famous time sink, I reckon: it's pretty much incomprehensible unless you click the link. 'Mighty Glacier' apparently means this:

quote:

As the name implies, the Mighty Glacier is one of the strongest people in the world. A single hit is like ten hits from anyone else. Hitting them feels like hitting a solid wall of iron, and they'll usually laugh at anything that is too weak to have them Blown Across the Room. Mighty Glaciers also tend to carry weapons that would break anyone else's arms just to pick up, and can hold open doors that would break a lesser person's fingers off when they slammed shut.

The catch is this: they're slow. Reeeeeeaaaaalllly slow. They would need rocket skates to be described as "inching along". This has the unfortunate tendency to render them useless later in the game, when landing more hits than the enemy is often more important than how much damage the hits do.

A long-winded (excuse me, 'breezy language') way of saying 'A character that's strong and tough but slow-moving', basically. 'Mighty Glacier' is cutesy, but it more or less makes sense in context; everyone knows that glaciers are slow-moving. But somehow the phrase has gotten so embedded that they think it's a useful resource to create another phrase that makes no sense at all unless you're already familiar with the original reference.

When people say it's a time-sink, it implies that it's moreish like cookies are moreish: you keep at them because they're nice. Actually it's moreish because it's disorientating: you can't understand a lot of it unless you keep reading more and more. You pretty much have to take on board its entire way of thinking to understand what it's talking about. Less like cookies and more like cigarettes: by the time you start enjoying them, you've created a habit.

Plus I think they deserve a 'no such thing as notability' star for the 'compare to the Smurfette Principle' thing. Because being a weird piece in the fighting game set and being a woman are totally the same thing. :eng101:

Testekill
Nov 1, 2012

I demand to be taken seriously

:aronrex:

Apple Tree posted:

A long-winded (excuse me, 'breezy language') way of saying 'A character that's strong and tough but slow-moving', basically. 'Mighty Glacier' is cutesy, but it more or less makes sense in context; everyone knows that glaciers are slow-moving. But somehow the phrase has gotten so embedded that they think it's a useful resource to create another phrase that makes no sense at all unless you're already familiar with the original reference.

When people say it's a time-sink, it implies that it's moreish like cookies are moreish: you keep at them because they're nice. Actually it's moreish because it's disorientating: you can't understand a lot of it unless you keep reading more and more. You pretty much have to take on board its entire way of thinking to understand what it's talking about. Less like cookies and more like cigarettes: by the time you start enjoying them, you've created a habit.



That's the thing about Tropers. They think that everyone is aware of trope names and in-jokes.


Now then, shall I plow into the Your Mileage Might Vary page for Fire Emblem Awakening? Considering how much the games lends itself to that shipping bullshit, I'm sure that there's going to be something nice here.

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Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

Testekill posted:

Now then, shall I plow into the Your Mileage Might Vary page for Fire Emblem Awakening? Considering how much the games lends itself to that shipping bullshit, I'm sure that there's going to be something nice here.
Of course not! Bullshit has no place in this fine thread, and I'm frankly surprised that you even considered this. What's gotten into you?

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