One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: "just add the word 'modified.'"
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/2
Jim's big idea was that gun people couldn't help but chew away at the verisimilitude of your fictional guns, their brains would automatically latch onto them and try to find the errors.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/3
In other words, the gun person's impulse to one-up the writer by demonstrating their superior knowledge becomes an impulse to impart that superior knowledge to the writer.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/4
Yes, writing is *lying*. Storytelling is genuinely *weird*. A storyteller who has successfully captured the audience has done so by convincing their hindbrains to care about the tribulations of imaginary people. These are people whose suffering, by definition, *do not matter*. Imaginary things *didn't happen*, so they *can't* matter.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/5
https://locusmag.com/2014/11/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/
Hijacking a stranger's empathic response is intrinsically adversarial. While storytelling is a benign activity, its underlying mechanic is *extremely dangerous*.
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Cory Doctorow: Stories Are a Fuggly Hack
Locus OnlineCory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/6
Cult leaders and con-artists know that they're engaged in mind-to-mind combat, and they make liberal use of Jim's hack of leaving blank spots for the mark to fill in.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/7
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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> A towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/10
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/13
Not for nothing, Jim Macdonald advises his writing students to study *Magic and Showmanship*, a classic text for aspiring conjurers:
https://memex.craphound.com/2007/11/13/magic-and-showmanship-classic-book-about-conjuring-has-many-lessons-for-writers/
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/14
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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https://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/03/behind-the-screen.html
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/17
https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/The_Director#Special_Infected
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The Director
Contributors to Left 4 Dead Wiki (Fandom, Inc.)Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/20
This is my biggest problem with the notion that someday LLMs will get good enough at storytelling to give us the tales we demand, without having to suffer through a storyteller's sadistic denial of the resolutions we crave.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/21
Like being tickled, experiencing only fun if the tickler respects your boundaries - but, like being tickled, there's always a part where you're squirming away, but you don't want it to stop.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/22
Seen in this light, performance is a kind of sado-masochism, where the performer delights in denying something to the audience, who, in turn, delights in the denial. Don't give the audience what they want, give them what they *need*.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/23
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Cory Doctorow
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/25
SPOILER ALERT: I'm about to give some spoilers for Furiosa.
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FURIOSA SPOILERS AHEAD!
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/26
*Fury Road* hints as *so much* worldbuilding. We learn about the three fortresses of the wasteland (the Citadel, the Bullet Farm, and Gastown) but we only see one (The Citadel).
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/27
All of this is left for us to fill in, and for a decade, my hindbrain has been chewing on all of that, coming up with cool ways it could all fit together.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/28
*Furiosa* is a *great* movie, but its worst parts are the canonical lore it settles. Partly, that's because some of that lore is just stupid. Why is the Bullet Farm an open-pit mine? I mean, it's *visually* amazing, but what does that have to do with making bullets?
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/29
https://www.themarysue.com/how-does-furiosa-lose-her-arm/
But even if the lore had been *good* - not stupid, not banal - the best they could have hoped for was for the lore to be *tidy*. If it were *surprising*, it would seem contrived.
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How Does Furiosa Lose Her Arm? | The Mary Sue
Julia Glassman (The Mary Sue)Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/30
So long as some key question remains unresolved, you're still wanting more.
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Cory Doctorow
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Lore is always better as something to anticipate than it is to receive. The fans *demand* lore, but it should be doled out sparingly. *Always* leave 'em wanting more.
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Cory Doctorow
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/eof
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-lost-cause-4
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Max™
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/30
Well, I do occasionally forget the twist in The Rhesus Chart, but everyone knows vampires aren't real, so I can't help it.
Max™
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/24
Greg Linden
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Zen Zero ☯️ ◯
•Ostrzeżenie o treści: Long thread/10
“wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you).”
Cory Doctorowudostępnił to.
Matthew Miller
•Solution: don't even bother with more than a vague idea of the right answer. Go with what the players come up with (maybe after foiling an idea or two to make it a challenge). Now, you've done less work, the players feel satisfyingly clever, and think *you* clever too!
Cory Doctorowudostępnił to.
Matthew Miller
•Matthew Merkovich
•TerryB
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Cory Doctorowudostępnił to.
TerryB
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johnaldis
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johnaldis
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Michael Gemar
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Doopdeedoop
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Cory Doctorowudostępnił to.
TerryB
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