Great insight into "intellectuals"

[desecration]

...you were the other side of smart. The kind of smart that knows she is smart, and is able to basically justify anything you felt. If you were angry, well, you could analyze why you were angry, and figure out what someone had done to you to make you angry. If you were in an argument, you were, are, smart enough to come up with all the reasons why you were in the right, and the other person in the wrong. You were just that level of smart that enables you to justify any behavior you had as being someone else's fault. You don't listen to the argument being had to disseminate someone else's arguments, you listen just enough to find the flaws and find a counter argument.

From this story. Kind of cool how much observation of life goes into these.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Interesting how this author can't seem to form proper sentences all the while writing about some character being extremely smart.
No offense to you or to this author, but I find these thoughts just plain silly.

 

[lovecraft68]

Also interesting this author hasn't written a story in close to two years, and only three since 2020, but this is the second thread bringing attention to one of their stories.

Must have hired an AH PR firm.

 

[lustychimera]

Interesting how this author can't seem to form proper sentences all the while writing about some character being extremely smart.
No offense to you or to this author, but I find these thoughts just plain silly.

They got a large volume of stories and thousands of followers, though? That means they're good.

 

[lovecraft68]

Interesting how this author can't seem to form proper sentences all the while writing about some character being extremely smart.
No offense to you or to this author, but I find these thoughts just plain silly.

Yeah, but its LW and the smart person is a woman, so she can't really be smart.

Woman bad, man innocent and good, but woman realizes the evil of her ways. TBH, its just yet another female hit piece.

The author, op and anyone else can take exception to that feedback. I don't mince words and I don't post anon.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

They got a large volume of stories and thousands of followers, though? That means they're good.

Hah, I wish it was so, but no, having a lot of stories and followers doesn't mean you are a good writer.

 

[intim8]

Must have hired an AH PR firm.

Hey, @desecration, how much is the guy paying you? Can I get a job like that too?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Yeah, but its LW and the smart person is a woman, so she can't really be smart.

Woman bad, man innocent and good, but woman realizes the evil of her ways. TBH, its just yet another female hit piece.

The author, op and anyone else can take exception to that feedback. I don't mince words and I don't post anon.

You read that story? I feel like I am missing out on so much by avoiding LW stories

 

[lovecraft68]

Hah, I wish it was so, but no, having a lot of stories and followers doesn't mean you are a good writer.

Goddammit!

 

[lustychimera]

Hey, @desecration, how much is the guy paying you? Can I get a job like that too?

I don't thinks that's entirely fair. They might just really enjoy that author's work.

Though, I think the criticisms against that passage are valid.

 

[intim8]

I don't thinks that's entirely fair.

I was riffing on lovecraft's remark.

 

[lovecraft68]

You read that story? I feel like I am missing out on so much by avoiding LW stories

Not all of it, first page and a half, then a quick skim on the rest. Then read a bunch of comments that raved over it for the reasons I mentioned which confirmed my take.

 

[lustychimera]

I was riffing on lovecraft's remark.

Yeah, I know. Felt kinda bad for them since everyone was piling on.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yeah, I know. Felt kinda bad for them since everyone was piling on.

Let me bring something up for some of the newer folks here. The forum has a long history of people creating sock puppets to push their stories, a couple of years ago one very long time member was caught using an alt to comment on their own stories. There have also been cabals here who would bring up their friends stories, and at some point down the line they would do the same for them. All of this is seen as, for lack of a better word, tacky, if you want to self promote, feel free to do so, but no one needs the games.

Now, is this one of those cases? Maybe (because I've made an easy connection here that involves three people) maybe not, and if not, then this is being unfair because some people could just want to give a fav author a shout out.

But sad fact is there is enough history of it to get people suspicious sometimes.

 

[desecration]

Hey, @desecration, how much is the guy paying you? Can I get a job like that too?

No pay, but I just went through and curated my "Favorites" list and found some good stuff, both in the running and in the final selection. You may have noted this pattern with multiple authors as I am revisiting what I think are the peak of the "dark LW" genre.

 

[gunhilltrain]

As per Oscar Wilde: "I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."

 

[mildlyaroused]

I don't envy the person who tried to read that excerpt aloud, with all its clauses and inconsistent tenses and general choppiness.

 

[desecration]

I don't envy the person who tried to read that excerpt aloud, with all its clauses and inconsistent tenses and general choppiness.

I tend to overlook mechanics if the content is good. Just needs a good editor (these are relatively rare) and a few hours.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I tend to overlook mechanics if the content is good. Just needs a good editor (these are relatively rare) and a few hours.

He did have an editor, the incomparable Blackrandi1958. Anyway, I don't know if the story justifies thirteen pages. Also note the six paragraphs of a "foreword," I might call it. I hope this resonates with some out there. That goes without saying, or otherwise, why bother to post it?

 

[lustychimera]

I tend to overlook mechanics if the content is good. Just needs a good editor (these are relatively rare) and a few hours.

I don't see that as an issue of mechanics, like wrong punctuation, spelling, etc.

That's what people say when it reads well, as in they're a natural storyteller, just they screw up the pedantic bits.

When that passage has a very monotonous pacing, it's the same rhythm over and over.

Their word choice is bland.

And they used a hundred words for what could have been said in half that-- or better yet, not at all. That seems like the kind of thing that you'd indirectly show the reader, as important as the story makes it sound.

I think it's a good insight, but it wasn't good storytelling.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I don't envy the person who tried to read that excerpt aloud, with all its clauses and inconsistent tenses and general choppiness.

To be fair, the narrator is a dumb person who’s sure she’s smarter than everyone else. It threw me at first, too, especially because jezzaz typically turns in more coherent stuff. If you read the dialog from other people, etc., though, it’s clearer what’s going on.

“Words” or “Mr. and Mrs. America” are where I’d start with him, though.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Let me amend that. I'm not sure of the gender of the author. The narrator seems to be a woman named January. (There are women named April.) To pick a few more nits: by page three I lost interest because little seemed to be happening. There were lines like: "It smelled like an explosion in a shit factory in there." She is complaining about a guy (her ex-husband?) who was messy in the bathroom.

Give some credit: it got a red H and 318 comments, which even for LW is an impressive number.

 

[desecration]

Their word choice is bland.

This goes under "mechanics" for me. Content is the insights the piece communicates, storytelling is pacing and getting the right details in the right order, and mechanics is how it is executed. It compares to emotion/frisson in songwriting, arrangement, and virtuosity in music.

 

[lustychimera]

This goes under "mechanics" for me. Content is the insights the piece communicates, storytelling is pacing and getting the right details in the right order, and mechanics is how it is executed. It compares to emotion/frisson in songwriting, arrangement, and virtuosity in music.

Which parts of songwriting compare to what?

Lyrics would be the content?

I don't want to agree/disagree without understanding what you mean.

 

[desecration]

Lyrics would be the content?

I guess I disregard lyrics. There's musical content, just like in a story. The journey from one point to another with a twist in the middle.
Lemme clarify this one if I can:

• Content is the insights the piece communicates : emotion/frisson in songwriting
• Storytelling : arrangement
• Mechanics is how it is executed: (degree of) virtuosity