Write a controversial opinion

[PennyThompson]

People who claim that clever and/or flirty dialogue is their favourite part of writing are leaning too hard into the wish fulfilment/author insert aspect of writing.

ouch! but also, maybe. it's so much easier to be charming and flirty via asynchronous text than in real life.

 

[Baztrachian]

If you use AI to write or create "art", I think you're bad and should feel bad.

I remember when "artists" (say it reverently) used to shit on people who used airbrushes and spray paint to create art.

Then the same group would shit on people who used MS Paint and other digital tools to enhance photos and etc.

AI is going to shit on these snobs because it allows even the most talentless hack to create high art.

I took one of my photos of Sedona and had Ideogram render it as a Bierstadt. Fuckin' nailed it, too.

 

[TheLobster]

People who claim that clever and/or flirty dialogue is their favourite part of writing are leaning too hard into the wish fulfilment/author insert aspect of writing.

This tracks. As far as unrealistic Lit tropes go, it certainly feels more plausible for me to imagine myself being witty and charming, as opposed to possessing certain kind of measurements that go into double-digit inches.

In the end, though, both are equally out of reach.

 

[Statius]

Alright, here's a controversial opinion, and it's about writing too. So discuss this:

People who claim that clever and/or flirty dialogue is their favourite part of writing are leaning too hard into the wish fulfilment/author insert aspect of writing.

Just had this conversation. It's challenging, especially funny dialogue. That's the reward. When you pull it off.

 

[PennyThompson]

I remember when "artists" (say it reverently) used to shit on people who used airbrushes and spray paint to create art.

Then the same group would shit on people who used MS Paint and other digital tools to enhance photos and etc.

AI is going to shit on these snobs because it allows even the most talentless hack to create high art.

I took one of my photos of Sedona and had Ideogram render it as a Bierstadt. Fuckin' nailed it, too.

certain kinds of reactionaries like to show performative distain for the very concepts of expertise, knowledge, or skill in any field that they're personally unfamiliar with, so that tracks

It's a hierarchical distain in both directions, too. they hate doctors and scientists and artists, but they also hate food service workers and farm laborers.

 

[crookedletter]

art

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Just had this conversation. It's challenging, especially funny dialogue. That's the reward. When you pull it off.

Although sometimes I feel like a little kid trying to draw a dragon breathing fire with crayons. And then when I go to show my epic picture off to my dad he'll say, "Oh, what a pretty chicken. What sort of dance is it doing?"

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Fresh controversial opinion: People who have failed to update their avatar since that website bug are just insanely lazy.

 

[Erozetta]

Alright, here's a controversial opinion, and it's about writing too. So discuss this:

People who claim that clever and/or flirty dialogue is their favourite part of writing are leaning too hard into the wish fulfilment/author insert aspect of writing.

Oh, good, my favorite part of writing is building the tension.

 

[crookedletter]

ouch! but also, maybe. it's so much easier to be charming and flirty via asynchronous text than in real life.

"This is what I find most encouraging about the writing trades: They allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Same would apply to general eloquence/charisma, I think.

 

[Statius]

Although sometimes I feel like a little kid trying to draw a dragon breathing fire with crayons. And then when I go to show my epic picture off to my dad he'll say, "Oh, what a pretty chicken. What sort of dance is it doing?"

That is what it's like sometimes!

 

[Statius]

Fresh controversial opinion: People who have failed to update their avatar since that website bug are just insanely lazy.

Hey now! I'll have you know I resemble that remark!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Hey now! I'll have you know I resemble that remark!

You have a letter in your avatar, which means it wasn't subject to that bug. This is how it looks like

 

[Statius]

You have a letter in your avatar, which means it wasn't subject to that bug. This is how it looks like

View attachment 2574318
View attachment 2574319

Don't tell anyone, it's always been the green S.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Don't tell anyone, it's always been the green S.

Yeah, that's a whole different type of lazy.

 

[Britva415]

People who claim that clever and/or flirty dialogue is their favourite part of writing are leaning too hard into the wish fulfilment/author insert aspect of writing.

And for the people who do it for that reason, it never comes off as uncontrived and authentic. Usually it triggers eyerolls and thoughts that the author has no idea how real people really flirt. Or even talk at all.

Now, I do see some good stuff around here in this regard, and some of it is probably even from people who would say that it’s their favorite part.

Maybe they’d say that the feelings behind effective and authentic flirting chatter is the favorite part, but that just goes to show that when people fuck it up, it’s because they’re only writing clever-seeming (to them) chatter and not even aware of the emotional or visceral part at all.

It’s not what you say, it’s what you make them feel.

wish fulfillment

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m thinking of “clever dialog” I see which comes off like the author wishes they could have clever dialog and thereby either seduce or get seduced by someone, and this is their naïve idea of what that would be like. But it just comes off like “nobody talks that way fgs, and even if they did, it wouldn’t work.”

I don’t know. If they had hella fun writing it, I’m not knocking that.

 

[TheLobster]

You have a letter in your avatar, which means it wasn't subject to that bug. This is how it looks like

View attachment 2574318
View attachment 2574319

 

[Statius]

Yeah, that's a whole different type of lazy.

Hee hee! Yeah it is!

 

[Britva415]

Don't tell anyone, it's always been the green S.

I can’t look at any of them anymore without thinking of the person who got a dark pink letter I in a lighter pink circle.

It looked like the business end of a Fleshlight.

 

[Statius]

I can’t look at any of them anymore without thinking of the person who got a dark pink letter I in a lighter pink circle.

It looked like the business end of a Fleshlight.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Many "twist ending" stories would be better without the twist.

 

[Statius]

Many "twist ending" stories would be better without the twist.

Agreed.

 

[SimonDoom]

Many "twist ending" stories would be better without the twist.

This seems like an intuitively sensible proposition, but I'm trying to think of examples that demonstrate its truth. In most cases I can think of, the twist enhanced the story.

 

[crookedletter]

I'm trying to think of examples that demonstrate its truth

Any post-Sixth Sense M Night Shyamalan film.

Though maybe he's gotten better, pretty much since The Village I'm a hard pass on anything of his.

 

[Baztrachian]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

That's interesting you say this.

In April 2015 I was commissioned to take photographs of the art at a particular airport. Yes, as expected I took pictures of the very expensive and critically acclaimed installations by various local notables in their art scene. (Yawn)

I also found and photographed the trolls that an unknown welder created and placed on the new bridges around the airport.

I took pictures of the handmade stainless steel chainmail that acted as a sunshade in the airport parking garage. The contractor had built a machine to use stainless steel wire which it knit together to make chain mail.

I photographed the exquisitely crafted panels in the elevators.

I photographed the beveled edges on the glass windows in certain places that gave a prismatic effect on the terminal floor that no one else had noticed.

I photographed the whimsical patterns in the concrete walkways that, when assembled in a mosaic, creates the formula for lift.

I also discovered and photographed a window that was placed asymmetrically from the other windows in the admin building. It stood out and looked odd and I determined to find out why. On the solstices the window reflects sunlight into the accounting office. I did not find that to be a coincidence.

The airport's PIO had no idea of any of this yet it ended up in their coffee table book and many of the pictures were printed and framed and placed in offices around the airport.

So, no, I have no idea what art is.