JGittes
Been around
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2015
- Posts
- 479
EightLetters has always struck me as someone who enjoys collecting data but analyzes it only to the extent it confirms his pre-existing biases.
When he was still on the site, he didn't engage in a constructive discussion of the data. He'd present a spreadsheet grid of numbers and, waving his hands, say it proved one or another of his 347 steps to a perfect I/T story. Many of those 347 steps were reasonable (five or six), and some of the basic data analysis regarding stories on Lit was accurate, but neither of them helped anyone write a better story.
A good story requires a plot and characters developed in a reasonably believable fashion, communicated in a way other people can understand (grammar.) That eight to eleven thousand words hit a sweet spot of short story development and pay-off, isn't really rocket science.
When he was still on the site, he didn't engage in a constructive discussion of the data. He'd present a spreadsheet grid of numbers and, waving his hands, say it proved one or another of his 347 steps to a perfect I/T story. Many of those 347 steps were reasonable (five or six), and some of the basic data analysis regarding stories on Lit was accurate, but neither of them helped anyone write a better story.
A good story requires a plot and characters developed in a reasonably believable fashion, communicated in a way other people can understand (grammar.) That eight to eleven thousand words hit a sweet spot of short story development and pay-off, isn't really rocket science.
