Writing a story associated with the real world is complicated, and it becomes more complicated the more closely associated with the present real world it is.
An Oblique Approach to Reality
Thinking of poetry as an oblique approach to reality reframes my understanding of poems and helps explain why I’ve always struggled with writing original poems, but it doesn’t mean I can suddenly write poetry.
Specificity
Being specific with what you say might seem important in legal writing, essays, philosophy, and other, less fictional formats, but storytelling is less obvious. If you’ve been paying attention to our posts about word choice, though, you can probably see its relevance.
Judging Your Own Work
I write stories so other people can read them, but I’m the one who must be comfortable having written them.
Intentionality in Storytelling
With only a handful of lines, and a few words in each line, each one of them must bear a larger load for the poem. Everything must be intentional.
Causal Complexity
When we ascribe something to chance, it’s a shorthand to express that we don’t understand, can’t identify, or can’t distinguish the actual causes involved.
Identifying Descriptions
Many modern books which intrigue me enough to look up a description, or which I hear or read about, lose me at the description stage because they are not highlighting what I’m looking for in a story.
Next Level Fruit
They propose a “universal limit on technological development” as a solution to Fermi’s paradox based upon a notion of diminishing research returns and increasing civilizational complexity.
Using Stock Phrases
The language we use has meaning and depths we don’t always consciously recognize, and stock phrases often convey meanings and suggestions which we don’t fully recognize and which we probably don’t intend when we deploy them in our writing.
Social Media Fragmentation
There is reason to suppose that such specialization may provide more benefit than it does harm.
IGC Publishing 