4 ms·

With no disrespect to you, this is sadly the state of us hyper-readers today. We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predic

by r0h1n 13y ago

With no disrespect to you, this is sadly the state of us hyper-readers today. We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predictable assortment of ideas. And when the occasional author decides to venture outside this straitjacket, we wonder what's wrong with him/her. Let's not forget that writing is still (I don't know how long it will remain) a creative art. And though the vast majority of it has been reduced to algorithmic, LCM commodities, surely we can allow a few artists to tell their stories the way they want to?

d23 13y ago
While this may be a part of the explanation, I don't think it's solely responsible. It's the responsibility of the writer to set up the reader with an understanding of the point of what they are reading (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"). If you're going to make a long digression, it's respectful (and less counter-intuitive) to at least give the reader an inkling as to why you might be doing such a thing. Between the random cat video, the shoe photo that looks like it was nabbed from google images, and the sudden jump back to the story of Mellon's father, I genuinely started questioning the quality of what I was reading and whether I should be wasting my time.
- marrs 13y ago
  I thought I'd somehow managed to switch tabs and had to scroll back to the top to confirm that I hadn't.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them") That's what many subscribe to. There are schools of thought that disagree. Some readers enjoy not knowing where the text is going; done well, it makes the payoff significantly more pleasurable. What you said certainly does seem to be the fashion at the moment; the number of books whose first chapter is simply a dull forewarning of what each of the following chapters is going to be about certainly seems to have increased in recent years. I find it horrifically dull and generally skip that entirely. I see the same thing in presentations; it's just as dull (to me).
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  It's not exactly uncommon for a narrative to suddenly jump to a seemingly unrelated scene, only for the threads to weave themselves back together by the end. It's a standard literary trope. Fair enough, it is often a feature of bad writing. You should probably read this article though. His recent post about syria was excellent as well, and more concrete than this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_baby_and_the_baath_water http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_baby_and_the...
  - d23 13y ago
    I actually ended up going back and reading it and found it fascinating.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
numeromancer 13y ago
If I want writing-as-an-art I'll read Thomas Pynchon. I don't want it in an editorial.
theg2 13y ago
No, I have to agree with the parent, it was overly verbose with no up front defined and consistent thesis or hypothesis. It's hard to read what feels like the meanderings of the authors mind when the central thesis that you thought you were reading about gets quickly diverted. I know that a lot of people shy away from large pages of print, but the imagery and format of this article is pretty inconsistent. That said, after reading it all, I think I agree with the author but it's hard to tell.
- patrickk 13y ago
  Absolutely. He leaps from topic to topic, often with a weak link between each one. For example: "A hundred years ago, at a time very like ours, a small group of journalists did just that. And the person who takes you back to that time is Tamara Mellon's ex-husband - Matthew Mellon." "At the end of the 19th century, Matthew Mellon's great great uncle - Andrew Mellon - was one of the most powerful and richest men in the world. He was part of a small group of bankers and industrialists who not only dominated America - but were using the power of money to undermine, corrupt and control politicians, judges and the whole system of democracy." He goes from talking about hacking, spying and intrusive tabloid journalism in the modern era to the turn of the century Robber Barons, and the only link is a coincidental blood relationship between the characters that he flits between. I feel the author has something important to say, even if it's difficult to grasp exactly what it is. He would perhaps benefit from splitting the article into several pieces (surprising to say, as so many online publications abuse this in order to artificially drive page views) in order to focus on one topic at a time, and then bringing the narrative together at the end.
  - purephase 13y ago
    "This is a website expressing my personal views – through a selection of opinionated observations and arguments." It's Adam Curtis. This is what he does.
    - gph 13y ago
      Exactly. I can sort of see what the parent comments mean, but having read and watched a lot of Adam's work I was able to follow along perfectly. Even read it in his voice. His segues weren't all perfectly relevant this time, but it's just his style.
swasheck 13y ago
i appreciated the narrative as a creative work and information piece. the weaving of stories was masterful and when things began harmonizing it was neat. however, this also lends itself to more of an entertainment piece which left me with some dissonance. it's structured as an entertainment journalistic piece that questions the utility/efficacy of entertainment journalism. to me then, its structure does not necessarily lend itself to a call to action as was intimated in its closing third.
Double_Cast 13y ago
> We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predictable assortment of ideas. Personally, I disagree with all three items. This isn't the first time I've seen a text delay its thesis until the end. Yet none of them imparted the sense of utter bewilderment that this article has. I doubt word count is an issue since I read plenty of books. It's not as if all I read is buzzfeed, cracked, and HN. As for ideas, I don't know how this is relevant. HN's primary criticism is directed towards the presentation, not the underlying ideas. I do think Curtis has an interesting idea, but I still think the presentation was trash. > writing is still a creative art. (...) surely we can allow a few artists to tell their stories the way they want to? "Creating noise" is surely appropriate for sports stadiums, but probably not for journalism. This text is clearly explanatory. It's not a novel, it's not a poem, it's an article. Its purpose is to inform. This goal is accomplished effectively most often by building a hierarchy of abstraction. The thesis is often a single abstract opinion/judgement supported by tangibles such as examples, anecdotes, statistics, etc. Paragraphs organize text so that tangibles support a minithesis, which often supports a main thesis, which sometimes supports a chapter in a book. The author didn't take the normal route, but did he accomplish his goal of "informing the reader" effectively? I think his paragraphs were too short to organize his ideas meaningfully. And even if his paragraphs were longer, I would have preferred that Curtis group the paragraphs into "chapters" so I could mentally index each segment for the conclusion. In short, I think he failed his goal spectacularly.

by r0h1n 13y ago

d23 13y ago

While this may be a part of the explanation, I don't think it's solely responsible. It's the responsibility of the writer to set up the reader with an understanding of the point of what they are reading (i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them"). If you're going to make a long digression, it's respectful (and less counter-intuitive) to at least give the reader an inkling as to why you might be doing such a thing. Between the random cat video, the shoe photo that looks like it was nabbed from google images, and the sudden jump back to the story of Mellon's father, I genuinely started questioning the quality of what I was reading and whether I should be wasting my time.

marrs 13y ago
I thought I'd somehow managed to switch tabs and had to scroll back to the top to confirm that I hadn't.
EliRivers 13y ago
(i.e. "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them") That's what many subscribe to. There are schools of thought that disagree. Some readers enjoy not knowing where the text is going; done well, it makes the payoff significantly more pleasurable. What you said certainly does seem to be the fashion at the moment; the number of books whose first chapter is simply a dull forewarning of what each of the following chapters is going to be about certainly seems to have increased in recent years. I find it horrifically dull and generally skip that entirely. I see the same thing in presentations; it's just as dull (to me).
JonnieCache 13y ago
It's not exactly uncommon for a narrative to suddenly jump to a seemingly unrelated scene, only for the threads to weave themselves back together by the end. It's a standard literary trope. Fair enough, it is often a feature of bad writing. You should probably read this article though. His recent post about syria was excellent as well, and more concrete than this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_baby_and_the_baath_water http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/the_baby_and_the...
- d23 13y ago
  I actually ended up going back and reading it and found it fascinating.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

numeromancer 13y ago

If I want writing-as-an-art I'll read Thomas Pynchon. I don't want it in an editorial.

theg2 13y ago

No, I have to agree with the parent, it was overly verbose with no up front defined and consistent thesis or hypothesis. It's hard to read what feels like the meanderings of the authors mind when the central thesis that you thought you were reading about gets quickly diverted. I know that a lot of people shy away from large pages of print, but the imagery and format of this article is pretty inconsistent. That said, after reading it all, I think I agree with the author but it's hard to tell.

patrickk 13y ago
Absolutely. He leaps from topic to topic, often with a weak link between each one. For example: "A hundred years ago, at a time very like ours, a small group of journalists did just that. And the person who takes you back to that time is Tamara Mellon's ex-husband - Matthew Mellon." "At the end of the 19th century, Matthew Mellon's great great uncle - Andrew Mellon - was one of the most powerful and richest men in the world. He was part of a small group of bankers and industrialists who not only dominated America - but were using the power of money to undermine, corrupt and control politicians, judges and the whole system of democracy." He goes from talking about hacking, spying and intrusive tabloid journalism in the modern era to the turn of the century Robber Barons, and the only link is a coincidental blood relationship between the characters that he flits between. I feel the author has something important to say, even if it's difficult to grasp exactly what it is. He would perhaps benefit from splitting the article into several pieces (surprising to say, as so many online publications abuse this in order to artificially drive page views) in order to focus on one topic at a time, and then bringing the narrative together at the end.
- purephase 13y ago
  "This is a website expressing my personal views – through a selection of opinionated observations and arguments." It's Adam Curtis. This is what he does.
  - gph 13y ago
    Exactly. I can sort of see what the parent comments mean, but having read and watched a lot of Adam's work I was able to follow along perfectly. Even read it in his voice. His segues weren't all perfectly relevant this time, but it's just his style.

swasheck 13y ago

i appreciated the narrative as a creative work and information piece. the weaving of stories was masterful and when things began harmonizing it was neat. however, this also lends itself to more of an entertainment piece which left me with some dissonance. it's structured as an entertainment journalistic piece that questions the utility/efficacy of entertainment journalism. to me then, its structure does not necessarily lend itself to a call to action as was intimated in its closing third.

Double_Cast 13y ago

> We expect straight and to-the-point prose, piddly word counts and a literal/predictable assortment of ideas. Personally, I disagree with all three items. This isn't the first time I've seen a text delay its thesis until the end. Yet none of them imparted the sense of utter bewilderment that this article has. I doubt word count is an issue since I read plenty of books. It's not as if all I read is buzzfeed, cracked, and HN. As for ideas, I don't know how this is relevant. HN's primary criticism is directed towards the presentation, not the underlying ideas. I do think Curtis has an interesting idea, but I still think the presentation was trash. > writing is still a creative art. (...) surely we can allow a few artists to tell their stories the way they want to? "Creating noise" is surely appropriate for sports stadiums, but probably not for journalism. This text is clearly explanatory. It's not a novel, it's not a poem, it's an article. Its purpose is to inform. This goal is accomplished effectively most often by building a hierarchy of abstraction. The thesis is often a single abstract opinion/judgement supported by tangibles such as examples, anecdotes, statistics, etc. Paragraphs organize text so that tangibles support a minithesis, which often supports a main thesis, which sometimes supports a chapter in a book. The author didn't take the normal route, but did he accomplish his goal of "informing the reader" effectively? I think his paragraphs were too short to organize his ideas meaningfully. And even if his paragraphs were longer, I would have preferred that Curtis group the paragraphs into "chapters" so I could mentally index each segment for the conclusion. In short, I think he failed his goal spectacularly.