[unsupp0rted]

What does the value in writing mainly consist of?

Edit: currently this question is at -3, as though it’s obvious to everyone the difference between valuable writing and not valuable writing.

To me it’s a worthwhile question, particularly because the more precisely we answer it the more precisely ChatGPT will become able to produce valuable writing a couple releases from now.

[floren]

It's the way the story is told. If it was all about the idea, you'd just read the Wikipedia plot synopsis, say "ah what a great story that was, so glad I read it" and move on.

[slowmovintarget]

Jim Butcher had this argument with a bunch of fellow writers on a writing forum. The argument went back and forth. His side was that it was the execution that mattered. He said that a good writer could tell a successful story based on a terrible premise. It wasn't the idea that mattered, it was how the writer pulled it off.

The argument raged across the forum; idea - execution - idea - execution... until Jim threw down the gauntlet. "Fine. Give me your worst idea. No, give me your two worst ideas for a story, and I'll write one and show you." The forums churned for a bit and the other side came up with what they agreed were the two most hackneyed, clichéd ideas they could think of.

Pokémon, and the Lost Roman Legion.

Jim took those and wrote the Codex Alera series. Point, and New York Times Bestseller list spot: Butcher.

[floren]

Didn't he already do that same sort of thing with his Dresden Files series? I feel like Jim Butcher only writes books on a bet, based on terrible ideas.

[slowmovintarget]

He wrote Dresden Files in a way that his teacher suggested (not with the ideas) to show her how bad her way of writing was. He was wrong.

That's where he learned it was about execution.

The only idea he included, just to kind of rub things in was a "Talking Head" in Bob the Skull. He made a literal talking head that would explain things to Harry, which was a fiction writing "don't" that he purposely violated... to great effect.

She counseled him to take the things he loved--fantasy, and Robert Parker detective novels--and combine them. He had been dead set on making sword-and-sandal high fantasy. He followed her instructions on that, too, and we got Harry Dresden.

[blowski]

Anna Karenina.

It basically tells you the plot on the first page, and yet is 1000 pages of something incredible. It's like being able to see inside someone else's mind - not being told what they're thinking, but being able to feel the emotions as they do.

[snerbles]

> read the Wikipedia plot synopsis, say "ah what a great story that was, so glad I read it"

I have unironically done this for movies/books/games/media I've elected not to consume but otherwise desired to know for cultural context.

[floren]

I'll cop to the same thing, but neither you nor I would claim that knowing "rosebud was the sled" is equivalent to watching Citizen Kane.

[medvezhenok]

One thing that's missed is that much of the impact of the writing depends on the reader's capacity to grok it.

Many people read at the superficial level, and the takeaway from a book for them might be equivalent to the spark-notes version. Even between readers who are level matched, there are vast individual differences. Some readers can be aphantasiacs (no ability to visualize) and others - hyperphantasiacs. A person can have vastly different experiences from reading the same text depending on how developed their visualization skills (cognitive versus emotional, visual vs abstract, etc).

[medvezhenok]

It really depends on the type of writing. Romance vs Non-fiction vs Academic all have different values.

In my opinion, the breakdown is somewhat like:

Romance is presumably (Story x Style)

Non-fiction is (Story x Accuracy x Clarity)

Academic is probably (Novelty x Clarity x Impact)

[renewiltord]

Thoughts, emotions, and sensations are serialized to text to transmit to others.

Inherently, the serialization is lossy and the deserialization is also lossy.

Good writing can have:

- high compression ratio: many things transmitted rapidly

- higher fidelity: original thought is serialized in a way recoverable by sufficient available deserializers

- novelty

Of course, this is a serde problem, so people try to name each of these things in different ways: deserializers that have the ability to extract more information from serialized content are called connoisseurs, for instance. Frequently this is because the serialized content relies on pre-computed results stored in the deserializer memory, sometimes called "allusions".

I will leave you with two examples of text expressed in different ways. The Remains of The Day is a book that follows a man's journey of self-discovery after he has spent much of his life in service, having missed many opportunities due to his devotion to that service. I urge you to read the book, compare it with that text, and see if I was accurate or did service to it.

Second: I sometimes do things that seem unlike the image of me that I retain. Something makes me do them. Why is that?

That is one way to express what Captain Ahab says in Moby Dick:

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare?

[slowmovintarget]

Execution, meaning, and polish.

[oneoff786]

So… what if the AI does better on those things

[dsr_]

Then the AI will be worth more. Right now the AI is worth negative value.