Omnisu

You need a draw a distinction between art and craft. The art of writing is what can't be taught, it's that thing someone has to 'just have'. It's the important part. It's the inspiration and the story. The craft is separate, and it can be taught. The 'rules' that so many here attack apply to the craft, not to the art. By studying the craft, a writer learns how all the parts work together, he learns how to manipulate the parts to do what he wants. By learning how his tools work together, and the ways his medium can be shaped and stretched and at what point it breaks, he's better able to realize the art.

A good comparison is designing a car. Anyone can do a concept sketch, but only a few can do it well. When they make that sketch, they have little regard for how it's going to work, how it's going to be put together. All they care about is the finished product - how does it look? They have engineers that come behind them and figure out the details, figure out where they have to add roll bars and the order all the parts need to be installed in. Unfortunately, or fortunately, for us, writers have to be designer AND engineer. You can't concern ourselves with nothing but the final product, we have to go and build it to. So we should study the tools and techniques others have already discovered for us. Then, we will be better equipped to actually create that original vision. We'll know just how far we can push things, we'll know how to accomplish the story we want to tell, and we'll know when something is beyond our means.

Whether or not you agree that a writer should prefer active-voice over passive, I don't see how you can say that they shouldn't even know what voice is.

Your insults grow tiresome.

Stop.

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Dawnstorm

EDIT: Never mind

JoannaMac

Why is this annoying git allowed to stay here? I get told to "keep it friendly" when I tell another poster to ready my previous post properly, and this nasty little f**k is allowed to say Lin 'wallows in his own feces' without reprimand.

That's it. I'm taking my ball and going home

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If you aint got nuffink, you can't lose it!

Non Serviam

Cos it's hard to get permabanned from wf.com, and TT's good at pissing us off without ever quite crossing the line far enough for that.

You see, this isn't a democracy--you can't get banned for being unpopular. There's got to be a serious, identifiable transgression.

If TT was as talented a writer as he is a troll, he'd doubtless have won several pulitzers.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle The ways of the world are twisty and unknowable, the only way to be sure you are not caught out in something you regret is not to do things you may regret.

valeca

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"...make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life." --Pythia, Oracle of Apollo at Delphi

I'm here.

lin

Uh,oh, another thread veers off into theology.

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JoannaMac

Ok. Fair enough. Anyone wanna play ball?

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If you aint got nuffink, you can't lose it!

rcallaci

Joanna

No need to take that ball home--Truth-teller has been banned from this site on a permanent basis. NS is quite correct in that getting banned permanently is quite hard. A serious transgression needs to be in place-the fact that someone is unpopular and even on occasion rude is not a cause for a ban. TT has ignored repeated warnings from staff and myself on his behaviour-numerous times he has crossed the line but I let it slide(over loud objections from the majority of staff) -He became toxic to this site and offered nothing in return but acid.

I kind of liked TT(I get a kick out of nasty little trolls) but it was time for him to leave this community-jerks and fools are allowed to post here but they on occasion must contribute something positive. TT has not lived up to that -his contribution was the art of the flame-.His flame has been snuffed out...


my warmest
bob

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Nature weeps, the devil sings
at man’s greed and pride
and what it brings

Just lots of useless
little things…

God is Dead; He died yesterday from Nothing...

http://theoddvillepress.com

Omnisu

I think that perhaps some of these people who shout that 'rules' like 'prefer active voice' are harmful went through the same sort of process I did. Their writing was good - at least they thought so. But then they learned about voice, and they noticed that they used almost nothing but passive voice. This is natural, the passive voice is how we tell stories to each other verbally all the time. So they went and read some stuff and thought, yeah! The active voice DOES sound better!

So they tried to write in the active voice, and their writing was worse. They were fumbling with a new concept and a new tool. Of course their work was cruder - but here's where they diverge. They gave up. They said 'This sucks, what a fool I was for believing that person! I have to stop anyone else from falling victim to this trap!' Another writer suffered through it. Their writing was worse for a time, until they mastered this new tool. And then it was better than it ever had been before.

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JoannaMac

Wow Bob. You put your foot down. Was it this thread that broke the camel's back?
Well, I for one am glad TT's gone, he was just nasty.
Thank you!

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If you aint got nuffink, you can't lose it!

Xx Kane xX

R.I.P. TT, you will be missed.

Sam Winchester

Yeah, like a sore thumb.

Sam.

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Don't unlock doors you're not prepared to go through.

lin

Think again. The idea that people don't agree with you because they just haven't learned enough to agree is pervasive in your idiot comments here, but laughable to anybody else.

Writing in any sort of voice depends on the piece, the writer, the market, all that good shit that you might learn about if you get your head out of your ass and start being a writer instead of a self-authorized guru.

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Omnisu

It's kinda like looking in a mirror, isn't it?

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lin

No, not really.

It's more like responding to the overly self-congratulating squiggles of a pretentious poseur, who then keeps whing and squirming and patting himself on the back about how clever and sarcastic he is while never replying with any substance, just little "so are you but more of it" japes the rest of us burned out on in grade school.

But my guess is you aren't really capable of seeing it that way and will reply with more little shit that would be insulting if it made any sense.
We'll see.

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