Write a controversial opinion

[Erozetta]

Call me weird but I actually liked Hershey chocolates precisely because they tasted different.

But if you want some good chocolate in the US, you can always just buy European brands. Lindt is widely available everywhere, and if you’re closer to the East Coast you might find some Belgian, German or Polish stuff as well.

Barry Callebaut.

It's my favorite for making cookies and cakes and is fairly widely available in the US

And Bensdorp 22/24 cocoa powder

 

[StillStunned]

Getting back to opinions on writing: a good story is a good story.

Forget about length, or characterisation, or how much sex to include and where, or what topics to avoid, or tense and POV, or realism, or any of that. They all add up to nothing if the story and the writing aren't good.

Stick too closely to "how it should be done" and you're one step away from painting by numbers. If the story and writing *are* good enough, all the rest doesn't matter.

 

[StillStunned]

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Yesterday I killed a thread.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Worried because you aren’t strong on grammar? No problem, just write in first person with a narrator who doesn’t use good grammar.

 

[Erozetta]

Worried because you aren’t strong on grammar? No problem, just write in first person with a narrator who doesn’t use good grammar.

Don't give away my secret like that.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Worried because you aren’t strong on grammar? No problem, just write in first person with a narrator who doesn’t use good grammar.

What about a highly educated college student with great spoken grammar - if you have the professor toss back her assignmrnt with the words 'Learn how commas work' does that absolve you of any errors?

(Asking for a friend)

 

[MelissaBaby]

What about a highly educated college student with great spoken grammar - if you have the professor toss back her assignmrnt with the words 'Learn how commas work' does that absolve you of any errors?

(Asking for a friend)

If you've written a first person character with great spoken grammar, why would it be an issue?

 

[PennyThompson]

Worried because you aren’t strong on grammar? No problem, just write in first person with a narrator who doesn’t use good grammar.

I wrote a first-person story with a narrator who wrote like she was self-taught from her local small town library but spoke with a backwoods Appalachian vernacular, and it was both very freeing and a ton of fun to write

 

[Statius]

I wrote a first-person story with a narrator who wrote like she was self-taught from her local small town library but spoke with a backwoods Appalachian vernacular, and it was both very freeing and a ton of fun to write

If your referring to Dandelion Greene, that was a whole lot of fun to read as well. Great story, fun and funny.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Mime's are the sexiest of the clowns.

 

[iwatchus]

Mime's are the sexiest of the clowns.

A low bar to achieve

 

[SimonDoom]

Mime's are the sexiest of the clowns.

Mimes are to sexy what DDT is to eagle populations.

 

[TheLobster]

Mimes are to sexy what DDT is to eagle populations.

Oh, come on! Could you really resist the allure of this playful smile?

 

[Bramblethorn]

A mime is a terrible thing to taste.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Worried because you aren’t strong on grammar? No problem, just write in first person with a narrator who doesn’t use good grammar.

Or find an editor who likes your work. I've edited a few stories where the grammar wasn't great but the story was good.

It's a lot easier to fix punctuation than to fix boring.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Y'all clowning around about mimes reminded me of this.

 

[TheLobster]

It's a lot easier to fix punctuation than to fix boring.

Curiously, in writing — unlike in landscaping, construction, and dentistry — it seems that it's almost never possible to fix boring by adding more filling.

 

[Statius]

Here's one. Let the skewering begin.
The Iliad doesn't start IMR. It starts at the beginning, the beginning of the rage of Achilles. The Odyssey starts IMR.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's one. Let the skewering begin.
The Iliad doesn't start IMR. It starts at the beginning, the beginning of the rage of Achilles. The Odyssey starts IMR.

Skewering, no, because it's a fun idea and I give you credit for it. But disagreement, yes.

If you interpret that as the beginning, then you can interpret anything as a beginning. It collapses the whole idea of in media res.

And as far as The Odyssey is concerned, if it starts IMR, then what in your opinion is the beginning?

 

[Statius]

The Iliad states it's about the rage of Achilles. That's where it starts. The argument that set him off. It's not about the war.
The Odyssey starts with Telemachus as a young man at home before his father's return. When we see Odysseus he's already left Troy and been ship wrecked and his companions gone. Everything is told retrospect.

 

[StillStunned]

The Iliad states it's about the rage of Achilles. That's where it starts. The argument that set him off. It's not about the war.

But the war is the background. A "once upon a time" beginning would be "Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, and all the princes of Greece vied for her hand..." The Iliad skips all this and gets right down to business. Hence, in medias res.

 

[Britva415]

But the war is the background. A "once upon a time" beginning would be "Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, and all the princes of Greece vied for her hand..." The Iliad skips all this and gets right down to business. Hence, in medias res.

It's all about perspective. It's relative. There is a story which is not about Achilles' rage, which begins before he becomes enraged. Achilles' rage is happening in that story but isn't what the story is about. For that story to begin with Achilles' rage, starting with his rage is starting IMR.

There is another story which is entirely about Achilles' rage and isn't about the "background." The background is necessary to the story, but it isn't the story and it isn't what the story is about. (That's why it's background.) This story does not begin before Achilles is incited to lose his shit.

The thing is, both of those stories are in the Iliad. You can interpret it both ways, and many other ways. There isn't a right or wrong answer to "does it begin IMR or not." There is utility in using it as an example to demonstrate what IMR means, or to use IMR as a frame (an arbitrary one) within which to analyze the story and the storytelling, but those aren't the only ways to talk about it.

 

[Baztrachian]

Due to declining birth rates it is time to ban birth control and prophylactic abortions.

 

[PennyThompson]

Due to declining birth rates it is time to ban birth control and prophylactic abortions.

Due to declining birth rates the global north will be begging for more immigrants from the global south within the next ten years, and the influx of new food and music culture will be wonderful

 

[crookedletter]

Here's one: nutball statements actually sound less crazy when you blow up the font size and make them bold.