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comment by NOTORIOUS
NOTORIOUS  ·  4104 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: There is Nothing to Writing

I understand your frustration with "people prefer to be punched than to sit and contemplate the dawn."

But those are few. They may be the few that OP has said has purchased her works. But if you want to make your work appeal to the many there are ways to do it, in my opinion. If you want to sell and appeal to the masses then you need to study the way that those who have done this, do this.

I never read a book once. Or watch a movie I know is deep once. I watch it and then go back knowing I missed something, not just in the plot but in the way the director portrayed something. I watched "New Jack City" again two nights ago, and noticed the link between how Ice T stopped that shaking, desperate crackhead from smoking and succumbing to his addiction again and they way the other cop stopped shaking, desperate Ice T from killing the drug don who also killed his mother.

But I understand that I'm among the minority to attempt to notice this, among the minority to bother watching a movie again to interpret its meaning rather than just to see it again.

I understand your frustration and I have to assure you that you need to swallow it and understand why it exists. I watched the movie with my cousin, he's got a LOT of problems going on right now, he doesn't have the liberty to analyse this movie, he's got other shit going on. Job problems, work problems, kid problems, wife problems. I can't expect him to "be punched than to sit and contemplate the dawn.".

He's not able to. Consider yourself blessed to be able to sit an analyse these things, to infer deeper meaning rather than to read as an escape from your life or as a distraction. If you want to sell, if you want to really make an impact in those who have too much on their plates, you need to condense and get your point across clearly and concisely. You need to "punch".

...

I'm pretty drunk at the moment so I apologize if If my post rambled or was incoherent at all





IntimidatingScones  ·  4102 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Baahaha that last part tickled me. Damn I want a beer now.

Yeah I see what you're saying. But there's something that's being left out: To stop writing the way I want to write, and to write for the masses is the same as wanting to be a stint driver and becoming a cabby instead. It's like wanting to sculpt marble but deciding that screwing together TVs instead is better because it's easier and pays more.

I'm sure you see my point. Know Max Brooks? World War Z? Zombie Survival Guide? I had the pleasure of shaking the man's hand and asking him a similar question. He told me, and I shall forever cherish these words, "Write how you think it should be written. Then you'll always have at least one fan." I'd rather die unread, holding true to that and to my hero, Bill Watterson, than to die on a bed of thousand dollar bills hating my own work.

(Also I'd like to not that this isn't a gender issue as was suggested by another commenter above.)