Nornagest comments on SotW: Be Specific - Less Wrong

37 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 April 2012 06:11AM

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Comment author: handoflixue 05 April 2012 09:06:32PM 1 point [-]

Why specifically "erotic", and then why "fiction"? What's wrong with "write about what you had for lunch" or "write about your commute to get here"? I think anyone who can write a page on those has a decent sense of how to be specific (although this does NOT train the 5-second-skill of noticing WHEN you need to be specific)

Comment author: Nornagest 05 April 2012 09:12:10PM 4 points [-]

I don't think it'd necessarily need to be erotic as such, but the "show, don't tell" concept (a subset of "be specific") is, if not quite specific to fiction, at least a lot easier to screw up there. If you're writing about your lunch or your commute to work, you've already got a sense of the salient details and probably won't be tempted to hide behind coarse descriptions of your emotional state; neither's necessarily true if you're writing about some fictional character.