Large limitation of the study: it’s not cross-cultural (US only).
The interesting finding was that when the stakes are high, people put more weight on the outcome, whereas when they are low, people assess the morality of the action.
That’s a good principle for authors to bear in mind when thinking about how readers will judge their characters.
Originally shared by Neuroscience News
How People Judge Good From Bad
New research sheds light on how people decide whether behavior is moral or immoral.
I’ve read this author’s Zero Sum Game, and really disliked the main character. I would have disliked her just as much if she was a man, though.
It’s, on the whole, good advice here; I’d just caution that if you make the character unpleasant there will be people who aren’t into that, regardless of gender.
In your story, I mean. Do you know what words and phrases people used and, importantly, did not use during that time?
Google knows.
Originally shared by Karen Conlin
I was sure I’d written about this before, but no. So. Google Ngrams is a great, easy-to-use tool for finding the frequency of a word or phrase in printed material. Let’s say you want to know how popular the phrase “try and” is, compared to “try to.” You…
I remember a particular amateur editor who didn’t know English language nearly as well as she thought she did. I had to fight her in order to retain my style and voice in a short story I submitted to an anthology (and swore never again to participate in any project she was a part of).
Like V.S. Naipaul, I studied English language at university, so I was able to explain why some of her edits were incorrect; but a lot of it came down to “this is in my voice; don’t edit it so that it’s in yours”.
I have worked with a lot of editors, and the true professionals help me to bring the best out of my writing. They only suggest changes when things are unclear, misleading, or incorrect. I was an editor myself at one time, and it’s one of those professions in which, if you do your job well, nobody notices.
Originally shared by Alexander M Zoltai
V.S. Naipaul Writes an Enraged Letter to His Publisher After a Copy-Editor Revises His Book, A Turn in the South
This is a screenwriter, doing what writers do: turning an everyday event – a man running to catch a bus – into a suspenseful human drama.
Originally shared by Anne-Marie Clark
A great read, to the very end:
What follows is true.
August 15, 2018. DTLA.
So, this guy is walking down the street. A rumpled, stained, fast food uniform. Obviously just off a long day of serving ungrateful, hurried guests. But he knows self-care. He’s got himself an ice cream cone.
And he is in a state of nirvana. He’s enjoying this (I’m sure well deserved) ice cream cone like it’s the last one he’s ever gonna have. He is focused. No one has ever been this focused, except maybe Carlos Hathcock.
His focus is only broken by the sound of a bus… I watch him look, and see the realization come over his face – this bus is where he is headed with his delicious feast. And that there is no way he gets there before it leaves… unless he runs.
Now, our boy isn’t small. There’s some density here. There’s been other days of ice cream cone victories and solo pizza parties. But he’s going to try. Goddamn it, he’s going to try. So, our boy begins to run…
I’m sure even in lycra, sprinter’s cleats, and empty hands, our boy is only going to move this mass so fast. He’s got his backpack over one shoulder, and that glorious cone of delight in the other hand. And let me pause here to tell you, this isn’t just any cone.
This is one of those cones where the ice cream towers almost twice the length of the cone itself. It’s a balancing act. and just licking it still, let alone in medias res, would be a feat. If I’d be close enough to the bus I would’ve simply had the driver wait..
But I was watching all this unfold before me like a live action film, a broadway play on the streets of downtown LA. So, our boy is running, as much as he can run, because though he is running, his focus is the cone.
The cone is life. The cone is everything. He’s running, but only to the point where his speed does not upset the melting Matterhorn that is his entire existence right now. But he’s doing great! He’s found a rhythm that gives him maximum speed while keeping all sweets upright…
Until the curb. He trundles off the curb, crossing the street, and things nearly go south. He slows, bends, and pulls off this extraordinary move worthy of headlining Cirque du Soleil. My jaw drops, but his ice cream does not.
But the move to keep Life (I’ve named the ice cream cone “Life”) upright has cost our boy precious seconds. He regains his stride and is running again. Up onto the next sidewalk – the tail of the bus is in view now. He’s gonna make it!
And then our boy, and this is why I will love him forever, this is why I will be telling this story for years, our boy TAKES A LICK! He slows his pace again just enough to manage a full on semi-suck lick of Life. There’s other buses, but there will never be this cone again.
I catch myself wanting to scream, “GO!” I glance around to share this moment with someone. But no one, literally no one else is witnessing this episode of the human condition play out. I silently urge our boy on, and he is running again…
But the bus, unaware of the Herculean feats taking place behind it, is horrifically unaware. I see the black smoke from the exhaust, I hear the rumble as the driver guns the engine. I look to our boy – back to the bus – COME ON!!!
I believe this is true. Fated Heroes aren’t inherently more interesting, just easier.
You’ll sometimes hear writers say that writing an interesting story about X kind of person is impossible. (I’m aware of one prominent SF writer who has said that about women, for example.) This says more about their limitations as writers than it does about the people they won’t write about.
Originally shared by Amanda Patterson
Quotable – Mavis Gallant, born 11 August 1922, died 18 February 2014. Read more here: http://bit.ly/2hOeTYe
