FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
9hr ago
I recently read a book that started with "My mother was late to my birth".
What was the book?
The other day, I read this article from a literary agent-turned-novelist who made the point that a literary agent has to be hooked by a submission from the very first paragraph, and that, in her experience (and contrary to unpublished novelists' claims that their books "start slow, but get better later"), most books which didn't capture her interest from the first paragraph tended not to improve thereafter. She gave very specific instructions for how the first paragraph ought to grab the reader's attention: namely, surprises and discordances that provoke their curiosity, but without overwhelming them with weirdness.
It may seem like obvious advice, but for whatever reason, it prompted me to look at my novel with fresh eyes, and I think the opening needs to do more to grab the reader's attention. (Even if I didn't think that, no literary agent has yet requested the full thing, so I'll have to meet them halfway.) Fortunately, I came up with an idea for a new first paragraph to be inserted immediately before the old first paragraph, and the old first paragraph becomes the second paragraph, largely unchanged. Still need to finish editing the remainder of the manuscript to get it down to ~100k words.
I'd like to A/B test this to see if I'm on the right track, so if any of you would be interested in offering feedback on just the opening paragraph (without knowing if it's the old one or the new one), I'd really appreciate it. They're both no more than 300 words.
FtttG
15hr ago
I dislike the vast majority of discussions based around tribal politics (present company excluded)
I like to imagine that, at the best of times, we're one meta-level up, discussing the fact of tribal politics and why some topics or events acquire valence in the culture war while others don't. Whereas I assume most people asking you "are you a Democrat or a Republican?" just take it as read that their team is Good, the other team is Bad, and they want to know which team you're on.
it has to compete with writers like ARX-Han who are both more extremely online and willing to be actually edgy. I think Tulathiamutte is masterful in going right up to the limit of "safe edgy" that the uniformly-leftist literary scene will accept, and so he's able to scandalize without any unacceptable transgressions.
FtttG
16hr ago
I don't know about Fuentes in particular, but trans-identified males with far-right opinions are more common than you might think.
FtttG
18hr ago
Is he "coded as a white elite" too?
They considered him a race traitor.
FtttG
18hr ago
And it was great.
Out of curiosity – I assume you mean it was great for you? Presumably your girlfriend didn't remember it? Or did she?
I mean, yes. At the same time, the intros for 20th Century Fox, Universal, Columbia and Paramount are memorable in their own right, and people recognise them independently of any specific movie to which they are attached. If I start humming the 20th Century Fox fanfare (doo, doo-doo, dee-doo-dee-doo-dee doo, doo-doo...), I would expect most people in my vicinity to recognise it and be able to finish the melody. 20th Century Fox (among other film production companies) is a successful exercise in establishing a recognisable brand identity.
Asserting that people only go to see movies because of association with other movies/properties, and that the specific production and distribution company doesn't matter at all – well, is this how we talk about any other kind of commercial endeavour? If someone buys an iPhone and they've never owned an iPhone before, which of these more accurately describes their thought process before doing so?
- They developed a positive impression of iMacs, iPads, iPods completely independent of one another, and are buying an iPhone because it's "from the people who brought you iMacs, iPads, iPods", even though they couldn't name the specific company who made them.
- They have positive associations with Apple the company: the apple-with-a-bite-in-it logo (and its associated fonts, colour scheme etc.) essentially acts as a sort of seal of approval for any attached product.
Obviously buying a movie ticket isn't the same thing as buying a phone or a car: we put more stock in a "seal of quality" for expensive purchases than cheap ones, and I couldn't begin to tell you which production company produced some of my favourite movies. But in spite of that, when I see the 20th Century Fox intro before a movie, I expect a higher standard of quality and professionalism than I do when clicking on a YouTube video at random (in the same way that even a person who has never owned an Apple product before expects a higher standard of quality from an Apple product than the knockoff equivalent from Temu). The production and distribution companies responsible for a movie convey a nonzero amount of information to the consumer, audiences do not simply zone out before the opening credits start, and certain production and distribution companies have more cachet and status than others. A screenwriter who announced "I sold a script to 20th Century Fox" would attract more impressed looks than "I sold a script to Blumhouse", even if he sold it for the same sum.
Pretty rare to go see a movie because of a producer.
I would argue that the company which produces and/or distributes a movie acts as a sort of seal of approval: if a movie is preceded by the 20th Century Fox intro, people hold it to a higher standard than some video uploaded to YouTube. Many movies are in fact advertised based on who the production company and/or producer was, and quite a few were commercially successful:
- King Arthur was advertised as "From Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of Pirates of the Caribbean" and made $200 million on a $120 million budget.
- The Darkest Minds was advertised as being "from the producers of Stranger Things and Arrival" and made $40 million on a $35 million budget.
- Violent Night was advertised as "from the producer of Nobody and Bullet Train" and made $76 million on a $20 million budget.
- Barbarian was advertised as "From a producer of It and the executive producer of The Grudge and The Ring" and made its money back ten times over.
- M3GAN was advertised as "From James Wan, producer of Annabelle, and Blumhouse, producer of The Black Phone" and made its money back fifteen times over.
And those examples are just "from the producer of": I didn't even touch on "from the studio that brought you".
I'm not claiming that people went to see these movies purely on the basis of the producer's name recognition, or because the producer had previously produced a film they enjoyed. Obviously the usual traits that make a movie a commercial success count too: star power, a compelling hook, a memorable trailer, good reviews, positive word of mouth, star power (although I think it's telling that quite a few of those movies had no memorable stars and directors I'd never heard of). But I think you're understating the extent to which attaching the names of an established producer and production company to a film can help to get bums in seats.
FtttG
22hr ago
I spent literally hundreds of hours trying to beat the first game on Classic difficulty with Ironman enabled, and finally cracked it a few years ago, something that apparently only 2.2% of Steam players have done. (Some day I'd like to compile a nonstandard CV, featuring accomplishments that wouldn't impress any prospective employer but which I am inordinately proud of all the same.) The funny thing about XCOM is that the difficulty is very front-loaded: for the first ~20 hours you're in Early Game Hell and a single mistake can completely fuck you, but once you get past that, the endgame is a cakewalk and you can steamroll over the final boss without breaking a sweat.
I admit I may be skirting the edges of "Fun", but this story made me laugh:
Thai masseuse in Connemara stops taking male clients due to barrage of enquiries for sex services:
THE OWNER OF a Thai massage parlour in a small village in Connemara has stopped taking male clients due to the volume of enquiries seeking sexual services and “happy endings”.
Yosita Fitzpatrick, who is from Thailand, set up Connemara Thai Massage and Wellness in Letterfrack last November, but the certified massage therapist has since been shocked by the calls and messages she has received from men.
She has reported communications from several individuals to An Garda Síochána [Ireland's police service], and has posted screenshots of some offensive messages on social media in an effort to dissuade prospective callers.
However, Fitzpatrick continues to receive offensive enquiries asking for sexual services “pretty much daily”, and announced last week that she would only be taking female clients in future.
“I am fully aware that, in the eyes of the world, the phrase ‘Thai women’ evokes unfair and negative stereotypes – portraying us merely as objects of desire,” said the mother-of-two.
“The truth is far richer. Thailand has so much to offer, and Thai women possess value that cannot be confined to narrow, outdated perceptions.
“No one has a right to harass me simply because I am a Thai woman or because I own a massage business,” she said.
“I am a therapist. I heal people. This is what I love. It is my purpose, and I do not want to walk away from it.”
(Is it my imagination, or does the above quote sound suspiciously like something generated by an LLM?)
Fitzpatrick said it was a difficult decision to stop accepting male clients, as they comprise around 40% of her clientele, and there are “many respectful men” who will miss out because of the actions of a few.
She will continue to cater for her existing male clients.
Fitzpatrick claimed that other Thai massage therapists around the country are also subjected to the same harassment, but choose not to speak publicly about it.
She announced on her social media accounts last week that she would no longer be accepting male clients, and warned callers that inappropriate enquiries would be reported to gardaí and may be shared publicly.
Remarkably, however, she continues to receive calls and messages from men seeking sexual services on a daily basis.
On the one hand, legitimate massage therapists have every right to feel offended when they are mistaken for sex workers, and Fitzpatrick was right to report these men to the police. On the other hand, it's a simple factual statement that many massage therapists do provide the requested services, and that the ones that do are disproportionately likely to be of Thai or Filipino extraction. The bolded passage above ('there are “many respectful men” who will miss out because of the actions of a few') really illustrates how symmetrical the situation is: just as perfectly respectful men suffer because a minority are badly behaved, every massage therapist who offers sexual services negatively affects the reputation of the legitimate therapists who refuse to.
More than anything, though, I can't help but laugh at the hapless would-be punters/johns. A man who DMs a massage therapist directly requesting a happy ending is just asking to get arrested. Have these people learned nothing from the Epstein files? Never put anything incriminating in writing.
FtttG
23hr ago
I finished XCOM 2: War of the Chosen last night (strongly considering playing the base game on Ironman mode). Would you say it scratches that kind of itch?
It's an example of a forced meme, in which someone tries to astroturf something into popularity rather than it becoming popular through genuine organic means. Specifically it's a reference to the film Mean Girls, in which the character Gretchen keeps using the word "fetch" in conversation (as an adjective meaning "cool") in hopes of making it catch on.
C'est
EDIT: in French, but not in Italian. Serves me right for being a know-it-all.
you'll note that she doesn't look at all like your other examples.
The funny thing is, if you look at women I've dated, "women of colour" (to use that horrible phrase) are vastly overrepresented compared to white women. Zendaya is probably a lot closer in appearance (certainly in skin tone) to the median woman I've dated than Johannson, Smulders or Portman.
Even just comparing Zendaya to other female celebrities with comparable ethnic backgrounds (one white and one black parent), I'd say that Halle Berry, Meghan Markle, Lisa Bonet and Thandiwe Newton in their prime were more attractive than Zendaya. Which is not to say I don't find Zendaya attractive. Anyway, I'm sure I've made my point.
FtttG
1d ago
Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).
I agree that the people calling Zendaya ugly are overdoing it: by any metric she's a pretty girl. But I'd hardly call her a 10/10. In fact, I think part of the basis of her appeal is that she has a certain girl-next-door quality that makes her seem approachable and down-to-earth: a nerdy MCU fan projecting himself onto Tom Holland could imagine himself dating Zendaya in a way he couldn't with (to pick a handful of her MCU costars) Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman or Cobie Smulders. I think any of these women (in their prime) would be considered more attractive than Zendaya by just about everyone.
FtttG
1d ago
The baby-rapist is a canard invented
A convicted baby-rapist was murdered in a UK prison just four months ago, where he was serving a sentence for the attempted rape of multiple babies. Not "ten days shy of their eighteenth birthday", not even young teenagers: literal, unironic babies.
On 19 December 2012, Watkins was charged at Cardiff magistrates court with conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a one-year-old girl... His victims included a baby boy.
Baby-rapists exist. Perhaps they only represent a small minority of all people convicted of statutory rape, but it's not open for discussion that they do exist. They are not a "canard" or a blood libel designed to shame otherwise well-behaved ephebophiles and pederasts.
Getting a 403 error, might want to update the privacy settings.
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