{"id":1216,"date":"2021-08-16T21:33:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T21:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2024-01-27T19:27:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T19:27:00","slug":"things-i-learned-from-2021-loft-essay-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2021\/08\/16\/things-i-learned-from-2021-loft-essay-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Things I learned from the 2021 Loft Essay course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-purple-color has-text-color wp-block-paragraph\"><em>16 August 2021<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Things to pay attention to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Telling details<\/strong>: One telling detail is preferable to many details<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Embodiment<\/strong>. Emotions and actions work best when embodied: gaze, gesture, posture, proprioception, proxemics<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Scenes<\/strong>. Scenes should vary in length, and be interleaved with summaries. This gives rhythm and weighting. Think of a scene as a spotlight.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Language: avoid \u2018to be\u2019s.<\/strong>&nbsp;Avoid \u201cis\u201d \u201care\u201d \u201chave\u201d etc. and limit use of adjectives.&nbsp;<br>\u201cTo be\u201d is the weakest verb. Not \u201c<em>He is tall<\/em>\u201d but \u201c<em>He smacked his head on the door frame<\/em>\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Language: avoid distancing<\/strong>: Avoid habitually using filtering\/distancing language such as \u201c<em>I noticed<\/em>,\u201d \u201c<em>I heard<\/em>,\u201d \u201c<em>I saw,<\/em>\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>(That said, sometimes you may want to use it to distance yourself, as when you are uncomfortable and don\u2019t want to be&nbsp;<em>in<\/em>&nbsp;it.)&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Language: avoid adverbs<\/strong>. Use actions and embodiment rather than adverbs:<br>\u201c<em>Yeah,\u201d she said, stroking his bare arm,<\/em>&nbsp;\u201cthat\u2019s what I heard.\u201d vs. \u201c<em>Yeah,\u201d she said gently, \u201cthat\u2019s what I heard.<\/em>\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Support reader inference.&nbsp;<\/strong>There is something about readers being able to figure something out on their own that is very rewarding.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Revising Tricks<\/strong>:&nbsp;<strong>Print it out<\/strong>&nbsp;in a&nbsp;different font.&nbsp;<strong>Read it out loud<\/strong>&nbsp;and notice where you stumble, speed up, lag, etc.&nbsp;<strong>Replace \u201cto be\u2019s\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Views: 16<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>16 August 2021 Things to pay attention to: Views: 16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,38,39,50,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal_notes","category-course_notes","category-craft-of-writing","category-things-ive-learned","category-things_to_try"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2940,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/2940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}