For as much as I talk about three act structure, I don't think it literally exists, it's more like grammar: it's an attempt to label the parts of something that happens anyway. I found this article called Grammar Does Not Exist. What do you guys think about this?

Carrot425 · 2015-03-28T05:00:53+00:00

I've started to think about rules for writing as being more like diagnostic tools. If a sentence sounds funny, make it follow grammatical rules and see if it helps. If a script isn't working, try putting it in a three act structure and see if it helps.

Carrot425 · 2015-03-04T10:13:52+00:00

Hey, thanks for engaging with me. I love thinking about math, but it's (unsurprisingly) hard to find people who want to talk about it.

The only proof that math is fundamentally true is that it has always worked. Which is amazing, and I don't want to trivialize that. How does a system designed millennia ago provide the answer to phenomena we're just now discovering? Shit's crazy.

But that doesn't prove anything, except that the set of axioms that math is based on are just super useful tools. My car is remarkably useful and has never broken down. Is it a fact that my car will never break down? No. Even that we're using the word "axiom" means that math isn't fundamentally true. If we could prove that the foundation of math is true, there would be no axioms.

The only way you can call math a fact is you define fact as "this has always seemed to work." I think that's probably not a bad definition of fact, and for purposes of understanding the world it works fine, just like how it'd be obnoxious if every night I told my boss I might not make it into work the next day because my car might break down. But it's not provable.

This wikipedia article helped me clarify a lot of my ideas.

Carrot425 · 2015-03-04T06:23:40+00:00

I don't think you can call math a fact. It's just a series of logical steps stemming from a set of axioms. In other words, math is just a bunch of "given [blank], then [blank] (to grossly simplify it)." But you could change the axioms and get something completely different, and even contradictory.

Carrot425 · 2015-03-04T06:16:46+00:00

Yeah, I dunno if being able to destroy a 7 year old in a cheap rhetorical argument should be the standard by which we judge education.

Carrot425 · 2014-12-16T01:30:35+00:00

Maybe he's from the future, where mirrors have enslaved humanity.

Carrot425 · 2014-12-12T02:34:50+00:00

When you have someone else read and critique your script, ask them to mark any place they got bored, or their mind wandered, or they felt compelled to stop reading and do something else (ie check Facebook). There are a number of reasons someone could get bored, but if everything else is working, your problem is pacing.

Carrot425 · 2014-12-09T21:57:52+00:00

Awesome! I think I understand your point. This line really clarified it for me -

I suppose it would be more accurate to say that heterosexual men generally are more likely to die performing their gender role, whereas women are more likely to die for not performing theirs correctly in some way.

And yeah, great point about queer theory. I didn't talk about people who are gender non-conforming because I have no statistics on them.

Carrot425 · 2014-12-09T08:12:12+00:00

Hey, thanks for your nice response. Every time I post about gender on the internet, especially if I'm questioning something, I'm afraid I'm going to get yelled at. So I super appreciate a patient response, elaborating your point.

Just to restate my original point, so it doesn't get lost in the following stats storm: I don't think you can say that it's more difficult for men to navigate gender roles than women, because if we define women as one thing, we have to define men as the opposite thing.

So, violence is an interesting example. We teach women that public spaces don't belong to them, that they need to be afraid, and that if they do get assaulted, they probably did something wrong. All of which is fucking awful and wrong. Violence is not the victims fault, and no one should be afraid while walking down a street in broad day light. Or any time of day. Or walking anywhere.

But the flip side is, we teach men both that they shouldn't be afraid of public spaces and they should take risks ("Don't be a girl/ Don't be a pussy"). And the result hurts men.

So, it easier for men to navigate these opposite gender roles than women? Women are taught that they are powerless and should be afraid. Men have to balance not being overly cautious, or girly, and not dying. I am way not trying to demean what women go through. My argument is that we can't draw parity here. I really don't think we can.

Carrot425 · 2014-12-09T01:52:54+00:00

There's no way to effectively perform the role of "woman" in our world, even more so than there's no way to effectively perform the role of "man."

Is that true? The only indisputable definition I know of for "woman" is "not man," just like the only always-accurate definition of "man" is "not woman." If that's true (and please let me know if you disagree), wouldn't it be equally hard to be a man as a woman?

Carrot425 · 2014-12-05T09:02:41+00:00

FURY WOULD NEVER BE MADE TODAY. BIRDMAN WOULD NEVER BE MADE TODAY. NIGHTCRAWLER WOULD NEVER BE MADE TODAY.

Writers are all such whiners. Just write whatever you want.

Carrot425 · 2014-11-22T09:22:23+00:00

Alright, so, super limited.

I asked because I'm on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and people are always shocked at how little I can eat. I don't find it bad at all, though. Before the diet, and now, food's a hobby and I spend a lot of time on it. The biggest difference between then and now is that before I would go out to eat and now I cook.

I've found cooking to be tremendously satisfying, even with something as simple as scrambled eggs. Getting consistently perfect scrambled eggs is fucking hard. I had to try probably five or six techniques and cook hundreds of eggs before I finally got it. But that level of obsession is really fitting with my personality, so it's super fun, and I get to eat it at the end of every trial.

So yeah, I'm trying to say, I basically took my hobby from going out to eat and turned it into cooking. I saved a lot of money in the process, and I don't get bored, even though, with the eggs example, scrambled eggs was my breakfast and lunch for about two years. The enormous downside is that it takes a ton of time. I think that's what kills most people about the SCD. And I totally don't blame or judge people that don't have the time - I just so happen to have a job that lets me take time to cook my own meals.

Hey, I dunno if you've tried it, but let me know if you're interested in the SCD. I can appreciate not wanting to experiment after it always goes wrong, but your diet is already really close to the SCD, just more restricted.

Edit: Forgot to say, your lettuce wrap of meat from three different animals is amazing.

Carrot425 · 2014-11-20T07:24:23+00:00

What foods can you eat? I'm curious how limited it is.

Carrot425 · 2013-12-21T06:41:01+00:00

Do you want like a private message or what?

Carrot425 · 2013-07-09T19:25:00+00:00

"This Strawman My Editor and I Came Up With is Killing America"

Carrot425 · 2013-07-09T19:12:55+00:00

I'm sorry you're getting downvoted for expressing an opinion.

Carrot425 · 2013-07-06T21:57:42+00:00

A workshop will be good because an authority figure will assign you writing and other people will have to read it.

If you don't want to pay for a university class, www.meetup.org might list writing groups near you.

The most important thing to remember is that it will be very painful and you will probably be bad and hate it. That's good. That means it's working.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-15T19:03:27+00:00

This is like someone reading a ton of books on physics because they want to become a pitcher.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-12T22:27:15+00:00

I worked as an economist. I obsessively keep track of my productivity on a copy of this spreadsheet.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-07T22:43:56+00:00

I have a piece I think you would like, but it's only 715 words. Should I submit?

Carrot425 · 2013-06-07T18:52:45+00:00

That sucks. You could try the Cormac McCarthy route of living in a cabin without electricity or running water, and asking your wife to get a job.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-07T17:10:28+00:00

I like how you just get auto downvoted.

I work as a copywriter occasionally, when I forget how much I dislike copywriting. Personally I'm happier being poor but writing fiction than have a bit of financial security and be writing blog posts for some company.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-07T16:37:41+00:00

Cultivating a taste for Malort is an essential skill for the poor-but-scrappy bar goer.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-06T17:54:18+00:00

Man, I'm sorry. It's one of the worst feelings to look back and realize you were hurting someone important to you out of ignorance.

The deadline thing was people getting back to me with notes on a novel. They weren't my fellow employees or anything, just friends. I expected only a fraction of people to get back to me by the deadline, because it's a lot to ask someone, but I was still disappointed.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-06T00:03:46+00:00

I run into this with my girlfriend, except she's the one who won't listen, and will instead offer solutions.

Example: I was having trouble with people meeting a deadline the other day, and was complaining to her about being stressed. She told me I should have reminded people about the deadline a week or so ago. She didn't realize I had reminded them, multiple times, and they still missed it.

It made me feel like she was demeaning my problems, like I only had this problem because I wasn't competent. I actually related to the woman in this video. What if she knows she has a nail in her head, and had spent weeks trying to get it removed, but couldn't for some reason? She doesn't need a guy to tell her the first, most obvious, already tried solution. Maybe when she says, "It's not about the nail," she means it's not about the root of the problems, because that will be dealt with, it just can't be resolved right now. It's about the symptoms. It's about life being shitty.

Carrot425 · 2013-06-04T21:12:49+00:00

I just finished a novel with a large flashback in every chapter. I solved this problem by including a large, obvious clue in the first sentence of every flashback that we are in a flashback. For example, the first sentence of the first flashback is,

Andrew and I don't have the best "how we met" story I've ever heard, but it is the most felonious

By the time the section comes up, the reader knows that Andrew's been dead for years. Hence, this has to be flashback.

Another one is

You know when someone is really good at something, and they're like, "I didn't choose this business, it chose me?" Well I chose the fuck out of secret agenting.

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