(no subject)

[palominocorn]

Many years ago, I wrote a short chapter in which a character was forced into a terrifying, dangerous situation, and I demonstrated her anxiety by having the narration ramble and bounce around a lot, to invoke a feeling of confusion and disorientation in the reader.

My beta reader, instead of recognizing this as a stylistic choice, informed me the narration was disjointed and grammatically incorrect and told me to fix it.

Anyway, I was looking to see if anyone had interesting commentary on the latest Berserk chapter, and instead I found someone complaining about how disjointed it is. Yes! It's disjointed! That's the point! She's brainwashed and has her memories suppressed! She's being kept locked up and separated from the real world, she has no idea what's going on, she doesn't even know how much time is passing! The feelings of disorientation are THE POINT!

Comments

[scissorsevered]

People forget that writing is highly stylistic, just like art is. There are specific writing conventions to service specific types of stories, but there is no one-size-fits all style of writing. If people can't comprehend that then they are just lazy.

[palominocorn]

Yeah, seriously! The styles of a first-person romance, a tomato in the mirror thriller, and a grimdsrk fantasy are likely going to be very different! Heck, even within the same story, different characters and different scenes are going to have some difference, for maximum emotional impact. I distinctly remember reading A Clash of Kings and comparing the interspaced Tyrion and Sansa chapters during the Battle of the Blackwater, because the different vocabulary and syntax really made those chapters shine.

Overall I've noticed a trend over the last ten years, where readers (or watchers, players, etc for other media types) tend to assume discrepancies/deviations are plot holes (or otherwise mistakes on the part of the creator) rather than deliberate stylistic choices or foreshadowing or whatever. Very frustrating to be in fandom now compared to twenty years ago.