## Sampling Bias (short story)

* Author: u/VanPeer  *The shard made me do it**
* URL: https://vanpeerblog.wordpress.com/sampling-bias/
* Score: 22

* Created: 2016-11-25T03:04:06

### Post:

[Link to content](https://vanpeerblog.wordpress.com/sampling-bias/)

### Comments:

> **u/CouteauBleu** [+6]  *We are the Empire.* (a day later)
> 
> Meh. I feel the story takes way too much time to get to its central point, and the universe feels... I don't know, warped around it? Like someone writing Little Red Riding Hood with 30+ pages, and every one of the 28 first pages is setting up the Important Lesson that you learn when Red is eaten by the wolf at the end.

>> **u/VanPeer** [+2]  *The shard made me do it* (a day later)
>> 
>> I agree, unfortunately. I did not intend for it be so long winded, since I prefer to get the point across in 2000 words. But stories tend to run away from me when I write them, and when I went back to review it I couldn't figure out how to shorten it without seeming too direct and preachy, despite getting the same feeling as you did.

>>> **u/CouteauBleu** [+3]  *We are the Empire.* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> I guess my main problem with it is, most of the story and dialogues sort of build a coherent world? But then the climax seems extremely contrived and unlikely.
>>> 
>>> As in, the protagonist meets a legendary dragon whose race is supposed to be almost extinct, far from the place these dragons are supposed to be, right after getting the sort-of-life-changing advice from the wizard AND right after talking about this specific kind of dragon?
>>> 
>>> That aside, I'm also not much of a fan of the "protagonist learns an Important Piece of Wisdom, then immediately gets an occasion to use it / see its value in real life" trope. In real life, transforming epistemology into visible results is hard and progress is usually indistinguishable from confirmation bias.

>>>> **u/VanPeer** [+2]  *The shard made me do it* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> It is contrived, no doubt about that. The reason I thought I could pull it off was because the MC gets information from the future in the form a Seer's vision which sort of clues him to the Important Piece of Wisdom. If it still seems contrived, then the failure is mine.
>>>> Thanks for confirming some of my misgivings. I'll try to avoid this particular failure mode in the future.

> **u/Lugnut1206** [+3]  (13 hours later)
> 
> Ugh, I love all of these.

>> **u/VanPeer** [+3]  *The shard made me do it* (15 hours later)
>> 
>> Glad you liked it (I think. I am unsure if 'Ugh' represents positive or negative feedback! )

> **u/Ristridin1** [+3]  (16 hours later)
> 
> > “Then what do you have to loose?” Forwin shouted. Bestla stared at him.
> 
> The word 'loose' should be 'lose'. Unless this was supposed to be a very subtle pun on 'loosing an arrow' that I didn't get.

>> **u/VanPeer** [+2]  *The shard made me do it* (16 hours later)
>> 
>> Fixed, thanks !
>> This is embarrassing since I keep making this error despite my brother pointing this out once before.

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