3.0 KiB
Sampling Bias (short story)
-
Author: u/VanPeer The shard made me do it*
-
Score: 22
-
Created: 2016-11-25T03:04:06
Post:
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.