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/lit/ - Literature

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17612180 No.17612180 [Reply] [Original]

If you write a story with sufficient sheer length and breadth, and make it popular enough, will readers ascribe a deep, overarching meaning and message to it, regardless of effective storytelling skill or structuring? Is the secret to creating compelling themes just adding in so many characters and plot threads that readers assume there must be some meaning to it?

>> No.17612208

>>17612180
You need to read the esoteric Pinhead Sagas to understand Homestuck, people often make the mistake of reading Accelerationist Retardist philosophy before reading Homestuck and because of that they don't get it

>> No.17612217

>>17612180
i'm not going to read homestuck and seek out homestuck fans to learn what they think of it. what deeper meaning do they ascribe to it and what specifically makes you feel it's unearned?

>> No.17612226

>>17612180
Yep, that's Infinite Jest.

>> No.17612228

No, because eventually (which will come sooner than later since everybody's attention spans have been shot to hell with the advent of the internet and social media), people will stop and ask themselves: "Why the I reading this?" You can plot and plan an infinitely complicated web of plot points and characters, but if there is no core message or theme in your story, people will see through it.

>> No.17612328

>>17612217
former hs fan here
it sucks
act 1 is the only good one

>> No.17612353

>>17612180
You just described most of the canon.

>> No.17612749

>>17612217
there's a lot of parallels and references to Gnostic mythology, some of the ancestor characters have pretty blatant connections to the New Testament as well. All this plus the philosophical stuff mentioned above, yeh. Most of it is just purely aesthetic, but due to how large it is it's very easy to make something bigger out of it if you like

>> No.17612766

>>17612180
Just write about whatever thing comes into your mind. The important thing is to write, for it will surely, in one form another, be expressive of what used to be called "the human condition."

>> No.17612774

>>17612180
Only if your prose is good. If you can write well then anything you do will be respected because it will just feel good to read it

>> No.17612794

>>17612766
For example, here's a crazy micro story I just improvised now (pardon the topic, I've just finished reading De Sade):

"Speaking of which, anyone here into collecting female scat just for the heck of it? I myself have a sizable collection of vacuumed samples from over a hundred ethots who are really strong "feeders" of this niche. I keep my collection in my furnished basement outside of the way of any strong sunlight which might degrade the samples. All the samples are as biographically complete as I've been able to make them: name; age; height; birthday; race/ethnicity; favorite pastimes; what they ate in order to make the sample; etc. You may ask, Why do this? The simple answer is I'm not entirely sure, tho I must admit it does contain a sexual dimension--at least in part. I know that my ethot vacuum-packed scat collection will never have any monetary value, but then neither do all those digital porn collections that so many of us maintain, and which we are, nevertheless, so loathe to part from. What got me started with this secret collecting of well-turned ethot turds is a rumour I came across in a Reddit conspiracy sub pertaining to the suspiciously untimely end of the beautiful and talented Marilyn Monroe. To make a long story short, the original poster made a link between the latter's sad fate and elements associated with the mafia: according to him the mafia had a side business of purveying the de luxe quality turds of Hollywood starlets, up and coming actresses, and the like to wealthy connoisseurs and collectors of what was then euphemistically called "night soil" or "night sausages." Howard Hughes was apparently one such collector and so was Walt Disney. In any case, I found this rumour intensely fascinating and it caused an itch to grow and grow inside my mind which eventually wormed its way into my pocketbook and the result is that I've spent thousands of dollars on the aforesaid well turned ethot turds. I'm extremely choosey in what I pay for as frankly I consider this activity on par with the collecting of other forms of art. Au revoir for now."

>> No.17612819

>>17612180
What is homestuck and why do all the arthoes hate it?

>> No.17612972

>>17612180
I read like 50 pages and nothing happened, so I can't say anything about Homestuck. But it's pretty easy to think of long works of fiction that are largely understood as meaningless, even by major fans. What is Dragon Ball "about?" The biggest fans will tell you it's about buff men screaming and punching each other.

Some texts have more going on thematically than others. And some fanbases/groups of people are likelier to analyze themes, regardless of how significant they are to the original text.

>> No.17613209

>>17612794
this sucks

>> No.17613222

>>17612819
because they loved it as children, but the creator was a figure that they grew to hate.

>> No.17613229

>>17612180
Wow, a homestuck thread in 2021.
Pretty based, in my humble opinion.
When it comes to HS's literary merit, it's nothing amazing, in my view. I don't think that nods to this and that mythology are meritable.

As for your specific question, I think that is the case. It's almost a form of "confidence trickery."

>> No.17613531

>>17612819
>four friends get a new computer game that turns their life into a vast RPG
>there are multiple timelines and universes
>in another universe is a group of twelve pieces of shit faggot losers meant to mock various aspects of the readership
>in another timelines is another version of everyone who can be used to either upend reader desires or provide fanservice as appeals to the random whims of the writer at that moment
>this is all overseen by a shitty artist in a big meta story
>artist wins and makes his epic anime Gainax ending
>some epilogue I never read

>> No.17613548

>>17613209
OP, I don't think so, both words and thoughts are limpid and clear.