"Finally, for reasons. Next, to heal the driness of the place."

[larryhammer]

kateelliott on why "show don't tell" works:

Humans like to figure out other humans. We evolved to observe, interact, gossip, and create relationships. Creating a relationship between the characters is not all a novelist does. We as writers are also creating a relationship between the character and the reader.

Don't give us the adjectives of your conception of the character, give us the character in (inter)action.

And while I'm linking, I might as well plop in my current collection. A lot of long reading in this batch, for some reason:

• Another entry in the annals of obscure bar signs. Like the commentator, I'm quite taken with the sequence of connectives. Check out the potential source suggested in the comments.
  
  
• What caffeine actually does, neurochemically -- turns out, it's not a stimulant per se as a fatigue-receptor blocker. (via)
  
  
• Two articles on current theories of gender dysphoria (via forgotten) and differences (via).
  
  
• One article on the current research on how language shapes cognition, with sidenotes teasing out cultural influence. (via)
  
  
• On the increasing obsolescence of that technology known as "management", with sidenotes on the insufficiency of profit motives. (via forgotten)
  
  
• Examples of potential Swiss expansionism, with sidenotes on Libyan proposals to instead dismember the Confederation.
  
  
• "Editors ship, dammit." (via)
  
  
• It is possible to take 1000 origami cranes too far.
  
  
• Video of people watching a total solar eclipse.
  
  
• Porcupines make playful, if round, pets. Who knew?
  
  
• A field guide to typographic mustaches. I'm ludicrously fond of Mr. Oxford's 'stache. (via)
  
  
• I may have posted this before, but if so, this is a still pretty good paper airplane (uses A4 paper).
  
  
• Examples of various Japanese bows of apology. Including the one to do if you are a ninja who lost the secret message.

Even if, as I suspect, all of you are secretly ninja and so already know that. That I have no proof that any of you are ninja only goes to show how good you are at it.

---L.

Comments

[larryhammer]

*bows at 35°* Sore wa nai.