The angles and positioning of its windows and roofing made everyday dim. The rest of town could be spending their day swimming, jumping over sprinklers, and sipping lemonade under parasols, and yet while inside this house, such conditions would feel about as real as a TV ad.
Ivan watched a lot of TV. Or rather a lot of
Netflix
that streamed through the TV in the living room. Netflix didn't come with ads, but Ivan remembered having to watch ads as a kid. Something about them felt disingenuous. Images ungrounded in substance being sold within a snapshot slot of time. You couldn't blame the creators could you? With that short of time what can you hope to accomplish anyways. Maybe they did a hell of a better job given their constraints. Perhaps there was something to learn by studying ads. Ivan thought about going to
Youtube
to 'study' ads, but couldn't find the enough motivation to get off the couch before the moment passed.
Instead he lay there to complete the 12 or so minutes remaining on the episode of
Breaking Bad
. After that he told himself he would get off the couch. Not to go watch ads on Youtube but to go do something different than lay on the couch staring at images of people fighting over drugs and stressful family drama.
As the end drew nearer the goal of getting off the couch felt more distant. He would need to think about something exciting to galvanize him to get up. Something more exciting than ads on Youtube. Something more exciting than just a desire to no longer be on the couch watching yet another episode of Breaking Bad.
Ads. There was something there. Maybe if Netflix displayed ads he would have moments to escape the binge beckoning allure. Go do something else. Suddenly, although he didn't want to or didn't think he had the energy to he jumped up and turned off the television. There was still some time left in the episode but he knew that once the screen was off he would be free.
In the dim silence he realized that he had been right. Once the TV was off and he was on his feet, he had no allure to go back to what he was doing. The entertainment itself was not the addicting thing. If that were the case then as soon as the screen turned black he would be itching to press the power button to make the pixels dance again. But he had no such drive.
Feeling a little bit better, he took this opportunity to clean off the coffee table. When he was returning a bag of chips to the kitchen the light from the outside caught his eyes through the window. It was such a blue, sunny day. The kind to paint the perfect summer day. The kind of image you would use to sell an overground pool at the store.
Ivan thought about what he should do. He should call Cara. She had a VCR. He wanted to watch an old videotape. She would be down for that, he thought.
Is it me or does everyone's author do details and descriptions the same way? I have read 3 wirte-ups for this weeks assignment and in each case I say to myself - this is how Scott Adams would write. In the sense that it is vivid and makes the reader get a detailed picture of what is going on. For whatever reason, I never knew about this before working on this assignment. But I feel it while I read your piece.
Lol you must elaborate more on 'do author's do details and descriptions in the same way?' because I am in complete disagreement.
While talking with Andrew this week of
Echo and Narcissus
club -- he's echoing
Paul Graham
we could tell immediately that Graham was very minimalist when it came to details.
And I have never thought while reading any of the other assignments that this is how
Scott Adams
would write except for your assignments!
Lol... I must be the one who is new to descriptions and details then. I read 2 people's write up and my own..... what I got from the week's assignment was that we need to be very detailed and make people feel like they were there witnessing things on their own. I never realized that aspect to writing before... maybe because I didn't think of writing fiction... learning a lot.
While talking with Andrew this week of
And I have never thought while reading any of the other assignments that this is how