PERSPECTIVE
Narrative Engine
Write it like you stole it
JON INGOLD
We localise everything, and in Spanish every English sentence will balloon like a magnificent pair of trousers
So I played a game today that opened with a paragraph of prose roughly as long as the observable universe. When it started, I had a sense that it might be about to describe something – and by the end of it, I think it had, but quite what and why I couldn’t say. Somewhere around the Oort Cloud I evolved into a six-legged newtlike being incapable of reading, and only the black hole of the closing period brought me back from the brink.
Perhaps I’m old and grumpy but I just don’t have the concentration for flowery writing any more. It’s not that I can’t reedgud; it’s more like I’ve read most sentences at least once now so I only want a reminder of which one this one is. Rain, for instance, can be wet, damp or spitty, it doesn’t need to cascade in glorious sheets (a sheet flutters or slices depending on its material, and there’s nothing glorious about it either way). The sun can be hot; baking is for Mr Kipling. Meanwhile, outer space is not cold, or desolate, it simply isn’t there.