Jason Toddman wrote:Well... hmmm... you evidently put a lot of effort of this, and i hate to criticize a new poster unduly harshly, but, well, to put it kindly, my first reaction to reading this was... WTF?!![]()
As will be the case with by far the majority of persons reading it. The Bible, which I can prove is true (please ask for my URL on this, if interested) tells us there are two classes of people in the world: those who Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who don't. And each of those classes finds the other "alien" to put it mildly, by nature. Those who don't believe in Him constitute the vast majority.
This is without a doubt one of the weirdest, most convoluted stories I have ever seen... here or anywhere. I'm still not sure what the hell it was all about (sounds more like a rabid religious rant than a TUGs story; especially after the first quarter of it or so)
Every story contains stuff that doesn't sound entirely TUG. I've found elsewhere that many who are interested in TUG are VERY interested in the realities behind it, some of which I was addressing (admittedly I didn't do the best job of it, because of my inexperience here, especially with the software). I've been asked questions many times about TUG and Christians, and I came here hoping for a chance to answer such questions. If there's no such audience in this group I will after a time leave; if there is, please consider that that audience also has a right to exist and communicate (so far, you seem to have done so: thank you!)
, or why the story text changes font colors virtually every paragraph. The colors don't seem to correlate with the speaker, or points-of-view (which themselves seem to shift randomly and it's often unclear who the heck is talking/thinking), or show any consistency i can detect whatsoever, and simply add confusion to what is already an extremely chaotic read.
You are very right; the coloring didn't come out as I wanted; but that's solely because of both my inexperience with the software; and because I felt rushed after being thrown back to square one numerous times. As above. I intended story-teller's comments to all be in green; David's comments in blue, Jackie's comments in heavy bold pink, and Anna's comments in light italic pink.
I thought, and still think, that is a better idea than no color coding which everyone else uses, as in the long run it avoids many extra words needed in identifying the speakers, such as "David then said," etc.
Much of it doesn't even seem to have much to do with TUGs after the first few paragraphs.
Then I think you were missing suggestions that were there. And again EVERY TUG story MUST include real life, which is not TUG specifically, if the author really has anything to say. There's a lot more involved in TUG, and there are different types of TUG, than just having every line specifically about it.
In my mind my TUG was a love story. A beautiful love story, in which a victim of a broken home and subsequently of quack psychiatry was saved by people who unlike everyone else showed and had real love to her. Beautiful people, and TUG was the tool involved in it.
I can't help but wonder if you were tripping out on acid when you wrote this!
FYI, I'm like Thomas Edison --- I have better use for my brain than to destroy it like that.
But again, thank you for your intimate comments.
Bob
Christ Died to Save You
bondagefreak wrote:Well...this story is definitely one of a kind, I'll grant it that.
In the years I've been here I've never seen anything like this.
I'm not gonna comment on the content, but Bob, please don't use a different font for each paragraph...it's extremely distracting and makes for a very chaotic text.
chadmc90 wrote:I can only agree with the above writers. The colors, especially the blue, is too much. Blue against a black background is the worst combination to use because it's simply too hard to read, especially for guys. If you are gonna use a color scheme, the blue needs to be changed. A much paler blue would even be better.
Jason Toddman wrote:chadmc90 wrote:I can only agree with the above writers. The colors, especially the blue, is too much. Blue against a black background is the worst combination to use because it's simply too hard to read, especially for guys. If you are gonna use a color scheme, the blue needs to be changed. A much paler blue would even be better.
Something is wrong if you're reading it against a black background. You may need to check your board setting or browser setting; as mine is a white background with a light blue framework.
bondagefreak wrote:Jason Toddman wrote:chadmc90 wrote:I can only agree with the above writers. The colors, especially the blue, is too much. Blue against a black background is the worst combination to use because it's simply too hard to read, especially for guys. If you are gonna use a color scheme, the blue needs to be changed. A much paler blue would even be better.
Something is wrong if you're reading it against a black background. You may need to check your board setting or browser setting; as mine is a white background with a light blue framework.
Nothing wrong with it Jason. In the User Control Panel, under "Board Preferences" you can choose which forum skin/style you prefer.
I too use the black and lime green skin (AKA "Lucid Lime"). IMO it's the sharpest of the avaiable choices.
Jason Toddman wrote:Those who don't believe in Him constitute the vast majority.
Ever think there's a perfectly good reason for that?
Oh, no: I never would have thought it. I'm 77, with a university degree in the sciences, a lay pastor for about 15 years, active in debates for years, a highschool science and Bible teacher for over 20 years . . . And the Bible deals directly and specifically with why, to that question, in at least 3 directed Passages.
I'm the one who approved your story. I almost didn't, it was such a chaotic mess. But finding nothing truly objectionable about it (such as i would have with, say, depiction of the rape of a child) I let it in. But I didn't read it very carefully;
Please, as a friend, I wish you would. There's more to it than "a chaotic mess" which you will not get, unless you do.
just enough to make sure it contained nothing that violated the rules. But for the most part the colors and the weirdness put me off and made my eyes glaze over.
Every story contains stuff that doesn't sound entirely TUG. I've found elsewhere that many who are interested in TUG are VERY interested in the realities behind it, some of which I was addressing (admittedly I didn't do the best job of it, because of my inexperience here, especially with the software). I've been asked questions many times about TUG and Christians, and I came here hoping for a chance to answer such questions. If there's no such audience in this group I will after a time leave; if there is, please consider that that audience also has a right to exist and communicate (so far, you seem to have done so: thank you!)
That is true; you and the audience do have that right. We also have the right to pass over you
It seems to me that these two statements are self contradictory
if we find your stories unappealing and comment on things we don't like about them. Hopefully none of us will be too rude about it, but if i were you I'd prepare myself for some harsh comments if your stories are all as hard to read through as this one is.
Then i suggest the next time you make a note of such ahead of time to us know. An alternate and clearer method might be to simply write it like a play. If David is speaking, write David: before his dialog. If the dialog is his thoughts instead of spoken, perhaps italics will make that clear. Might be easier than trying to color-coordinate your stories, and cosistency will make your stories less difficult to read.
I will hitherto try to adopt your suggestions: thank you. With some rare exceptions, where coding seems almost essential to me.
Could be; as I said I didn't do more than gloss over it to make sure there was nothing that violated the rules here; especially as it was 1 am when i saw the thing and was ready for bed!
As above, as a friend, please give it another shot!
Christ Died to Save You
The first two words are true enough; the rest i have my doubts about. But tell you what; don't try to re-convert me to Christianity and I won't try to tell you what my opinion of Christian "logic" really is.
Janet wrote:Jason Toddman wrote:Those who don't believe in Him constitute the vast majority.
Ever think there's a perfectly good reason for that?
Oh, no: I never would have thought it. I'm 77, with a university degree in the sciences, a lay pastor for about 15 years, active in debates for years, a highschool science and Bible teacher for over 20 years . . . And the Bible deals directly and specifically with why, to that question, in at least 3 directed Passages.
I'm the one who approved your story. I almost didn't, it was such a chaotic mess. But finding nothing truly objectionable about it (such as i would have with, say, depiction of the rape of a child) I let it in. But I didn't read it very carefully;
Please, as a friend, I wish you would. There's more to it than "a chaotic mess" which you will not get, unless you do.
just enough to make sure it contained nothing that violated the rules. But for the most part the colors and the weirdness put me off and made my eyes glaze over.
Every story contains stuff that doesn't sound entirely TUG. I've found elsewhere that many who are interested in TUG are VERY interested in the realities behind it, some of which I was addressing (admittedly I didn't do the best job of it, because of my inexperience here, especially with the software). I've been asked questions many times about TUG and Christians, and I came here hoping for a chance to answer such questions. If there's no such audience in this group I will after a time leave; if there is, please consider that that audience also has a right to exist and communicate (so far, you seem to have done so: thank you!)
That is true; you and the audience do have that right. We also have the right to pass over you
It seems to me that these two statements are self contradictory
if we find your stories unappealing and comment on things we don't like about them. Hopefully none of us will be too rude about it, but if i were you I'd prepare myself for some harsh comments if your stories are all as hard to read through as this one is.
Then i suggest the next time you make a note of such ahead of time to us know. An alternate and clearer method might be to simply write it like a play. If David is speaking, write David: before his dialog. If the dialog is his thoughts instead of spoken, perhaps italics will make that clear. Might be easier than trying to color-coordinate your stories, and cosistency will make your stories less difficult to read.
I will hitherto try to adopt your suggestions: thank you. With some rare exceptions, where coding seems almost essential to me.
Could be; as I said I didn't do more than gloss over it to make sure there was nothing that violated the rules here; especially as it was 1 am when i saw the thing and was ready for bed!
As above, as a friend, please give it another shot!
Christ Died to Save You
The first two words are true enough; the rest i have my doubts about. But tell you what; don't try to re-convert me to Christianity and I won't try to tell you what my opinion of Christian "logic" really is.
You're more than welcome to do so. I've received over 60 years of it; I can take it!
Your friend
Janet
Kyle wrote:I don't often comment on others' stories, but I feel kind of compelled to comment on this one and make a few remarks.
-The first thing I noticed, like everyone else, was the color, which simply didn't work out well. That's already been discussed so I won't rehash it very much, but I had to copy and paste it to Word and changed all the text to black to read it, otherwise I probably wouldn't have made it past the 3rd or 4th paragraph.
-Your writing style is kind of hard to understand. All the dancing around in the dialogue makes it hard to figure out who's speaking sometimes. It's nice to see a bit of character but I think it went a little too far.
Your kind criticism accepted --- thank you. I like your "it's nice to see a bit of character" which no one else noted. But I'm not convinced anyone else really read it at all, as a number of the critics admitted. As you've probably seen, I've informed Jason that I will seek to adopt his suggestions, largely, although I still think the color coding is best, if it hadn't gotten screwed up by my unfamiliarity with it, and being rushed, as I said.
-What I understand of the story, it had some promise, but I'll be honest, I'm not sure I completely understood what was going on (see the last comment).
-I'm a Christian myself, so the Christian discussion doesn't bother me personally.
The understatement of your second clause here is an interesting subject of discussion --- maybe later.
But I really can't figure out how all of this meant the main guy and girl are somehow married?
In order to avoid the false attack that the post was a "religious dialogue," etc, which it obviously was not, I would mention two things:
(1) This is a FICTIONAL TUG STORY. In such, there is no reason whatsoever to accuse the author of "preaching" what his fictional characters are saying. That is SOOO obvious; and yet totally ignored by ALL of the critics of it. (and for that matter, I'm told it belongs somewhere else. Pray tell, just where is that "somewhere else?")
(2) I didn't go into discussing PROOFS of any of the statements or beliefs made by the, again, fictional characters. This was deliberately because of the fact that if I had, it would look more like a "fundamentalist diatribe." It was NOT, contrary to their false and dishonest claims.
I say dishonest, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT!
The characters ARE depicted as real Christians, who do exist in the world, and who have every right to exist in the world, contrary to what all my vitriolic critics believe. What is wrong with that (I'm not asking you, of course, but them)?.
I feel like I must've missed something in the story somewhere.
As above, at the risk of repeating myself, you didn't --- I had left it out.
Also, this is a point I myself am not entirely sure of yet! At this time, I'm about 85% sure of it, from the Bible. Thank you for asking about it! If I could have your email addr, or some other way to answer this point I'd love to answer with my thoughts and studies on it.
But I do have to say, if you want to start a discussion about Christianity and TUGs, the General Chat is a better place for it.
But, unless I'm wrong (I haven't looked into that forum yet) it wouldn't allow "At The Old Barn" at all, would it? Which was the WHOLE reason for my coming here. THIS is one of the places where "every creature" is found, rather than there.
Somebody actually did start a similar topic some months back over there.
It was an interesting story, certainly unique. I don't think you have to change your entire writing style but it would be easier to understand what's going on if there were some differences.
One of my required courses as a certified teacher was "Advanced Composition," at University of Cal. at Davis. I made an A in it. I also scored a percentile in somewhere in the 80s in Writing, given to Graduate Students from the "Princeton Graduate Record Examinations" or something like that --- I've forgotten. With my background knowledge in those subjects, I remain of the opinion that the attackers of my writing ability don't know what they're talking about there, either. This is substantiated by a critical look at their own writings
Janet wrote:You: Most good and great writers I have known or heard of were always willing to listen to constructive feedback and try to examine and fix the flaws others saw in their writing styles.
I have already done this, at least 3 times. Why do you not acknowledge that fact?
Janet
Driverman wrote:This has been an interesting conversation. To chime in with my two cents worth...
Thank you Driverman --- appreciated.
I am also a professional writer,
And I am not . . . I only made reference to required courses and tests I had taken.
but as Jason noted about himself, I don't feel the need to boast about it or list my credentials
It is significant, I think, that this "boasting" was not addressed to Jason. And, to the person to whom I was writing, and in its context, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see it as boasting, but rather explanatory to that person's suggestion that he "didn't think it might be necessarily required that I adopt a different writing style . . ." Jason took those comments as to himself in his replies on the matter. The idea, to whom I was writing was, "What other writing style should I choose, and why? This is the style I was taught, and scored highly in (focus, etc)." I'm sorry it got lifted out of the context I spoke it in. And I continue this into your next statement . . .
and follow that with an arrogant statement that anyone critical of my work doesn't know what they are talking about.
That is NOT what I said! I had certain specific persons in mind, one in particular, and pardon me for not double checking on this, here, THAT is the way I put it. Your characterization is false. The difference, as Mark Twain once put it, "the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." And I don't doubt that you're well familiar with that, being a professional writer.
A good writer realizes that something as esoteric as this piece may have it's place in the world with a niche audience, but the general masses are going to be turned off by it. A writer worth their salt would also accept that rather than try to defend it in a back and forth that will go round and round 'til kingdom come. This piece will never appeal to a mass audience.
That is true of the whole website. Why pick on and single out me? What I wrote, IMO, was a beautiful love story involving TUG. Neither I nor anyone else should expect what they write to be well received --- even in this way-out forum. I HAD SOMETHING TO SAY; and as I said, as soon as I decide NO ONE wants to hear it, I'll be gone. I came here looking for friends of like interests, as we all do. So far, I think I've found one. That isn't good enough statistics to stay much longer.
I'm not going to get into the religion bit except to say that you are completely wrong about one point... I am a non-religious, non-spiritual person, and not once in my life have I thought of religious people as "alien" as you put it. People can believe however they want and it's no skin off my back, and I have respect for people who believe differently than I do. I would never attempt to categorize an entire group of people the way you did, nor would I ever say they are wrong and I am right. Again, that is arrogant.
To begin with, that is a statement of fact, found in numerous places in the Bible, the Word of God, Who made us, and the world. It is not my own characterization, although it has been vividly shown repeatedly here. People can include football, sports, opera, movies, politics, in their TUGs, fully blasting forth their opinions of all the same. And almost never do you hear (except perhaps for politics) the irrational hatred, scorn, etc you can see I have received because my fictitious characters were involved with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible. "The world will hate you; know that it hated Me first" It is not arrogant to point to truth, especially when it's as obvious to anyone who looks, as it is here.
Finally, I am curious, and if it's none of my business please tell me and I will let it go, but I noticed you signed your first response to Jason as "Bob" but you are "Janet" for you signature name and elsewhere. By which name should we refer to you?
Janet
Good luck to you and I hope you are able to find that niche audience that would appreciate your efforts!
Thank you! I think I've found possibly one, so far --- and that is about the ratio I expected at the beginning