Do Better
Posted on October 26th, 2025 in entry
“Video content overshadows prose.”
I see this opinion all the damned time. Most recently (a few minutes ago) it was a comment on a thread about multimedia online magazines (in reply to this post). And, as someone that fully intends to publish some of my stories, it pisses me right off. On the other hand, picking a fight on the internet is just going to end up hurting my brain, so I’ll just rant over here.
Look. If you want to write stories, and you’re worried that some other medium is going to overshadow them, go into another business. Seriously. If you’re afraid that moving pictures are going to get more views than your prose, then you obviously can’t write a scene that breathes. If you’re afraid that people are going to listen to mp3s instead of linking your shorts, then you probably can’t dialogue your way out of a wet paper bag.
But more people watch movies than read books.
Then write better.
But people are mindless sheep that don’t want to read.
Then write so damned well that they’ll have to.
If and when ever you say “some other content would overshadow my prose,” you’re basically saying “I don’t want to be judged, I just want to be consumed.” You don’t want to be read and enjoyed on your merit, not really — you want to have written something that was read because, well, there wasn’t a whole lot else going on.
You may, now that I think of it, have a career writing ad copy. Look into that.
Sidestep: That’s also why, in four days or so, people are going to start annoying the ever loving fuck out of me by posting Nanowrimo stats. So that, come December, they can say they’ve written a novel. It wasn’t, you know, great or anything. But if you don’t hold it up to any other content it’s still a whole lot of words. That counts, right?
Irene Kaoru
