A book I’ve been recently reading about writing has a really interesting perspective on something that I hadn’t thought about.

That is, most of the long form writing ideas that I have don’t have me as the only character. This book talks about making sure how you write reflects what’s your story versus what’s their story if there are multiple people involved.

I think what the author meant by that is both don’t bring in cursory details of the third-party that don’t need to be there, and also be respectful of the privacy and wishes of that party.
The interesting thing about this is thinking what’s a funny anecdote between two people… but doesn’t make sense out of context unless you go out of your way to explain it.

As I was chatting with my mom the other day, this is one of the things that I was saying to her how frustrating dating is as an adult because you have to rebuild lexicon with a new person from scratch.

You have to start from zero until you figure out what you have in common and then you can start getting some shared intellectual ground.

When you write, it’s the same idea. You have to assume that the reader has no clue what you’re talking about as your story progresses. And give them enough backing detail so they can imagine it themselves. But you never wanna just drown them in facts or unnecessary details.

That’s the thing that results in a horrible piece of work. A piece of something, anyway…