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Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

This style of storytelling isn't nearly as useful as you imply. "I asked him what he was doing here," works just as well -- better! -- and saves us all the amateur reenactment.

Edit: I suspect there's something deeper going on here, which is that many of us have forgotten how to tell a story. Instead, we're just relaying what we remember of our own thoughts at the time. Instead of telling others what happened, we're reliving our own perspective of the experience in real time.

Related, I think, is this weird new way of writing in which people tell us that they "decided" to do something before relaying each thing that happened. For example:

"We decided to go to the beach for the day. After a while, we decided to grab some food. After lunch, we were all tired and decided to go home."

Just tell us that you went to the beach, ate some lunch, and then left. I understand implicitly that you had to decide to do each thing before you did it.

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"I asked him what he was doing here" is not the same. It is not necessarily better story-telling, as I think your edit implies.

How many kids books -- or novels of any kind -- have only passive descriptions of what people said, as opposed to actually quoting the characters' words? Quoting is certainly a form of storytelling, and can often convey emotion more succinctly than needing to spell it out.

"He was like 'okaaay...'" vs "He said it was ok, but in a sarcastic manner that implied he was not happy with it."

But, distinct from an actual quote, ("And I said to him, 'What are you doing here!'", per the other poster), the quotative-like allows narrator freedom in a way that a direct quotation doesn't. The listener doesn't expect the words to be a literal quote, rather, the sense of what was said is enough, allowing the narrator to simplify, or to exaggerate for emphasis or comedic effect.

How many kids books -- or novels of any kind -- have only passive descriptions of what people said

I should clarify that in the first case I was talking about oral storytelling. My second complaint more generally applies to the written word.

This is entirely subjective, of course, but my choice of the word reenactment was deliberate. Often, I'm not told what happened; I'm given a tedious play-by-play of both sides of the interaction.

    so I was like do you wanna see a movie
    and he was like I guess
    and I was like, what do you mean you guess
    and he's just like, I dunno, I guess
    and I'm like just tell me if you want to or not
    and he's all like get off my back
    and I'm all like I'm not on your back

10 minutes later what I've learned is that you had a fight about indecision; but I also got to see a horribly-acted one-man play!

That's what I'm complaining about, not, more generally, the use of quoting as a literary device.

You excluded the main object of the conversation. Even in your contrived example the main point he is trying to convey is his disdain with the other person, how they felt when this altercation happened. your summary doesn't have any of that.

What seems lost is synthesis and abstraction of ideas: you get unfocussed narrative with no concentration on the point.

This exactly summarizes the point I (maybe clumsily) was trying to make

Also, "And I said to him, 'What are you doing here!'"

It's subjective and entirely in my head, but the cadence of "I was like, what are you doing here?" feels so much better to me than your version. The like version feels youthful whereas yours is tired.

As always though, context is everything.

I actually completely agree, I would only use my version ("said to him") in formal/business settings where I am not very well-acquainted with the majority of listeners in the room!

But, I would probably stray from saying "and I was like, omg lol yes I will happily take your money" when I'm telling one VC about my last round of funding from another VC ;)

You could have just said, '"I asked him what he was doing here," works better and saves us all the amateur reenactment.' and saved us all the amateur dramatization.

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