Moff's Law/Quotes

It's not over-analysis when every stray thought about the film has to be quashed lest you realize how stupid the movie is.

—Howard Tayler, Twitter

...I think this is a kind of catharsis. We generally want stories to make sense, and if we can’t make the story coherent then at least we can can gather up all the problems and catalog them in an orderly fashion, dangit!

—Shamus Young, discussing Mass Effect 2

There's Suspension Of Disbelief and then there's insulting my fucking intelligence.

—The Spoony One on the Wing Commander movie

As someone who has helped others with their writing, I'm often amazed at how much detail some writers insist on giving about trivial features of their characters, and how disinterested they are in sticking to them. Or maybe they don't realize that "Watchful eyes the shade of distant mountains" is not the same as "Mercurial irises as black and mysterious as the dark side of the moon."^[1]

—Response to a dismissal of the importance of Internal Consistency

Poster: The simple question is: did you have fun playing?
Other poster: The question, from a designer perspective, is never "did I have fun?". The question is, "Could this experience have been improved?". It is important with any work of media to ask, "What worked, and what didn't? How do the elements of this work combine to create a greater whole, and what elements feel out of place or dissonant?". (...) I am capable of enjoying an experience while thinking that it could be better.

—WarCraft: Technology and Setting on Spacebattles.com forum

Erik Scott de Bie: There's a difference between "this doesn't make sense" and "I don't like this." And what I'm reading from your guys' posts is more "I don't like this," which I totally understand. As I've said I have problems with it too. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense.
Wooly Rupert: Erik, I don't like it because it doesn't make sense to me. Risking your existence in a game, for something you may be able to achieve later if you wait, doesn't make sense. Starving the second your food is taken away doesn't make sense. Mortal magic brainwashing gods doesn't make sense.
Wooly Rupert: But I guess this is going to be another of those times that you and I simply agree to disagree. :)

— from Candlekeep forum, on certain "plot twists" of 4e Forgotten Realms.

Back to Moff's Law

↑ Two years helping with a writing workshop at the local library. NEVER. AGAIN.

[1] Two years helping with a writing workshop at the local library. NEVER. AGAIN.

[1]