less is more

Words complicate things. Liars use more words than necessary. A wordy explanation could leave your listeners confused, a succinct one clarifies. That is why exercises like hamletin6 are so valuable. They forces to to reevaluate what something is and what it means to you. To be able to summarize long novels with multiple themes and ideas in a few words is no easy feat. Although it's not recommended to write essays in a couple of words, it could be useful to review and to think about what a text really means. You have to really think about the story and the underlying morals to be able to summarize a book in six words or less.


In this post, I'll take it to the next level. Here are a few one word summaries of novels we've read before. They are a bit more abstract than six word summaries, but they work just the same.

The Oedipus cycle: Fate
Oedipus tried to run from what was inevitable, and paid the price for it. He couldn't escape his fate, but in the end learned to accept it.

The Jungle: Need
Jurgis and the family always needed something, whether it be coal or food. They always had a need, therefore always needed to do something.

The Scarlet Letter: Pride
Pride kept Hester strong. Pride kept the Scarlet Letter on her blouse and turned it into a symbol of something other.

You know what's cool? Bow ties are cool.

Recently, the Doctor Who Christmas special aired. Probably on Christmas day. I won't bore you with the details, but here's quick summary.

1. dr sad
2. dr visit humans
3. human like dr
4. human get in trubble 
5. dr saves the day
6. human dies (again)
7. Clara Oswin Oswald

That is the basis of most Doctor Who episodes. However, I've noticed a trend T.V shows and this show in particular. There are episodes that serve only to further the overarching story line. In the long run this makes the show awesome, but it can make the episode bad. Bottle episodes.

Character or story development episodes aren't necessarily bad, just usually. When writers focus on one thing, the episode itself, great things can happen. Shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy don't exactly have an overarching story line. The writers focus on what is happening in the episode and usually that leads to good thing.

This problem only plagues some shows. Doctor Who is a sci-fi action-adventure program and every episode should have action-adventure. If the writers focused on the big picture, smaller episodes wouldn't matter very much. If the writers focused on each individual episode, the show wouldn't be as great as it could possibly be. The creators and writers chose this burden and must live with it, to make the show great.