A piece of writing advice: even if Too Like The Lightning gave you the idea, The questions the readers have are “what does this idea mean?”, “what are some examples?”, and “how can I use it?”, not “where did the author come up with this idea?” Too Like the Lightning is not illuminating about any of the former questions (i.e. you don’t use it as a source of vivid examples), but it takes up nearly half your post.
It’s also a very short post. I think it is important to:
Cite the source,
Make clear that the source calls it an “anti-proof”,
Make clear that I think “co-proof” is better and why.
Beyond that, there’s:
Hat tip to Jacobian for recommending it,
Half of the second sentence praising the book more generally as a source of interesting ideas,
The second paragraph warning of the way in which this might be a spoiler if you draw a broad enough line around spoilers (which some people do),
The first sentence of the third paragraph, giving a bit of the context in which the term is used in the book.
Of these, the first three seem worth including to me, and including the small spoiler warning forces the book-related stuff to be before the main point of the post.
I’m curious where you draw your writing knowledge from that seems to consider “source of inspiration” to be, at best, superfluous information? I can’t say I’ve encountered such a guideline before. I suppose I could see an argument that such information doesn’t belong in a particular type of writing (like formal writing or technical writing), but that would then require this piece to be the specified type of writing, which I anticipate it likely is not.
Personally, I enjoy hearing about people’s sources of inspiration, because such a source might also be capable of providing inspiration to me. Thus, “Where did the author come up with this idea?” is certainly a question I could be said to have.
Given that, perhaps you are describing the questions you personally have, rather than those of all readers?
A piece of writing advice: even if Too Like The Lightning gave you the idea, The questions the readers have are “what does this idea mean?”, “what are some examples?”, and “how can I use it?”, not “where did the author come up with this idea?” Too Like the Lightning is not illuminating about any of the former questions (i.e. you don’t use it as a source of vivid examples), but it takes up nearly half your post.
It’s also a very short post. I think it is important to:
Cite the source,
Make clear that the source calls it an “anti-proof”,
Make clear that I think “co-proof” is better and why.
Beyond that, there’s:
Hat tip to Jacobian for recommending it,
Half of the second sentence praising the book more generally as a source of interesting ideas,
The second paragraph warning of the way in which this might be a spoiler if you draw a broad enough line around spoilers (which some people do),
The first sentence of the third paragraph, giving a bit of the context in which the term is used in the book.
Of these, the first three seem worth including to me, and including the small spoiler warning forces the book-related stuff to be before the main point of the post.
I’m curious where you draw your writing knowledge from that seems to consider “source of inspiration” to be, at best, superfluous information? I can’t say I’ve encountered such a guideline before. I suppose I could see an argument that such information doesn’t belong in a particular type of writing (like formal writing or technical writing), but that would then require this piece to be the specified type of writing, which I anticipate it likely is not.
Personally, I enjoy hearing about people’s sources of inspiration, because such a source might also be capable of providing inspiration to me. Thus, “Where did the author come up with this idea?” is certainly a question I could be said to have.
Given that, perhaps you are describing the questions you personally have, rather than those of all readers?