So, I've had three calls today where my client has had to ask me to ask their client to cut their answers short because they were going off on amazingly varied and lengthy tangents. me ~ "Ma'am, your name please." client ~ "Well, in 1492, Christopher Columbus came over on the...." It's very typical for people of my culture to give veeeeeerrryyyy lengthy answers to any question. You can ask a yes or no question, but you ain't gonna' get a yes or no answer. Nope, not gonna' happen. So, as I was laughing over this and explaining this to one of my frustrated clients (we call it culture brokering) I began to wonder if, as people who are interested in being storytellers and writers, do we as a community do the same thing when we are talking to others regardless of our culture of origin? Discuss at your leisure.
Even though I enjoy writing I'm not much of a talker in person or online. I rarely type a post that goes over two lines even if I intend to be thorough.
One of the reasons I don't post as much in the more theory-heavy boards like General Writing and Plot Creation is that whenever I find myself writing a post in one of those threads, I take into consideration a range of conditions and exceptions and examples and... well, soon I realise to say everything I wanted it would be so long it wouldn't be so much a contribution to a discussion as an essay. I blame my educational background- my program in the Humanities challenged me to look at every question with multiple dimensions and different view points. Even this, I see, is taking forever to say that yes it takes me a damn long time to answer a question.
I don't think that for me it has to do with liking writing or storytelling so much as it depends on the subject of the question and who's asking. If my friends ask me about something I know a lot about, they probably wish I'd shut up. Even if it's a subject I haven't a clue about, I'll still give a lengthy answer just because. But if a stranger where to ask me about anything, I keep it to a minimum, nodding or shaking my head, not elaborating on anything unless they specifically ask. That said I like to explain myself thoroughly. So if I think I'm on a complicated subject I just might go on and on no matter who I'm talking to.
I almost always give lengthy answers. But that's usually because there's some sort of fact I want to share, and a story I want to tell. Which brings up other stories, and, well, I'm a mess.
Oh, lengthy, most of the time. I'm still paying off my seven-hour phone call bill. Verizon charges 49 cents / minute after you go over your limit. I didnt know that. It was monetary rape! I'll be succinct if I really cant stand the person though.
I'm almost always short and to the point, more so in real life than on the board though. I have run into at least one writer who was very long-winded, so much that by the time he finished talking to me I wanted to yell "Screw Unity of Purpose," because he'd spent an hour lecturing me about it when he could have just said "You should combine the first and second scenes," and gone on with the review. Actually, most of the writers I've met tend to be quiet in conversation, but verbose while writing.
It depends on what I'm talking about. I talk a lot, but when I'm trying to explain something to someone, I try to be to the point. However, a lot of the time when I'm trying to tell a story about something that happened to me or something that I saw, I tend to get pretty lengthy. Sometimes Joel has to cut me off and remind me what I was supposed to be telling him.
If I have time to edit, I am typically brief. If telling a story aloud, I ramble. If answering a question aloud, I ask more questions. And, poor friends, if I am telling joke, I mangle it with tangents.
lol, we have an Indian rebuke-puri ram kahani mat batao, bas ye batao Ravan ko kisne maara or in other words, don't recite the whole Ramayan, just tell me who killed Ravan. We have a tendency of telling everything about the question but leaving the real answer until the very end. That's why we have -ve marking in tests sometimes because teachers want to train us to give to the point answers.
I have copy-pasted this rebuke to a file on my computer that I might practice to say it perfectly on the correct occasion. Thanks!
ha...be sure to get the pronounciation right... There's another....puri Ramayan pad di, aur ab pucha Ram kaun? or in other words, The whole Ramayan has been read, and now you're asking who's Ram? Did you understand that?
like, sometimes, when the math's teacher has explained the derivation and everything of the Pythagorean Theorem, and he gets to the question...well after the question has been solved a student asks the Teacher...."Sir why did we apply b to the power 2 + p to the power two equals h to the power two?" Then the teacher will say, " puri Ramayan pad di aur ab tum puch rahe ho ki Ram kaun?" Now, you get what I mean?
That's a long answer? You should try interviewing fanatics, who must constantly reiterate every part of their philosophy and why it is important before they ask you to repeat the question...
being long-winded has nothing to do with whether or not one is a writer [or aspires to be one]... just as some writers are over-wordy in their writing, some talkers are the same in their speaking... it's a personality trait, not an occupational one... btw, i couldn't answer your poll, because it left out an important choice: 'I sometimes give lengthy answers depending on what is being asked.'
I tend to vary the length of my response according to how much I like talking to the person. Lots of people I know require an annoying amount of repetition and (what I consider) over-explaining. This irks me which means I enjoy the conversation less and I tend to give them the sketch. The more I'm enjoying a conversation, the more involved my responses are.
