{"id":193,"date":"2015-09-04T09:28:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T14:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zachbarnesonwriting.wordpress.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2015-09-04T09:28:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T14:28:43","slug":"a-matter-of-diminishing-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zacharybarnes.us\/index.php\/2015\/09\/04\/a-matter-of-diminishing-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"A Matter of Diminishing Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I want to talk about diminishing returns,\u00a0vis-\u00e0-vis how not to be despised by your readers\u00a0to the detriment of your career.<\/p>\n

Diminishing returns, for those of you who are a little hazy on the concept, is the decrease of incremental per-unit return upon adding more of one factor of production.<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

If a farmer uses more and more fertilizer, after a certain point he will begin to see less and less return per unit of fertilizer, because there is a critical mass of effective, efficient fertilizer usage, and after that the fertilizer becomes more and more useless until the plants are literally smothered.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, writing shouldn’t ever involve math, but in this case, the law of diminishing returns is a good concept to follow on a grossly general scale.<\/p>\n

For instance: description is good up until a certain point, after which every additional word begins to lose effectiveness (less return [reader understanding\/enjoyment?] per word). \u00a0Now it begins to make a little more sense.<\/p>\n

I believe that this law is especially important when dealing with character pain (be it mental, physical, relationship-al, etcetera). \u00a0Character pain, as discussed in my last post, is purposeful so long as there is something being achieved. \u00a0BUT lo, there is a critical mass of character pain, after which you, dear author, will begin to look more and more like a sadistic bastard and the novel will become less and less enjoyable. \u00a0You are drowning your plants in fertilizer.<\/p>\n

\"Sad<\/a>
Sad Plant is sad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The problem is, is that this critical mass is variable from work to work (sounds like a cop-out, don’t it?) \u00a0Because of this, there are a few things to keep in mind:<\/p>\n