You buy a book. You read it and put it on your shelf. You never really want to read it again.
This is familiar, even more familiar with shorter pieces. If the book is a novel, there's a chance you'll reread it. Or if it's a textbook.
Much less so if it's not a book. If it's a pamphlet. Or if it's a daily newspaper. There's no need to ever look at either again.
Why?
Because there isn't enough there, and because what is there is not so moving.
Things are different with other media.
Take music. Music is different.
Music has a much higher information density, even though it's non-verbal content.
Music's content is non-verbal.
And music's content is mostly emotional.
Music is different from writing. Writing is linear. Even though you can jump around in a text, any place you put your eyes requires linear effort. And you have to work at understanding what you're doing.
Music is non-verbal. Even music with lyrics added. Lyrics are more like seasoning than the meat of the meal. Since music is non-verbal, it doesn't require thought. We can appreciate music with the non-rational parts of our minds.
Since music's content is mainly emotional, this aspect reinforces the non-linear, non-verbal aspects.
And music is dense. Even the notes of a single instrument are made of complex sounds. Add more instruments, add time, and you have a rich enfolding and layering of sounds and rhythms that interact in complex ways.
All of this plays out differently each time that a given piece is performed, even if it's a recorded piece, because it depends on the listener's mood, freshness, state of mind, and location at the time of listening.
Motion pictures are similar to music.
Compare a motion picture to a still photo. Different. No doubt about that. The still photo is more like a short short story, the motion picture to a long novel.
There's a still starker contrast comparing a motion picture to a piece of writing. No contest. You can watch a movie many times over and enjoy it each time, getting more and more from it. Not so much from a written plot outline.
And to enhance motion pictures even more, they can contain music. They are more like life, and no matter what, no matter who you are, life is something that no one tires of.
To write well you need to have lots of information complex ideas expressed simply the telling of involved stories imagery conjuring visual and other imagery emotion...(See? I'm still working on it.)
Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@gmail.com
Me? Reconsidering the role of mail order in life as she is lived.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals