{"id":15589,"date":"2024-08-28T22:57:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T14:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=15589"},"modified":"2025-01-13T23:58:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T15:58:36","slug":"look-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/look-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"you can look it up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The idea for this post came up mid-conversation with @neuranne<\/a> when I was telling her about how inspired I was by an audio essay @ronenv<\/a> spoke for me about the history of TV<\/a>. Ronen spoke for at least an hour telling a very compelling story about the history of media, some of the major players involved, the moves that were made, and so on. And what was striking to me was how much I enjoyed reading it, even though some details were fuzzy since he was speaking off the top of his head (Was it Sony or Paramount that bought the Alamo Drafthouse? What was the name of the guy who wrote The Wire? David… something.) It didn’t bother me in the slightest as a listener\/reader that not all the details were perfect. There were so many good details as it is. And, as I was telling Anne-Laure, if I wanted to know the details, I could look them up.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We both laughed about it a bunch in the context of our conversation, which will be hard for me to recreate from memory, but basically the point was that as authors and creators it’s so easy for us to preemptively get hung up about getting all of the details right. And sometimes it’s tempting to start doing more research, and then to overwhelm the reader with all of what we’ve learned from all our research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here I’m reminded of one of the best things I’ve ever read about writing, via excellent science writer @CarlZimmer<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/t.co\/UF5BXQMMDD<\/a><\/p>— Visa is doing marketing consults (see pinned!) (@visakanv) June 21, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>