On: You Can Run

[jmye]

Have you ever like, read books? Why on earth would you think the title of a piece needs to call to anything but a general emotion from the story?

> Wow, that was quite a lot of cryptic build-up.

Yes, they were building suspense and telling an interesting story. It's a long form article, not a 30-word tweet. Jesus.

[JRandomHacker42 → jmye]

I've seen this attitude on HN all the time - the concept of "a narrative hook" is apparently a foreign concept here

[simulator5g → JRandomHacker42]

Clickbaiters abused the concept of a hook until the hook itself was seen as clickbaity.

[natpalmer1776 → simulator5g]

Damn near a whole generation estranged from basic literary convention due to its horrendous abuse.

[nilslindemann → JRandomHacker42]

"Narrative hook" is more often than not a sign of a weak writer. The story could also have started with: "Before they learned that their father was a drug dealer, the following happened:"

[spaqin → jmye]

Usually a book title is a little more descriptive. And there's a synopsis or some other blurb on the back of the cover, to try to make you care a bit more than three words on a link on the front page of Hacker News.

[buildsjets → spaqin]

If you expect a book title to be descriptive, you will be very surprised to learn that Moby Dick is a story about a whale. Or the insatiable ego. Or something else.

[bee_rider → jmye]

It might be a nice truecrime story (I’m not sure actually, they aren’t my cup of tea). I read along figuring it’d have some HN-related twist eventually, but it didn’t. So I thought I’d provide a heads up.