The Otter theory of writers
Dec. 4th, 2008 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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otterdance, the Otter theory of writers. Because I can definitely think of a few people on my flist (and myself, occasionally) for whom this applies:
This is a variation on Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Otter Theory of Writers. Apparently, she read somewhere that it is not possible to use traditional methods of training animals on otters. When you train a dog, for instance, it does something you want, you give it a treat, and the dog thinks "She liked it! Great; I'll do it again!" When you do the same thing to an otter, though, the otter thinks "Wow! She liked it! Ohboy, this time I'm going to do something /even cooler!!!"/ Which of course is nothing at all like whatever you're trying to get the otter to do. Writers, says Teresa, are just like otters that way.)
We laugh because it's true.
otterdance, the Otter theory of writers. Because I can definitely think of a few people on my flist (and myself, occasionally) for whom this applies: This is a variation on Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Otter Theory of Writers. Apparently, she read somewhere that it is not possible to use traditional methods of training animals on otters. When you train a dog, for instance, it does something you want, you give it a treat, and the dog thinks "She liked it! Great; I'll do it again!" When you do the same thing to an otter, though, the otter thinks "Wow! She liked it! Ohboy, this time I'm going to do something /even cooler!!!"/ Which of course is nothing at all like whatever you're trying to get the otter to do. Writers, says Teresa, are just like otters that way.)
We laugh because it's true.
