Some example snippets of prose I've enjoyed-and-found-effective, in this context, plus snippets of commentary on points-of-effectiveness that particularly stick out at me:
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:
Harry was looking at a large dust ball with eyes and feet when the assassin swept into the room.
That was the first thought that crossed Harry's mind when he saw Professor Severus Snape. There was something quiet and deadly about the way the man stalked between the children's desks. His robes were unkempt, his hair spotted and greasy. There was something about him that seemed reminiscent of Lucius, although the two of them looked nothing remotely alike, and you got the impression that where Lucius would kill you with flawless elegance, this man would simply kill you.
Establishes an evocative image of Snape's aesthetic, both visually and behaviorally. Also the contrast drawn between "kill you with flawless elegance" and "kill you" is a neat bit of play with descriptive negative space, fun in its own right in addition to its effect in contributing to the aforementioned image.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Project Lawful:
Are the six Malik suspicious?Ā How could they not be?Ā But the messenger does not bid them follow on the spot, only assemble in a meeting-place they know but have not visited, a small intimate pavilion whose price for one night's revelry is famously a thousand platinum coins.Ā Even in the City of Brass where Efreet and Malik do vie to show their pride and wealth, it is a significant expense.Ā With twenty such nights you could buy a Wish-diamond, even at its fair price in Brass from one Efreeti to another.
If it's a trick or a trap, it's an expensive-enough one that it would be dishonorable not to spring it, to leave their enemy forlorn at the altar after such grandiose preparation that honors them by this expense.
Effective use of unusual register, with 'bid them' and 'do vie' and so forth, to lend a sense of grandiosity to its description. The "forlorn at the altar" description gestures at interesting cultural norms regarding how emnity is viewed, synergizing well with the broader paragraph's indication of how enmity is conducted in the relevant culture.
Groon the Walker, Taylor Hebert, Harem Protagonist:
Faerie and I walked unmolested for a time, sun now well-risen above the horizon, until we came to the Boardwalk, and passed it, heading towards the beach. It was a section of beach by the Boardwalk, and therefore not covered in trash like some others.
The inference from "by the Boardwalk" to "therefore not covered in trash" is a nice little punch of implicit worldbuilding, relayed concisely-and-impactfully.
Groon the Walker, The Erogamer:
You dismiss the pink-violet text, and turn right at the red light on the next street corner. There's no walk sign so you don't try to jaywalk to the other side of the street, even though it's a major street that you need to cross eventually to get home. There's no cars audible, but there could be a black-painted electric vehicle with no headlights zipping quietly along, if you try to cross against the light. You could be hit by something you never saw coming. You'll need to cross this street sooner or later, but not right now.
For now you're just walking down this side of the street to the next intersection, where if the next cross-light still looks red, you'll need to make this choice again. And again. Again and again until you take the risk of jaywalking or you see a light that looks green.
You could also press the pedestrian walk button that turns the cross-light green. Just reach out and flick your finger against the button. But you know you're not going to do that. That seems like a much worse idea than just staying on this side of the street for another dozen blocks. Okay, this part of the metaphor doesn't map well onto raising your stats.
And then on a sudden impulse you halt in the middle of the sidewalk, look both ways for cars, and quickly skip over the street to the other side.
It feels just like you thought it would. Making a big deal out of crossing the street turned it into a psychological burden. Skipping to the other side felt nice because you didn't have to worry about it anymore.
On the other hand, you did not actually get run over by a black-painted electric car. This is a key fact about why you felt better afterward. If you'd been run over by a car just then, you'd probably have taken a lot of Lyfts going forwards and maybe ended up with a permanent fear of street-crossings.
Neat mapping of the narrator's immediate experiences onto her broader-and-more-abstract worries about the situation she's in. Simultaneously helps advance the plot along, via the narrator thinking through the question of how she should interact with certain plot-events, and characterizes the narrator via the specifics of the metaphor she's thinking it through with and the ways in which she interacts with that metaphor. Plus more micro-scale enjoyable writing around e.g. the repetition-to-effective-rhetorical-effect of "again" in the quote's second paragraph.
Jenna Moran, Glitch: A Story of the Not:
To miracle at something you must be able to identify it. Uniquely. You cannot miracle at the Smothers Brother. Or the Olsen Twin. You cannot miracle at the moon of Pluto. You cannot even miracle at the wall.
You must know which wall you mean. At least in your inner heart.
It is fine to skirt this rule. It is fine to blast āwhatever is over there.ā It is fine to dig out āany information that I can find.ā It is fine to throw a miracle at the first moon of Pluto that you see.
But āthe Smothers Brotherā ā¦ that is ambiguous.
Ambiguity is not correct.
Delightful nonstandard-but-nonetheless-clear use of 'miracle' as a verb. Similarly-delightful choices of examples, 'the Smothers Brother' and so forth, which are effective at sounding obviously-incorrect-when-phrased-that-way in an amusing-as-opposed-to-merely-blandly-demonstrative way. In general, very characterful conveyance of expository text, without this characterfulness compromising the text's clarity-of-meaning.
Jenna Moran, Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine:
If youāre being overwhelmed by a power of the Bleak Academy, you can pivot from death to a defining moment by spelling out what you believe in. Give a dramatic monologue that says what youāre gambling on in the face of death, what youāre putting your faith, love, or trust ināand then take a risk in the name of that belief.
Or as much as a risk as you can, anywayāyou might not have anything left to lose!
In an epic fantasy, or an adventure fantasy, or any game where the players and the HG find your monologue cool enough to allow this, you can turn a dramatic monologue like that into:
- aĀ Science, Faith, and Sorcery Action
- aĀ Decisive ActionĀ or
- a possible resolution to a blue Issue
ā¦and then the HG has to stop and think about what youāve done.
They canāt just go with their first reaction, whether thatās āthat canāt possibly stop this attackā or āyay, you win.ā They have to take a moment to let your monologue sink in to their consciousness in peace.
ThenĀ they decide.
And look. Sometimes theyāll decide against you, you know? This wonāt always save you. Sometimes itāll even doom you. Sometimes itāll even take away whatever little other chances you might have had.
Thatās what itĀ meansĀ that youāre gambling.
Thatās what it means that even faith and love and trust, even solid scientific conjecture, and certainly sorcery are risks.
But itĀ couldĀ save you.
And if the HG decides that yeah, this saves you, that overrides all the rest of the rules on what beats what.
Effective conveyance of the direness of the sorts of situations the rule is meant to apply in, via the "you might not have anything left to lose" line and the "whatever little other chances you might have had" line. Effective-and-concise capture of a certain sort of standard fiction-scene, in the prior paragraph's description of the monologue-and-then-take-a-risk formula. Good use of register to make the text feel more casual-and-cozy than one would typically expect this sort of expository text to be, with the "you know?" and the "yeah" and so forth. Nice rhetorical styling with the repetition of "that's what it means" in the paragraphs near the end, and more broadly with the use of many short paragraphs in that section to encourage dwelling a bit more on each paragraph's associated thought than I expect I'd do if they were refactored into being merely sentences within a broader paragraph.
Nasu Kinoko, Fate/stay night (Mirror Moon translation):
I'm not too sure what we talked about after that.
We talked about meaningless things:
What she likes to eat, what she doesn't like to eat, how she likes birds and hates cats, how she likes snow and hates the cold, how she wants to play but can't, and how she doesn't like her maids but wants to like them.
Ilya looks happy just to be talking.
She is sitting on the bench, eating the taiyaki, and swinging her legs.
ā¦She looks like a child waiting for her father's return.
The third paragraph does some nice invocation of internal tensions in Illya's tastes to quickly build up a sense of three-dimensional characterization around her, while the specific examples of what she brings up help emphasize specific details of her character (living in a rich-but-restrictive household environment in a cold region). The surrounding paragraphs about her happiness with meaningless-and-unmemorable-to-the-narrator conversation do a good job of showing (as opposed to telling) her loneliness. Then the last couple paragraphs, of physical/behavioral description, help tie off that impression with connection to a familiar sort of body-language-associated-with-that-psychology, the imagery resonating with the abstract-shape-of-conversation in mutually-reinforcing manner.
Nasu Kinoko, Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon- (Tsukihimates translation):
I take a side street off the main road.
Rather than a street, it's a blind spot between buildings.
There are no human figures here.
There is no noise.
There are no signs of life.
Just a rustling sound coming from deep within.
The lights of the vending machines are too bright.
Too many conveniences of civilization, incongruous to this place.
It is too dazzling, so I walk past it.
I turn my feet to the gloomier, more appropriate darkness of the night.
Lots of sensory detail helping to quickly evoke an immersive image of the alleyway the narrator is walking in. Plus, in the course of conveying that sensory detail, bundled-in indication of the narrator's mental state, with his finding the vending machines 'too bright' and the dark 'appropriate'.
