"It's all relative" - really, what does this mean?

Specifically as it refers to writing, each new project (if considered 'artistic writing'), has its own set of rules and situations that it sets up, making writing advice very contextual and subjective. Thus it is 'relative' to the individual work.

A lot of times people ask broad writing questions that will garner a bunch of different opinions on how to solve the issue, but it depends on the individual work. So the broadness of the question might be inappropriate, then, if the poster is looking for specifics.

Am I on-base here with your question? I might be misunderstanding.

butterfly said:

If I say "the older one gets and remains single the better chance they have of staying single" and someone replies with "it's all relative" what have they said?

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That it actually depends on the person and the circumstances. That's how I'd take it.

"It's all relative" means one size does not fit all when it comes to human beings. What is true for one person is not necessarily true for another.

For example, Stephen King says writers should never outline, that it kills the scene dead on the page.

Robert McKee says outline every story exhaustively before you write a word of it, because none of us are good enough at killing our darlings after the fact.

Which is the right approach for you? It's all relative; it depends on you -- on who you are and how you write and how much time you have to write and a thousand other variables that make your situation unique.

When a person says, "It's all relative," they're saying they can give good advice about what is effective for them, but that they realize it may not prove good advice for somebody else.

"It's all relative," is just an admission that everyone's different.

I think the phrase once had a fairly specific meaning. I've grown tired of it because (in my experience) it's been overused to the point of trying to deny objective standards of almost any sort.

To me, the phrase (properly used) means that the subject being discussed, or a point within it, is subjective. So a building might be tall... until you compare it to the Sears Tower (and no, don't bother "correcting" me about it being the Willis Tower. That's blasphemy. ). That's being relative.

butterfly said:

Yes, you are on base. I think what I'm understanding is that in order to have a conversation or discussion the details need to be revealed.

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Well, I would say posting a bit of writing in SYW will be much more helpful than going to basic writing questions and asking "How do I show instead of tell?" or something. You'll get the basic idea of what it is but if you're looking for examples of a specific way to apply the advice, giving an example of your "showing" might be easier and more rewarding.

butterfly said:

If I say "the older one gets and remains single the better chance they have of staying single" and someone replies with "it's all relative" what have they said?

This is quickly becoming an unfavorite choice of words.

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To me, it just means they've used the phrase poorly. Used in this in this way, relative is a comparison, and without something clear to compare, the phrase is meaningless.

"It's all relative" is one of those annoying, nonsensical nothings, like "it is what it is." People use them without thinking believing they said someone prophetic.

IRL, I agree with shadowferret, it is an annoying thing most people say to sound smart. The following response has specifically to do with writing (which is what I thought we were talking about since we're in the AW forums):

Overused, yes, like any cliche.

But I do think there's some sense to it, applied correctly. Like jj said, if you ask whether or not you should outline your novel, you'll get another one of those God-awful long-winded debates here. Why? Because the method used would be relative to the mindset of the person using it. There aren't many absolutes in this kind of writing, despite the forum's title name.

Why do we have these long debates over and over? Because the people arguing have used their particular method and they're thinking "What is this wanker saying, my method works! I've seen it work! What they do could never possibly work (because it wouldn't work for me)!"

It's easy to say it's all relative or it depends, but it's equally easy to say my method fits all sizes. I've seen both used fairly liberally, honestly. I prefer the "what works works" clause over anything too restricting. At least with the former someone will try more solutions, and at least learn what doesn't work for them through experience.

As I said, I really think the best way to gauge your situation is for someone to see the actual writing (maybe this is what show don't tell should mean). Otherwise, at least a few of us will give you the "one size doesn't fit all" response. We'll try to help, too, but acknowledging this fact as a caveat isn't insane or annoying. Especially to new members who may not have considered they have their own individual path to follow--in a place where writing advice is rampant and varied, it is easy to get wrapped up in the opinions of others.

I do understand that these kinds of vagueries appear here often, and seem like a lazy response. But sometimes they're the most honest, in threads where at least one person will post their opinion like gospel.

I think people often say "It's all relative" as a shorthand for "I'm not sure how helpful that generalization is in this particular case."

Fact is everything is relative. Problem is English is a low context language that ONLY takes the sentence being spoken or written into consideration. Never what went before nor what is happing or will happen.

Not all spoken languages are like this and no visual gestural language is.

So the problem is context. What is context? Simple, the time, place, and setting in which an event occurs, the people involved in the event, the event itself, etc.

Switching context has to be done carefully, but can be done to great effect. To see a really great example of altering context as a series progresses read The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Assumptions you make in the first chapters are overturned by the end of the book. Assumptions that seemed correct at the end of the last book are overturned in the following book. All because the context in which events took place have been altered.

In The Stand Stephen King starts with a horror story in the context of "science gone wrong" and at the end switches over to the context of Christianity as a stand is made against The Devil.

In order to understand anything you have to understand the context in which it exists. In order to manipulate anything you have to manipulate something in the context.

A lot of people do use the phrase "Its all relative" without a clue to its real meaning. I always ask, "relative to what, specifically?"