| 1 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=zjvqmhqg22vea17yunocfhoi |
| 2 | %% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | [[quoteright:340:[[Creator/KatrinSalyers https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wall_of_text_1664.gif]]]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:340:tl;dr lol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ->''"Shakespeare wrote that 'brevity is the soul of wit.' He did not then add 'unless you're writing a webcomic.' It applies to everything, and don't tell me you're arrogant enough to claim to know better than Shakespeare."'' |
| 8 | -->-- '''[[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]]''' |
| 9 | |
| 10 | %%Do not deliberately rewrite this article to be a Self Demonstrating Article. Spare us.%% |
| 11 | |
| 12 | A paragraph should ideally be a smooth, succinct experience that goes through a bit of exposition, illustrates an idea, sums up the point, and primes the reader for the next paragraph. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Ideally. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | In practice, a writer can get too caught up in all the things they have to say and fail to organize it all into bits an ordinary human being would be able to digest. The end result is a huge run-on paragraph that makes it difficult to recall the original point of it if there was one in the first place. The reader's eyes glaze over and all they see is a [[TitleDrop wall of text.]] |
| 17 | |
| 18 | This afflicts all written media, but it is particularly infamous for its effect on ComicBooks. One of the first things learned in comics is how to use dialogue bubbles effectively; a writer not allocating space carefully will end up covering their panel with a bunch of text and white space. Eventually, the reader will realize that they're primarily looking at plain text rather than the vivid form of visual storytelling that comic books are famed for. TL;DR indeed. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | At best, a Wall of Text is just a signal of really heavy exposition. At worst, they are a warning sign that the author is [[AuthorFilibuster soapboxing about something]]. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Like a lot of tropes, though, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools even this isn't necessarily a hopeless evil]]. There are occasions where a person will go on and on in real life, or perhaps is giving one huge, unbroken speech or rant, and for these cases, "walls of text" aren't necessarily a terrible formatting idea; they can help [[PaintingTheFourthWall visually reinforce what's happening in the story]] and match the experience of the reader to the experience in-universe. Using it like this, though, still requires skill and finesse to avoid making just another negative example. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | In older times (For an example, in early medieval and earlier), walls of texts used to be far more common. This was partly because writing medium was more expensive and because value of text formatting was not deemed that important. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | SpeakingInPanels is often a way to evade this trope while recounting what happened. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | If SpeechBubblesInterruption are used to show it's not being listened to, see WallOfBlather. If the text is ''literally'' written on a wall in-universe, it might be a RoomFullOfCrazy. See ReadTheFinePrint if these kinds of text actually contain very important information. OminousMultipleScreens is sort-of the video equivalent. Compare {{Doorstopper}}, usually related to works that are literally nothing but words. SisterTrope of {{Textplosion}}, when this happens in {{comics}} media rather than written media. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | %% The next thing to Self-Demonstrating Article... |
| 31 | TV Tropes [[Administrivia/WallOfText is not immune to this phenomenon]]. |
| 32 | ---- |
| 33 | !!Examples |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 38 | * [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] in the Mac ad [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXiLCsbz9Hc Legal Copy]] when PC starts making claims about his performance, causing a disclaimer to appear on-screen. Said disclaimer becomes bigger and bigger throughout the commercial, ending with PC saying "[=PCs=] are now 100% trouble-free!" causing the disclaimer to fill the whole screen. |
| 39 | * Funnily enough, in Anglophone print advertisements from the [[TheRoaringTwenties 1920s]] through to about the [[TheSixties 1960s]], the use of these was actually fairly common. It varied tremendously depending on the ad and the product, but it wasn't uncommon at all [[https://www.cappersfarmer.com/humor-and-nostalgia/news-briefs-old-advertisements-1927-zm0z1811zcoo/ to see ad copy that could make use of huge paragraphs]], or even if it was multiple paragraphs, to have the written copy take up most of the page. This style of ad copy gradually fell out of favor in the following few decades, and ultimately ended up as a DeadHorseTrope by the time TheNineties rolled around. |
| 40 | [[/folder]] |
| 41 | |
| 42 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 43 | * A meta-example happens in ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu''. The class takes a trip out to the local forests in order for the students to draw artworks of nature. One of the professors who accompanies the students constantly goes on a wild tangent discussing the philosophical relationships between science, nature, art, and well... let's just say a lot of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness Big Words]] are used in a very, [[MotorMouth very fast manner.]] The official subtitles literally take up the '''ENTIRE SCREEN''' when he's ranting. |
| 44 | * While the red, [[BiggerIsBetter bold]] text in ''Anime/KillLaKill'' doesn't cover the entire screen at times, it displays so much, it covers a good portion of the episode time. Especially, the last one. |
| 45 | * ''Manga/{{Moyashimon}}'': Prof. Itsuki is prone to [[CharacterFilibuster long educational monologues]] on fermented foods and his studies in bioremediation, and a RunningGag is other characters being squeezed awkwardly together in the face of his massive speech balloons. |
| 46 | * ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': Izuku Midoriya, when he goes in-depth about his analyses, has been known to accidentally cause these; at one point, when telling Pro Hero Endeavor about what skills he wants to improve on in his internship, the transcript for his explanation takes up much of the space[[note]]which is [[TooLongDidntDub left in Japanese in both the original manga and the anime]][[/note]] in the scene/ panel. Fortunately, Endeavor understands the main idea. |
| 47 | * This is Tsugumi Ohba's CreatorThumbprint. Reading a single chapter of anything they've written is a kind of mental workout, as every last word [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail will be important to keep up with the plot]]. By comparison, their latest work, ''Manga/PlatinumEnd'', downplays the amount of the dialogue, but not by a ''whole'' lot. |
| 48 | ** The ''Manga/DeathNote'' manga can be particularly guilty of this at times. In the later volumes of the manga, the characters spend a ton of time out-thinking each other in a 3-way cat-and-mouse game, and all of the text used for that can be jarring, even though it's essential. To make it worse, it's complex enough that, if you blink and miss a crucial detail, you're totally lost. |
| 49 | ** ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' can be wordier than ''Death Note'', to the point that chapters often boil down to the heroes talking about manga. |
| 50 | * ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': The "Information Available For Public Disclosure" eyecatches can usually be read in the short pause, but the Episode 25 one is quite long, [[FreezeFrameBonus and is only readable if you're able to pause it]]. It's a story about a miner that sought to tunnel under Wall Sina to live there, working harder and harder at his goal. [[spoiler: [[ShaggyDogStory He goes missing after telling a friend about it, then sometime after everyone searches for him the friend disappears, too]]. It's unclear whether the Wall Cult or Internal Military Police disposed of them or whether the Titans within the Walls ate them.]] |
| 51 | * ''Manga/CaseClosed'' more often than not features walls (and walls and walls) of text while [[PullTheThread pulling the thread]] to reveal who did it. |
| 52 | * ''Manga/TheKindaichiCaseFiles'' can be jvery wordy, but he has the courtesy to break up his walls of text. |
| 53 | * ''Manga/HunterXHunter'': It's very common for author Creator/YoshihiroTogashi to flood readers with ''huge'' passages of dialogue in his installments of the manga, as he likes to be incredibly crafty, cerebral, and thorough with the way he thinks out his story, covering things from all angles and trying very hard to avoid making anything seem poorly thought out or approached without examining all important points of a situation. What happens in the end is you get a comprehensive analysis of each little detail that can give you eyestrain. And boy, does he get comprehensive on us. Some fans have even noted that they think they need PHD's just to understand some of the most complicated fight scenes. |
| 54 | * ''Manga/LevelE'' contains a couple examples of this. And yes, you have to read them all (or at least skim them) to understand the plot that is going on. |
| 55 | * ''Manga/LiarGame'' is mostly a story about [[TheChessmaster chessmasters]] who try to beat each other in different "games" to see who is the best MagnificentBastard. To do so, they use [[ThePlan gambits after gambits]] based on game theories, psychology, economics, social studies and more. While they take the time to explain everything clearly, [[ViewersAreGeniuses a certain knowledge of these subjects greatly helps to understand.]] |
| 56 | * ''Manga/MedakaBox'''s Mukae Emukae, immediately after being introduced in chapter 60 and meeting one of the main characters, Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, delivers a monologue via [[https://i.imgur.com/5j936BO.png double-page spread]], consisting of four massive text bubbles the size of your hand, going on and on about how she wants to marry Hitoyoshi and have babies with him and have a nice big house and some pets and…. When Zenkichi tries to leave, she immediately [[IfICantHaveYou impales Hitoyoshi's foot with a cleaver so he can't move]]. |
| 57 | ** A staggering example of this trope occurs when Anshin'in, a goddess with quadrillions of named skills, uses 100 skills apiece to defeat six enemies in six consecutive full-page panels. Each panel is composed of three elements: Anshin'in, her beaten enemy and, surrounding them, the ''names and descriptions of the one hundred skills she used'' ([[https://i.imgur.com/DVAw04l.jpg example]]). Each list of skills -- sword skills, martial art skills, magic skills, mental skills, biological skills and "boss skills" -- takes a few minutes to read, but is increasingly impressive. |
| 58 | * ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' often falls into this, and even plays this one for comedy once, having Yue go off on lengthy ExpoSpeak tangents only to discover no one was listening. |
| 59 | ** Hakase also goes into a long rant with a speech bubble the size of your fist filled with tiny writing where she babbles to herself about Chachamaru's emotions. |
| 60 | ** Also when a scared-stiff Yue described the various impossibilities of the really, really big wyvern that was just about to eat her and Nodoka, ending with, "wait, what am I saying?" |
| 61 | * PlayedForLaughs in a ''Manga/SoulEater'' extra chapter (later adapted into an anime BreatherEpisode) with [[SmallNameBigEgo Excalibur]] giving another rambling story which takes up half a page that the author ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall specifically tells us]]'' to skip because it's [[PhraseCatcher so annoying.]] |
| 62 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou''. After a chapter devoted to each of the current girlfriends telling Rentarou all the things they love about him, Rentarou fires back with a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZdqeTD_INY massive page covering list of every single thing there is to love about them]]. The entire monologue is represented as a two-page spread consisting of almost nothing but two gigantic speech bubbles (completely filled, with quite small print) and a single drawing of Rentarou sandwiched between them. |
| 63 | * ''Manga/CipherAcademy'': |
| 64 | ** The climax of the code battle between Tayu and Iroha takes the form of a single image split between four pages, with a wall of questions from Tayu on one side and a wall of answers from Iroha on the other. |
| 65 | ** The complete solution to the murder mystery game is given in this way--as text in tiny letters taking up half a page, along with a LampshadeHanging from Kogoe about how the mystery game's finale would take too long to present in any other way. |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 69 | * ''ComicBook/{{Warrior}}'': The short-lived comic, based on [[ProfessionalWrestling pro wrestler]] The Wrestling/UltimateWarrior, was filled from cover to cover with walls of text, much of it consisting of incomprehensible, made-up jargon. Much of the text centers on Warrior's strange pseudo-philosophy that's quite out there. To see just how crazy and nonsensical it is, almost to the point it is hard to believe it could exist. Making it worse was that sometimes it's printed in font colors that are unreadable on the background color. The sheer volume of text and its insane, babbling nature really can't be overstated here. There's a text box for the crazy narrator, a text box for Warrior's crazy inner monologue, and ''then'' thought bubbles for Warrior's crazy thoughts. It amounts to, at ''minimum'', a good 4-5 paragraphs per page... |
| 70 | * Dave Sim's ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'' went beyond the WallsOfText and into chronic AuthorFilibuster when the comic itself was repeatedly put on hold to make space for multi-page misogynistic rants of plain text. It does get over that phase eventually[[note]] the walls of text, not the misogyny[[/note]], then later falls back into it. |
| 71 | * Creator/DonRosa's earlier works (particularly ''The Pertwillaby Papers'') had tight-packed expository speech bubbles. Not so much in his Disney comics, though; the "Disney remakes" of his stories are a good example of how one can thin the information flow without really affecting the ''net amount'' of information conveyed to the reader. |
| 72 | * One issue of ''ComicBook/HowardTheDuck'' was 22 pages of text-with-an-illustration of Creator/SteveGerber apologizing for not having a fully-formed comic ready for publication that month. Notably, at one point he paused his essay to describe [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext a battle between a Las Vegas showgirl and a standing lamp]], just so the comic would have a mandatory fight scene. |
| 73 | * Creator/ECComics had a pattern: the dialogue was put on the page before the artwork was drawn. Al Feldstein wrote his scripts in pencil directly onto the storyboards as he came up with it. This often meant that around 90% of the panel was pure text, with the art shoehorned into what was left. Some comics would end with a panel that was nothing ''but'' text to explain the story. The exception are the stories that Harvey Kurtzman drew, as well as the ones he wrote and storyboarded for other artists. |
| 74 | * ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' comic series doesn't quite go to those extremes, but since it's a ''very'' CompressedAdaptation, there are quite a few pages full of text. |
| 75 | * The comic adaptation of ''Literature/TheStand'' basically takes most of the narration from the [[DoorStopper really long book]] and puts it in dialogue boxes over the action as it is happening. |
| 76 | * In ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', vol 3, issue 1, a wall of text is used to show ''[[MotorMouth just how much]]'' Cyclone talks. |
| 77 | * Parodied in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} as you have never seen him before''. Asterix delivers a barrage of verbiage that occupies three-quarters of the panels and ends up putting Obelix to sleep. |
| 78 | * The problem has been endemic long enough in the comics industry to make famous one particular work offering a way to patch it: "[[http://momentofcerebus.blogspot.com/2012/07/wally-woods-22-panels-that-always-work.html Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work]], or Some Interesting Ways to Get Some Variety into Those Boring Panels Where Some Dumb Writer Has a Bunch of Lame Characters Sitting Around and Talking for Page After Page!" Also available in [[http://abbadabba.com/wallywood/wallywood22panels.pdf PDF]]. |
| 79 | * In an interview, celebrated comic scribe Creator/LarryHama, a penciler turned writer, observed that the format of Marvel Comics' books in the 1970s and early 1980s was often guilty of this, bemoaning the overuse of captions. "You'd have a caption covering 3/4 of a panel, [[NarratingTheObvious describing the content of the panel it was covering!]]" |
| 80 | * [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''ComicBook/AmericanSplendor'', as the story is less about the pictures and more about character dialog and Harvey Pekar's inner monologue. |
| 81 | * Done tongue-in-cheek in ''ComicBook/TheSpirit''. When a suspect (a comic book artist) expresses an extreme hatred for his (currently dead) coworker's tendency to indulge in this trope, the Spirit replies that he thinks that sometimes wordiness is necessary for comic books -- only instead of just saying that, he gives it in the form of a CharacterFilibuster [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall while Commissioner Dolan cautiously eyes the massive speech balloon that engulfs the panel]]. |
| 82 | * Creator/ScottMcCloud demonstrated the disadvantage of it in a strip about an UpperClassTwit: At first, he's overjoyed about making the Best Party Ever; then he gets confused about what the friend of him said; then he's shocked because said friend can't come to the party; then he's sad because the party is nothing without him. In one panel, you simply cannot demonstrate four different feelings; break it up, and it works. |
| 83 | * Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's unique way of writing dialogue has a habit of [[http://longboxgraveyard.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/bendis-dialogue.jpg?w=604&h=508 ending up as this]], with it being especially prominent in series like ''ComicBook/{{Powers}}''. |
| 84 | * ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' |
| 85 | ** The original Creator/MarvelComics series could get ''really'' bad about this, especially during Bob Budiansky’s run. The MerchandiseDriven nature of the comic meant that writers were often forced to include massive infodumps for the totally awesome new character or gimmick of the week, to the point that word balloons sometimes totally obscured the art. The first issue has a particularly infamous moment where the Decepticons take up nearly a whole page just describing themselves in [[PurpleProse excruciating detail]]. |
| 86 | ** Given [[AffectionateParody a loving homage]] in [[Creator/IDWPublishing IDW’s]] later comics, where [[RetrauxFlashback flashbacks to the setting’s early history are done in the style of the Marvel comic]], complete with overly-long speech bubbles that take up most of the page. There’s even a direct tribute to the above-mentioned “Decepticon infodump”, in which Nova Prime’s crew [[CharacterFilibuster take up a whole page describing themselves in the most stilted, self-aggrandizing way possible]]. |
| 87 | ** Played for drama once in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'', where a block of text from an anti-[[FantasticCasteSystem Functionism]] manifesto is used as the background of [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:MTMTE34_what_you_might_call_a_thinker.jpg a splash page of pre-war Megatron drilling in the mines]], to show how he composes these things in his head as he works. When he’s later subjected to [[{{Brainwashing}} mnemosurgery]] to “cure” his seditionism, the block of text appears again, but [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/File:Trepan_megatron_births_deaths_and_interventions.jpg now chunks of it are being overwritten with blank space]] as his personality is forcibly reprogrammed. |
| 88 | * Invoked in ''ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool''. When Gwen discovers her comic book-based RealityWarping abilities for the first time, one of her first tests is to see if she can interact with text boxes, so she creates one filled with random, rambling thoughts. The resulting wall of text is so big, it nearly kills Gwen by throwing her out the window of her bedroom. |
| 89 | [[/folder]] |
| 90 | |
| 91 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 92 | * The online archive of the surreal Brown University newspaper comic ''Burble'' is fully aware of its large bits of dialogue; despite its high quality compared to most other strips at the time, it was mocked (and later self-mocked) for "too many words". |
| 93 | * ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' once [[http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j175/muzition/peanuts.jpg?t=1252462853 lampshaded]] it by having Linus, after a vast amount of talk, comment to Charlie Brown that a contemporary complaint is that there's far too much talking and not enough action in comic strips. |
| 94 | * ''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore'' often doesn't even draw the character's ''body'', instead crowding piles and piles of text around a floating disembodied head. |
| 95 | * ''ComicStrip/ThisModernWorld'' also has the piles of text around a head. Lampshaded by the artist on more than one occasion. |
| 96 | * Jeremy "Norm" Scott's ''ComicStrip/HsuAndChan'' comics can get '''VERY''' wordy at times. While the walls scare off new readers, fans of the series will usually claim that Norm's style of humor justifies the intense word count. The comic's creator is aware of the wordiness of his comics and likes to joke about it constantly on his website. |
| 97 | -->'''Norm:''' (''about the issue ''Deep) Oddly enough, nobody complained about the wordiness in THIS comic. It's possible nobody ever made it to the end. |
| 98 | * In ''ComicStrip/{{Mafalda}}'', each time [[GossipyHens Susanita]] starts telling gossip about the neighbours her speech bubble becomes a Wall of Text. On one occasion Felipe's body gets covered in text, until Manolito "saves him" by arriving and greeting them, breaking the flow of gossip. |
| 99 | * German comic ''ComicStrip/{{Rudi}}'' is (in)famous for this and sometimes lampshades it. |
| 100 | %% * ''ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'' had this on occasion. |
| 101 | %% * Bill Hinds' ''Tank [=McNamara=]'' does this on a regular basis. |
| 102 | * ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' had Plato doing this now and then. He wrote philosophical screeds as bathroom graffiti. |
| 103 | * ''ComicStrip/TheKChronicles'' is very much this. It's not unusual to have strips where a majority of the panels are nothing but text, with very little actual drawings. |
| 104 | * [[https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2003/08/03?ct=v&cti=163624 This]] ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' comic. Commentary even said how proud he was that the panels went on so long. |
| 105 | [[/folder]] |
| 106 | |
| 107 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 108 | * ''Fanfic/AlwaysVisible'': Three hundred or so pages, in which there is little dialogue, but a lot of pseudo-philosophical reasoning about what the author has no understanding of at all - that’s what this work is. |
| 109 | * At the [[Fanfic/OfficialFanfictionUniversity Official Fanfiction Academy]] [[Franchise/StarTrek of Starfleet]], some of the classrooms have literal Text Walls. (Recycled from the students' fanfics.) |
| 110 | * In ''Fanfic/MyHuntsmanAcademia'', Izuku spews out all of his thoughts while mumbling about the notes he's taking in his first Grimm Studies class, resulting in a massive block of text that is only broken when Port calls Izuku out. |
| 111 | * ''Fanfic/GreenTeaRescue'': Toga creates a group chat for the newly minted Dekusquad, which most of the group treats like a normal chatroom complete with emojis and abbreviations. Iida, on the other hand, introduces himself in a massive post with perfect grammar and punctuation, much to everyone else's amusement. |
| 112 | * Chapter Eight in ''Fanfic/ThePowerOfFriendshipAndThisGunIFound'' has Joey give a summary of the last few days in-universe that forms a single unbroken paragraph over a thousand words long. Seto can only respond with a FlatWhat. |
| 113 | * It is apparently a popular joke in ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' doujinshi to have Nitori or someone else go to lengthy descriptions (usually of technology) to the other characters who more likely than not are not actually listening. One doujin parodied it by having Alice get pushed against a wall by the huge speech bubble. |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 117 | * The opening crawl of ''Film/AloneInTheDark2005'' goes on for ages. |
| 118 | * In the documentary ''Film/{{Crumb}}'', Creator/RobertCrumb peruses his brother's old amateur comics to show the brother's mental breakdown. With each page, the drawings become more and more pushed back by larger and larger bubbles crammed with text, until finally the drawings are discarded and Crumb is just flipping through page after page of microscopic text. It's quite creepy. |
| 119 | * ''Film/TheShining'' famously shows Wendy looking at Jack's manuscript and it just says "[[MadnessMantra All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy]]" for pages on end. |
| 120 | * ''Film/ShinGodzilla'' employs this trope while the Japanese government is first trying to find cause to deploy the JSDF against Godzilla, the text in question being excerpts from Japanese law that the polititians have to work through. |
| 121 | [[/folder]] |
| 122 | |
| 123 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 124 | * Works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tended towards this, with paragraphs that sometimes ran for ''pages''; remodeling these walls for modern printings isn't an option, however, since they were frequently ''single sentences'' with dozens of clauses and [[ColonCancer semicolon cancer]] out the wazu, preventing stylistic renovations without violating rules against line breaks in the middle of a sentence. Often this was because the authors were paid by the word; in serial works, editors wouldn't cut off in the middle of a sentence. |
| 125 | * Creator/WilliamSBurroughs' books often recreate the hallucinatory ramblings of drug addicts and rely on a "cut up" collage method to create free associations. This often results in long, barely coherent blocks of text, especially notable in ''Literature/NakedLunch'' and his cut-up trilogy (''The Soft Machine'', ''The Ticket that Exploded'', and ''Nova Express''). |
| 126 | * Creator/CharlesDickens's style is quite wordy. The discussion Scrooge has with Marley in ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' is very short by his standards. (Then again, he WAS paid by the word...) |
| 127 | * Creator/WilliamFaulkner's stream of consciousness style lends itself to this quite often, with many instances of sentences running on for half a page or more, particularly in ''Literature/AsILayDying'', ''Literature/TheSoundAndTheFury'' and ''Literature/AbsalomAbsalom''. |
| 128 | * Creator/HenryJames's style includes almost impenetrably long sentences grouped into paragraphs that often span over a page in length. |
| 129 | * Hardly anybody in the ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' series is as prone to this as Anne herself, who, especially in the first book, has a tendency to ramble on for pages (longer when Marilla is not there to interrupt her). Fortunately for both the characters' sanity and the readers', Marilla constantly [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this, leading to amusing scenes where Marilla tells Anne to stop talking, whereupon Anne starts to go off on a tangent about how hard it is for her shut up ... and then gets distracted and starts building an [[{{Irony}} ironic]] Wall of Text. |
| 130 | * The novel ''The Rotter's Club'' has a sentence that is apparently 13,955 words long. |
| 131 | * Most people's first impression of Literature/TheBible. The genealogies are necessary to trace Jesus' ancestry, but they are long. |
| 132 | * The book ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'' ends with two sentences in its final chapter. The first one is 11,281 words long and the second is 12,931 words long. |
| 133 | * [[UsefulNotes/NobelPrizeInLiterature Nobel Prize winner]] Creator/JoseSaramago loved to do this. Do not try to imitate him; he got a Nobel for a reason. |
| 134 | * Another UsefulNotes/NobelPrizeInLiterature: Camilo José Cela wrote a novel made up exclusively of a single sentence lasting more than 100 pages: ''Cristo versus Arizona''. |
| 135 | * In ''[[Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents The Reptile Room]],'' the narrator fills an entire page with the word "ever" over and over and over again when telling the reader not to fiddle around with electric devices unless they're Violet Baudelaire. |
| 136 | * In ''Literature/{{Emma}}'', Miss Bates' speeches can go on for ''pages'', and Emma is always looking for an escape when politeness has her visit. Other characters habitually tune Miss Bates out, and readers often gloss over her endless rambling... which leads to a number of clues about the plot HiddenInPlainSight because they're included in her speeches. |
| 137 | * ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''. A certain someone smacks the reader in the face with a massive monologue made of capitalism; the first edition counted it at ''70 pages''. |
| 138 | * The literary style of maximalism emphasizes the author writing down ''everything'' that crosses his/her mind in the interest of painting a more "complete" picture of the author's/character's mindset. |
| 139 | * ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' has some Wall Of Text passages that are deliberate - they illustrate a character (who, arguably, never had his shit completely together to begin with) slowly going crazier and crazier and talking and writing in more of a stream-of-consciousness style as his sanity leaves him. It's not pretty, and it's not supposed to be. |
| 140 | * ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'' has sentences that go on for more than a page at a time, with heavy use of semicolons instead of periods. Check it out [[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/521 here]]. |
| 141 | * The first chapter of Creator/SamuelBeckett's novel ''Molloy'' consists of two paragraphs. Paragraph one is about a page and a half long; paragraph two usually exceeds ''eighty'' pages. |
| 142 | * In the works of Creator/RobertoBolano: |
| 143 | ** ''Literature/TwentySixSixtySix'' has paragraphs that last up to around five pages, they are most common in the fourth part ("The Part About the Crimes") of the novel. |
| 144 | ** [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] in ''By Night in Chile''. The whole novella consists of just two paragraphs, the first one takes almost the whole part of it, while the second is just a small sentence on the last page. |
| 145 | * Each page of ''Literature/AMillionRandomDigitsWith100000NormalDeviates'' is made up of giant columns listing either 2500 random digits or 500 normal deviates. |
| 146 | * Some of Creator/FranzKafka's paragraphs (especially in his unpublished stories) span pages. |
| 147 | * Creator/JackKerouac typed the original draft of ''Literature/OnTheRoad'' in several frenzied bursts on a hand-taped, 120-foot scroll of paper, with no paragraph breaks at all. Fortunately for readers it was broken up into a more conventional form before publication. |
| 148 | [[/folder]] |
| 149 | |
| 150 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 151 | * ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'': |
| 152 | ** One "Let's Make a Date" game gave Wayne a very complicated role to play (something pretty close to "smooth rap star blindfolded and tied to the bed by his girlfriend gradually realizing the night is going terribly wrong"). When Greg saw the card (about 8"x8"), his reaction was a stunned "There's two paragraphs of text on this!" |
| 153 | ** Another playing of that game gave Ryan the role "Witch who entices the beast to her magic sleeping stool so she can break the magic spell and turn him into a prince". Again, the players made a number of jokes about the length of the suggestion. |
| 154 | ** The guessing-game personalities when Whose Line started in Britain were extremely simple ("a pirate," etc.), and gradually became longer and more convoluted over the next 18 seasons. Part of it was just to not repeat themselves, but also because the longer the performers worked together the simpler ones were too easy to figure out. |
| 155 | * In ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Ross sleeps with a random girl after he and Rachel broke up. Rachel considers it cheating, even though the actual circumstances are more complicated (Ross interpreted "take a break from us" as a break-up, and in his depression the other girl came into the picture, "We were on a break" became a long lasting RunningGag). Ross is trying to get back in her good graces and Rachel writes a 20 page, front and back, letter for him to read to understand her feelings. [[{{Doorstopper}} He fell asleep trying to read it]]. |
| 156 | * In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "A Matter of Time" time traveling petty criminal Berlinghoff Rasmussen asks the senior staff of the ''Enterprise-D'' to fill out questionnaires and to be thorough in answering the questions. Data's answers to Rasmussen's questions were in total well over 50,000 words long, prompting the Professor to tell Data that he should have asked Data to limit himself to 50,000 words in answering his questions. |
| 157 | [[/folder]] |
| 158 | |
| 159 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 160 | * A white-on-black wall of text adorns the cover of {{Music/XTC}}'s second album, ''Go 2''. Way to go, {{Creator/Hipgnosis}}! |
| 161 | * The lyrics to Music/ElvisCostello's ''Imperial Bedroom'' are printed this way. |
| 162 | * The text on Music/DavidBowie's ''Music/StationToStation'' is printed without spaces. |
| 163 | * The cover of the Music/{{Chumbawamba}} album whose full title is usually shortened to just ''The Boy Bands Have Won'' shows a long title of ''865'' characters (156 words), granting it the Guinness World Record for the longest album title in history. |
| 164 | * One of the "Right Now" statements in the video for Music/VanHalen's "Right Now" is a wall of text that takes up the whole screen, with a finger frantically tracing each line. [[FreezeFrameBonus It’s up for all of five seconds,]] cutting to the next statement right before the finger is done. |
| 165 | [[/folder]] |
| 166 | |
| 167 | [[folder:Print Media]] |
| 168 | * An audiophile magazine featured an article lamenting the LoudnessWar, and attempted to explain it to laypeople by writing a whole paragraph in all caps with minimal line breaks as a visual metaphor for excessive dynamic range compression. It proved to be a bit ''too'' apt, as the magazine then received a ton of letters complaining that the technique made the article unreadable. |
| 169 | * Textbooks. Some college texts books are solid walls of text that go for pages with no pictures, diagrams, or even ''paragraph breaks''. Also, the text is usually really tiny. |
| 170 | * Manual pages for Linux/Unix commands are notorious for this. |
| 171 | * European Spanish magazines and newspapers tend to be wordier than their Latin American counterparts since Spaniards love detailed explanations. On the other side, Mexican magazines and newspapers (with few exceptions) generally try to get to the point more quickly than the European Spanish ones. |
| 172 | * Old newspapers and magazines in general (at least until the 80s) used to feature longer articles. |
| 173 | [[/folder]] |
| 174 | |
| 175 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 176 | * ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'' parodies this with Guise's incap art, which features him being crushed under his incap abilities, one of which is a huge wall of text. It even has him saying "Too much text." His foil incap art, meanwhile, has him on a typewriter, writing out his own incap abilities, including the huge wall of text one. |
| 177 | * ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': |
| 178 | ** The [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Wordy wordy]] mechanic seen on a few cards in the un- sets. |
| 179 | ** Cards such as [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74296 Greater Morphling]] and [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9754 Spark Fiend]] break the standard card template to fit all their text. |
| 180 | ** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9778 Bureaucracy]] goes for a ReadTheFinePrint style description of a simple game. |
| 181 | ** And there's also [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=461002 Wall of Runes]], a [[LiteralMetaphor literal]] wall of text. |
| 182 | * ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' has a number of cards that are more text than card, but the biggest offenders are undoubtedly Pendulum Monsters. Why that is is because they have ''two'' blocks of text that describe what they do, one for their monster effect and the other for their Pendulum effect. Both can reach damn-near unreadable levels due to how tiny the text can get. For example, [[https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Endymion,_the_Mighty_Master_of_Magic Endymion, the Mighty Master of Magic.]] This phenomenon relative to other card games is often blamed on the game's lack of keywords (the only real one being "piercing") combined with the existence of Problem-Solving Card Text necessitating often pedantic levels of effect description. |
| 183 | [[/folder]] |
| 184 | |
| 185 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 186 | * The soliloquy of Creator/WilliamShakespeare can frequently become this. There's no fewer than three from the title character in ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'': |
| 187 | ** Act I, Scene 2, where he laments his mother flying into the arms of her brother-in-law Claudius after his father's death. |
| 188 | ** Act III, Scene 1, the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, where he ponders suicide. |
| 189 | ** Act IV, Scene 4, where Hamlet muses about the will of Fortinbras, and comparing the Norse conqueror's actions to his own plans against Claudius. |
| 190 | [[/folder]] |
| 191 | |
| 192 | [[folder:Vanity Plates]] |
| 193 | * [[Creator/ChuckLorre Chuck Lorre Productions]], as seen on the likes of ''Series/DharmaAndGreg'', ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', and ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'', very often features lengthy essays that can't be read in the single second the logo appears. On at least one occasion, the essay acknowledges the viewer having to record the logo and pause it just to read everything. |
| 194 | [[/folder]] |
| 195 | |
| 196 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 197 | * ''VideoGame/BramTheToymaker'': After you've beaten the game, you're treated to a scrollable wall of text detailing [[spoiler:The PlayerCharacter's relationship with his grandparents, the discovery of an old diary in their attic, the DarkAndTroubledPast of the titular toymaker's house, and the protagonist's decision to investigate it]]. |
| 198 | * ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}} 2: Durandal'' features [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blake.html#22 a terminal in the level Kill Your Television]] with no spaces or punctuation deliberately to be cryptic and vague. [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/kytterm.html Fans did decrypt the message]], but, in typical old-school Bungie fashion, [[MindScrew it still didn't make much sense]]. |
| 199 | * If you make a rather wordy post on the ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' forum, some people will complain they were killed by your wall of text. Some {{Troll}}s will engage in wall of text contests to see if they can overload the forum display. |
| 200 | --> Wall of Text crits you for [[OverNineThousand 9999]] damage.\ |
| 201 | You cannot use that power after you have been defeated.\ |
| 202 | You cannot use that power after you have been defeated. |
| 203 | * On ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s official forums, people use TL;DR (Too long; didn't read) both offensively and defensively; someone building a wall of text will add "TL;DR version: Stuff", and people protesting will post just TL;DR. Sometimes people will lampshade their own wall building; one added "Edit: Remodeled Wall of Text, adding a door, a couple of windows and some nice flower boxes" after breaking it up into paragraphs. |
| 204 | ** But this can also be subverted when readers simply didn't bother to read a long post. "TL;DR" can basically mean: "Your well thought out, and the valid post was just too long to read, so I didn't bother." |
| 205 | * ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood'' has a literal wall of text: the hall of Records, ''thirty-eight'' screens ''full'' of text for Klaymen to read, detailing the game's vast backstory in a format spoofing that of Literature/TheBible. Fortunately, reading any of the text is optional, although the game does force you to trek through the entire hall to fetch a PlotCoupon. |
| 206 | * ''VideoGame/{{Sacred}} 2: Fallen Angel'' doesn't have extensive voice acting for many of its [=NPCs=]. In particular, [=NPCs=] that give you quests (which usually boil down to [[TwentyBearAsses go here and kill five wolves]]), will preface this with a page and a half of scrolled text detailing exactly ''why'' they want you to this. And if you're not playing on an HDTV, ''you won't be able to read a word of it''. |
| 207 | * In one stage of ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight'', [[JokeCharacter Gatchan]] lets off two consecutive blocks of texts so big that ''they obscure your vision''. In ''Maximum Tune 3'' and its upgrades, not only does he have ''four'' blocks of text, he has the gall to say them NEAR THE END OF THE STAGE, making you more likely to lose. This is no longer the case from ''Maximum Tune 4'' onwards, where Gatchan's wall of text is replaced with him and his wife constantly trading barbs for the whole race. |
| 208 | * In the early text-based game ''VideoGame/ColossalCave'', the description of the volcano (depending on your computer's resolution) can take up nearly an entire screen. |
| 209 | * This is hilariously done with Nemone's unique buff in ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy''. Rather than the conventional way showcasing stacked buffs by adding a number to show how many stacked buffs she has, her buff (nemone) instead adds an extra -mone at the end, which would eventually span offscreen due to how ridiculously long it is. |
| 210 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', due to the lack of usable books or notes (Until 1.3), most downloadable scenarios, public servers, etc. will leave introductory text written on signs attached to walls near the initial spawn point. This results in ''literal'' walls of text. |
| 211 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' has the blabbering owl, [[TheOwlKnowingOne Kaepora Gaebora]]. He shows up to give you pages and pages of information that is useful for your first playthrough, but useless and trivial for subsequent ones. The [[ScrollingText slow text-scrolling speed]] is far from helpful. At the end, [[ShallIRepeatThat he asks you if you want to hear his advice all over again, or if you understood what he just told you]]. Be forewarned that [[ScrappyMechanic the cursor will always default to whichever option makes him repeat himself]]. God help you if you were [[ButtonMashing mashing the A button]] throughout his blabbering. Fortunately, this is a downplayed example in that his wall of text can be mostly skipped by simply pressing the B button past a certain point. [[GuideDangIt Not that the game tells you that]]. |
| 212 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden V}}'', you must recruit Egbert by enduring his wall of text complaining about the Godwins. You can't press the button to advance the text, and the text moves ''slowly'' on purpose. |
| 213 | * The original version of ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13'' had an infamously long and excessively complex backstory. It was so lengthy and impractical that most people just ignored the backstory completely. Sometime later, the devs of the Goonstation server made up a much better-received backstory that was much shorter and a little more to the point. |
| 214 | * The character of Mr. Resetti in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' exploits this trope: after the developers noticed how much play testers were SaveScumming to get better items, they created Resetti to punish anyone else who tries this by deliberately wasting their time with endless walls of rambling dialogue. |
| 215 | * The end credits of ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'' last for four hours, and most of said credits is a list of [[SpecialThanks every single person who helped fund the game]]. That's ''67,226 different people''. |
| 216 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'''s favorite method of storytelling and exposition is to have main NPC characters stand in a circle and talk at ridiculous length about pretty much anything, from whatever threat you're currently facing to [[ContemplateOurNavels philosophical pablum,]] all while the player character [[SilentProtagonist stands there with a stupid look on his face.]] Alphinaud and Minfilia are the ''worst'' about it, and the situation is usually exacerbated by the dev team's need to pad the story and stall for time before the next significant update or expansion. |
| 217 | * ''VideoGame/TheImpossibleQuiz'' and its sequel has a question on each that contains a wall of text. The first quiz had the question written on a sheet of paper, while the second quiz wrote it with the four choices. Needless to say though, if you try to read through the text, a bomb will eventually appear and start ticking down your doom. |
| 218 | [[/folder]] |
| 219 | |
| 220 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 221 | * In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Kotomine and Rin are prone to expository lectures, Kotomine describing the functions and history of the Grail Wars, Rin less frequently on the mechanics of magic. Many {{Chekhovs Gun}}s have been obscured in the pages of text, and the voice-acted version hardly saved them. This was impatiently Lampshaded by Shirou's internal monologue in the final arc: "Doesn't he ever shut up?" |
| 222 | * When [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Rin]] in ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'' starts rambling, it's shown in the largest and fullest textbox in the game, generally reserved for Hisao's inner monologues. [[NoPunctuationPeriod With barely if any punctuation.]] |
| 223 | [[/folder]] |
| 224 | |
| 225 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 226 | * One solution used in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' was to put a [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-07-08 very faint greyscale picture in the background of the text balloon]] as foreshadowing of the second half of the story arc; the exposition itself is also lampshaded in the dialogue as well. |
| 227 | * ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'''s "[[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10 I Hope You Like Text]]." This exchange was deemed ''so awesome'' that it was put on a ''shirt'' which sells, apparently, very well. |
| 228 | * ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' |
| 229 | ** Lampshaded by an AuthorGuestSpot in [[http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_922.php this]] strip. |
| 230 | ** ''[=DMFA=]'' frequently uses the phrase "Wall of Text" during big exposition parts. Occasionally, you need to wear construction helmets. |
| 231 | ** Fa'Lina recommends this as the preferred way to avoid having your mind read by cubi. Memorize a boring wall of text, such as legal babble. |
| 232 | * ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' notes that [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1538#comic "When people think 'funny', they think 'tons of words!'"]] |
| 233 | * This is a criticism often levelled at ''Webcomic/CtrlAltDel''. In fact, Website/FourChan came up with something called "CAD Rule" -- the law that if you take the first panel and the last panel of a ''Ctrl+Alt+Del'' strip, remove the text from the last panel and post it, it will automatically be much funnier, as [[http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060331 this strip]] "shows". A similar device is the infamously named ''buckleybox'', a smaller but equally superfluous Wall Of Text used to reiterate something that ''should already appear in the actual comic'' visually, but may not due to odd dialogue placement, poor art not conveying it, or the assumption that ViewersAreMorons. |
| 234 | * ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' does this a lot, like in [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/09/30/episode-336-elves-love-talking/ this]] strip. Note the title of the strip itself. And yes, there are more extreme ones. |
| 235 | * ''Webcomic/GoodwillHeroes'' had an instance where [[http://www.goodwill-heroes.net/06-06-2011/bk01-ch02-pg03/ the Librarian]] belittled the main cast for raising their voices in a library. |
| 236 | * ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' once had a wall of text that [[http://xkcd.com/160/ broke the frame of the comic]]. |
| 237 | * ''Webcomic/DresdenCodak'' has been accused of this ever since Aaron Diaz [[CerebusSyndrome added an actual plot]]. Possibly the strongest case can be found [[http://www.dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_041.html here]]. |
| 238 | * ''Webcomic/TriangleAndRobert'' once had a main character killed by a Wall of Text exposition, [[http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?785 here]] and [[http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?786 here]]. |
| 239 | * ''Webcomic/SilentHillPromise'' The comic, like the [[AdventureGame adventure games]] it apes, supplements the images with plenty of narration. |
| 240 | * ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive'' has a bad case of this; ironically this is more noticeable since the comic is drawn to allow ample space from them, and is a good indication to the presence of strawmen. One particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} [[https://somethingpositive.net/comic/meeting-dad-pt-7/ example]] is lampshaded with the following: |
| 241 | -->'''Warning:''' The following comic contains a lot of words. Those who are frightened or intimidated by reading are encouraged to seek entertainment elsewhere. We recommend a shiny ball of foil. |
| 242 | * ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' made fun of this trope [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1159.html here]]. Notable that it uses the text block itself as a way to make fun of the trope instead of having some sort of LampshadeHanging outside of the text block. The strip's annotation mentions this one time one of the author's fellow students weaponized this by putting the entirety of ''Theatre/RichardIII'' into his .plan file. |
| 243 | * ''Webcomic/{{Subnormality}}'' '''is''' walls of text (except when it's {{Textplosion}}... Or totally wordless). It's right there in the sub-title: "Comix with too many words since 2007." |
| 244 | ** This trope is referenced by name at the start of [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page494.html this strip]]. |
| 245 | ** [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page505.html This]] is the most excessive example of Wall of Text ever seen. 19 panels. ''2500 words.'' |
| 246 | * ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': |
| 247 | ** In [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0010.html this early strip]], Vaarsuvius puts a group of goblins to sleep, Haley assumes that V used [[ForcedSleep a spell]], but actually the goblins were bored to sleep by V's [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness long pompous speech]]. |
| 248 | ** The comic played this one staggeringly straight [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0282.html in this comic]]. Though it ''did'' throw in LampshadeHanging: Vaarsuvius, monarch of overtalking, complains about the brevity -- [[FridgeBrilliance really quite a valid complaint in a trial]]. The collected edition notes that, for sheer word count, this strip isn't ''actually'' wordier than any other strip in the series to that point--but the decision to use ''less art'' certainly made it seem like it was. |
| 249 | ** Later on lampshaded again with "[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0558.html comic way too wordy for chief grukgruk sometimes.]]" |
| 250 | * ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/5p20/ stuck this]] on Frans Rayner when he explains his sinister plan in ''immense'' detail. Lampshaded in the alt text for the page where the author ''congratulates'' the reader for making it all the way through. |
| 251 | * ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'', although it does manage to pull it off quite well with the storytelling style. In-story there's a lot of background, but the layout manages to nicely blend the text with the pictures most of the time. |
| 252 | * This is a common criticism of ''Webcomic/BetterDays''. |
| 253 | * Generally averted in ''Webcomic/SordidCityBlues'', except for [[http://sordidcityblues.com/archive.php?chapter=023&page=003 this little beauty]]. |
| 254 | * ''Webcomic/NotFromConcentrate'': [[http://nfccomic.com/index.php?comic=244 "Firetruck Red!!"]] |
| 255 | * [[http://getagreenroom.thecomicseries.com/comics/3 This comic]] has a rather incoherent wall of text that is probably supposed to emulate background noise. The author herself comments that "Yeah, if you read EVERYTHING Ms. Florence is saying, you're insane." |
| 256 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''Webcomic/{{Precocious}}''. It happens whenever Suzette goes into a rant (could be about anything from her StrawFeminist [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/03/24 philosophies]] to [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/03/23 someone forgetting her name and believing it to be snobbery]]) It also uses WallOfBlather. There was also a strip where Jacob spouted a [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/03/31 wall of text for three panels straight.]] The trope is even invoked in the altext. |
| 257 | * ''Webcomic/{{Sonichu}}'' has these in spades. Being one of the biggest criticisms among its detractors, Chris-chan has a particularly horrendus habit of dumping migraine-inducing walls of Comic Sans [[ShowDontTell to dump exposition in lieu of actually showing it]]. It gets so bad that even the wiki [[http://www.sonichu.com/cwcki/Chris_and_writing#Visual_clarity throws up their hands in despair]]. |
| 258 | --> '''[=CWCki=]:''' Holy balls, try reading ''this''. |
| 259 | * In ''Webcomic/PastelDefenderHeliotrope,'' [[Webcomic/UnicornJelly and possibly every other Jennifer Diane Reitz work,]] everyone communicates via text walls. Every page, every panel, every word bubble. [[{{Rimshot}} There are enough walls of texts in there to keep out Mongol invaders!]] |
| 260 | * CaptainObvious in ''Webcomic/TheWayOfTheMetagamer'' combines these with DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment. |
| 261 | * ''Webcomic/FarOutThere'' had a very bad case of this [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Far_Out_There/index.php?p=360961 in its early days.]] Thankfully, the author is gradually learning to [[http://www.drunkduck.com/Far_Out_There/index.php?p=614943 show, not tell.]] |
| 262 | * Though most walls of exposition are stowed away in boxes below the comic rather than panel bubbles, ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' has more than its share of walls of text. The ''[[LowerDeckEpisode Hivebent]]'' arc, in particular, [[WordOfGod has been described by Andrew Hussie as]] "[[http://www.formspring.me/andrewhussie/q/1158778979 a very vividly illustrated e-novel]]", rather than a webcomic. |
| 263 | ** In Act 6 Act 3, Homestuck [[{{Reconstruction}} actively defends its method of long-winded narration]] by having a new character who hates long stories tell her arc in bullet points and skip straight to the end, depriving the reader of almost all the interesting details. A second character, pissed off at this display of storytelling, decides to [[CallBack recap the Ancestor Arc]] in the same bullet style, showing that while the initial version of that arc was fairly long-winded, the bullet-point style turns every character into a one-dimensional plot device and turns the narrative into a terribly-paced RandomEventsPlot. |
| 264 | ** It justifies its Walls of Text even further by introducing a [[KnowNothingKnowItAll pseudo-intellectual]] Website/{{Tumblr}} [[TakeThat parody]] who prefers textwalling at people in such a densely-packed, long-winded format that it becomes impossible to read due to the text shrinking down to 1pt size to fit it all. He even almost refers to basic conversations with people as "monologues". Said parody's first three pages of speech comprised ''one sentence''. There's a reason Kankri is TheFriendNobodyLikes. |
| 265 | * Once used in ''Webcomic/AtArmsLength'' as [[http://atarmslength.smackjeeves.com/comics/676446/deerwitchproject-28/ a weapon against Ally]]. |
| 266 | * In one ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'' [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1276 strip]], Hannelore's InternalMonologue turns into one of these. By panel 3 there's too much to fit even with the text wrapping around her head. |
| 267 | * Creator/{{Bleedman}}, aka Vinson Ngo, is usually guilty of this in his webcomics when it comes to exposition. ''[[Webcomic/GrimTalesFromDownBelow Grims Tales]]'' and ''Webcomic/SugarBits'' in particular. |
| 268 | * Parodied in [[http://thesketchy.com/ic/2012/11/29/oh-great-another-hot-tub-comic this strip]] from ''Webcomic/SketchComedy'' discussing video games as a storytelling medium. |
| 269 | * In early chapters of {{Webcomic/Lightbringer}}, many characters would go on [[CharacterFilibuster rants]] about one philosophical belief or another. Sometimes this would take up almost an entire page. |
| 270 | * ''Webcomic/MedicPics'': A couple are used in the series: |
| 271 | ** One is given as soon as the author is given a chance to ramble about ''[[Music/LemonDemon Lemon Demon's]]'' song, Spiral of Ants. |
| 272 | ** A wall of screaming is given alongside the introduction to [[AnthropomorphicPersonification his Exams]]. |
| 273 | * ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'': In [[http://www.housepetscomic.com/2013/09/16/letting-bygones-be/ this strip]] Sabrina's explanation of her past produces a wall of text separating the second and third panels; {{lampshaded}} by the AltText. |
| 274 | -->'''Alt Text:''' Yes, it is literally a wall of text between panels 2 and 3. Get your tl;drs ready. |
| 275 | * ''Webcomic/StickyDillyBuns'' usually tends towards brevity in its speech bubbles (being an artist-created comic). Hence, when the deeply embarrassed Ruby unleashes huge speech bubbles [[http://www.stickydillybuns.com/strips-sdb/it_is_complex here]] and [[http://www.ma3comic.com/strips-ma3/sdb-need-to-talk-to-somebody/ here]], it works as a deliberate bit of comedy and characterization. (Neither rates as a WallOfBlather because the speech bubbles aren’t interrupted or overlaid by others, but are fully readable. The implication is presumably that Ruby speaks too loud and fast for others too get a word in.) |
| 276 | * ''Webcomic/{{Earthsong}}'' uses these in a couple of early chapters when Earthsong explains what soulstones are and how they came about (which was rewritten into a flashback when the author did a ReTool, but it's still a very wordy one). After that, the chapter "The Journal" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: a series of diary entries by Willow covering about a month. |
| 277 | * A common criticism of Creator/JocelynSamara’s comics (''Webcomic/{{Rain|2010}}'', ''Webcomic/MyImpossibleSoulmate'') is that many pages often just have characters standing around and speaking with very little movement or extra images and are mostly filled with large amounts of text. Many detractors note that this often makes her webcomics feel more like novels than anything as some of the dialogue are several paragraphs long. None more so than the [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rain_p619_620___black_wings_kaminari_by_jocelynsamara_d8nvr2u.gif page introducing the fictional manga Black Wings: Kaminari]]. |
| 278 | * ''Webcomic/TheWhiteboard'': Jinx reels off one of [[http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb2565.html these]] following the [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rogue]] [[AttackDrone robot]] arc. |
| 279 | * ''Webcomic/TheRedacverse'' plays this trope for laughs with a panel [[http://the-redac.webcomic.ws/comics/pl/899201 almost entirely filled with a speech bubble]]. Many TV China articles are also quite wordy. |
| 280 | * Provided by Genos in ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'', who tells his lengthy origin story without a flashback. The anime takes up a notch with nothing but shots in and around Saitama's apartment and the poor guy growing more and more annoyed. |
| 281 | -->'''Saitama:''' ''[[SuddenlyShouting ENOUGH, YOU IDIOT! SHORTEN THIS STUPID STORY TO TWENTY WORDS OR LESS!]]'' |
| 282 | * ''Webcomic/VampireGirl'': Levana is very prone to this in two different manners: one is that whenever she writes in her diary, the diary page she has just written serves as the background for that particular panel; the other is that sometimes she gets to rambling on about a point she's making that it also takes up the entire background of the panel. |
| 283 | * ''Webcomic/BasicInstructions:'' Scott Meyer has used this exact phrase to describe his writing style, possibly because [[SelfDeprecation he's used a lot of even less complimentary ones to describe his art skills]]. The typical BI strip consists of four panels with narration describing how to do something specific, while the characters have a long conversation that ironically undercuts the narration, such as having instructions about how to apologise sincerely while the characters deliver a string of backhanded and insulting apologies. Meyer occasionally tries to cut down on wordiness, but most attempts to do so, such as by removing the "instructions" portion, aren't received well because the strip's fans stick around because they don't mind the wordiness. |
| 284 | [[/folder]] |
| 285 | |
| 286 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 287 | * ''Roleplay/TheBlackSandBar'', full stop. [[http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-commerce/t.45961697_1/]] |
| 288 | * ''Blog/GeekRage'' has this as its basic mode. |
| 289 | * Website/TheOnion's articles [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-shudders-at-large-block-of-uninterrupted-te,16932/ Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text]][[note]]It's only 2 pages long going by the 500-word count they cite in the article[[/note]] and [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/frustrated-obama-sends-nation-rambling-75000word-e,18516/ Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail]] |
| 290 | * Video game blogger Tim Rogers is ''infamous'' for producing these, and in fact, takes pride in it. If pressed to justify his extreme verbosity, his explanations vary from "it's just trolling" to "it's a legitimate style and you can take it or leave it". |
| 291 | * Happens on Website/TheOtherWiki occasionally, more in the obscure-ish pages than others. Plot summaries in particular were so prone to this that the site imposed a hard 600-700-word range on them to prevent repeat cases. |
| 292 | * [=RPers=] in text chat based media (SL, IRC, Instant Messaging, Etc) will often call others out (Often jokingly) on Walls of text. Happens most often when you get people who like long posts mixed with people who make short posts. Often happens in the reverse as well if others harassing people in a more harsh way for posts that aren't long enough. |
| 293 | * ''Website/NobodyHere'''s home page is comprised of a tall wall of links to every other page on the site. |
| 294 | * The credits section of episode 25 of ''WebAnimation/BattleForDreamIsland'' lists ''every single subscriber'' to the channel up until that point. In a really tiny font. It goes on for over twenty seconds. |
| 295 | * ''WebVideo/{{Petscop}}'': Toneth's description has 2 of these that go off the text box. One of them is about someone wanting to [[MercyKill put down a dog]] after it's been hit by a car, and the other is a repeat of the word 'toneth' 17 times before ending with 'the end' and [[NonSequitur 'it's yucky outside']]. |
| 296 | * The Encyclopedia Dramatica page on [[https://encyclopediadramatica.wiki/index.php/Desu?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=7245bdbaca17095a9fa906adfaa4d3b9b90860ef-1595647166-0-AU0G78sqKMC97mwCb6mCXVxjiJ3WeInpUy-Oin-vVtAG1UlzrrVzIyo1IGbKTbcthWltDwH2rKlZlsGF0ctFu27vkXGZMwBSQMV8HXVgju6ebjteyRpPPgGP8KQcQD5nOcL8vrIWyLGhJF_q_7ofG2p2ZAW57JRrCaRK--zeSsdmI47LeKXsx99xFU_Gs6rey5kGgafHBaoi6vnlVEyp6OuSdeG9Kq2k0u7jXfjK9fv0vRvzTKLS3voyiP9TRISl-oaCMnWphD3tzQP-YJUkB14ITNQ6pEt4PIOJppSBmf2N Desu]]. After a brief description, it just says DESU over and over and ''over'' and '''over'''. God have mercy if you try to count. |
| 297 | * The ''Website/{{Uncyclopedia}}'' page on [[https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Run-on_sentence Run-on sentence]], pretty obvious given [[SelfDemonstratingArticle the nature of the website.]] The longest sentence there is exactly ''2,531'' words long. |
| 298 | * [[https://guardians-song.livejournal.com/321046.html This MSTing]] by Guardian's Song of a rant by Cori Falls, contains a riff that goes on for over ''a thousand words'' before returning to the actual rant. True, 90% of it is just a copy and paste of one of her fanfics, but it still counts as the longest riff in history. [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome And yes, it is awesome.]] |
| 299 | * The Channel Awesome wiki page on "The WORST Movies Nostalgia Critic Has Reviewed". As the video it takes its transcript from contains few video clips, it would be this by default, but there is [[https://thatguywiththeglasses.fandom.com/wiki/The_WORST_Movies_Nostalgia_Critic%27s_Reviewed#.231:_Garbage_Pail_Kids a massive paragraph]] describing ''Film/TheGarbagePailKidsMovie'', which goes on for over ''1300 words'' before giving a single indentation. It just emphasizes how much Creator/DougWalker '''really''' hates that movie. |
| 300 | * ''WebVideo/TheAnnotatedSeries'' uses these to block out the transformation sequences from ''Super Duper Sumos'' because they're just {{padding}}. |
| 301 | * WebVideo/SolidJJ: PlayedForLaughs in "Jesse, have you solved the Five Nights at Freddy’s lore", where ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' lore is depicted as so convoluted that the subtitle for Jesse's explanation of the lore becomes this yet it still needs at least five such wall of text. |
| 302 | [[/folder]] |
| 303 | |
| 304 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 305 | * Discussed in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' where the title character tries to publish a magazine whose cover consists of one of these and is genuinely shocked to learn that a cover with a picture is more likely to attract potential buyers. |
| 306 | * A second-season episode of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', "Key to My Ed", featured an auditory version of this when Edd experienced a rant-inducing slight, the titular key having been flicked into the gap in his front teeth. His rant, about how he perceived Eddy prefer whoever the key belonged to would suffer, went through a change in scenes. |
| 307 | -->'''Edd:''' Mortified? Yes. But I won't let myself fall prey to such shallow emotion. Not now. |
| 308 | * Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare's]] quote "Brevity is the soul of wit" is reduced to [[Administrivia/BrevityIsWit "Brevity is [...] wit"]] at a Reader's Digest essay contest. |
| 309 | * ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' pokes fun at the trope by having Kyle and two other people being imprisoned by Apple for experiments because they signed the agreement when their software had updated, even though Kyle and the others couldn't be bothered to read the EULA due to the massive text walls. |
| 310 | [[/folder]] |
| 311 | |
| 312 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 313 | * Due to outdated equipment that attempts to save on memory and bandwidth, official messages within the U.S. Coast Guard (and possibly other branches of the military) tend to be eye-crossing, migraine-creating, acronym-laden all-caps nightmares. |
| 314 | ** Here's a sample from one (imagine trying to read multiple pages of this): SUBJ: REVISED CUTTER FUEL INVENTORY REPORT REQUIREMENTS A. SUPPLY POLICY AND PROCEDURES MANUAL, COMDTINST M4400.19 1. PURPOSE: ACCURATELY REPORTING FUEL CONSUMPTION IS AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO ENSURING ALL OBLIGATIONS AND EXPENDITURES ARE RECORDED IN THE COAST GUARD FINANCIAL SYSTEM, A VITAL STEP IN ACHIEVING CFO AUDIT SUCCESS. THIS MESSAGE UPDATES THE STANDARDIZED FUEL REPORT MESSAGE FORMAT AND PROVIDES SUGGESTIONS TO REDUCE COMMON REPORTING ERRORS. IT ALSO ESTABLISHES NEW LINE ITEMS IN THE REPORT TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING MONTH'S ESTIMATED FUEL CONSUMPTION, WHICH WILL ASSIST IN IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF COAST GUARD FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, END OF YEAR PIPELINE, AND CFO AUDIT COMPLIANCE. EVERY EFFORT WAS MADE TO ENSURE REPORTING REQUIREMENTS MINIMIZE, TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE, IMPACT TO CUTTER WORKLOAD. |
| 315 | * A lot of the last usage licenses are like this. |
| 316 | * Pretty much every educator in Public Speaking or similar will strongly warn you against letting this happen to your slide show presentations that you make in Powerpoint or similar software. Instead, it's preferred that you combined small doses of text such as bulleted lists with graphical visual aids, and let your actual speech be solely responsible for any {{InfoDump}}ing that you need to do. |
| 317 | * Creator/FrancisEDec's rants are like [[http://www.bentoandstarchky.com/dec/MRFRCrant.jpg this]]. The text covers every inch of the page, with no paragraph breaks, opening, ending, and mostly without any kind of title. |
| 318 | * Platform/{{Unix}} manual pages. This eventually got so bad that a new system, ''info'', was invented. Then Unix documentation moved to the Web. And there was much rejoicing amongst the TTY jockeys. |
| 319 | ** Within Unix terminals, the ''less'' command is for downplaying this Trope. It parses manuals (or other texts) one line or screen at a time for the user to read at their own pace, instead of spitting out a wall of text that the user then has to scroll back and forth through to read. |
| 320 | * Website/AdTurds once featured [[http://adturds.co.uk/2010/11/04/tell-me-what-this-baffling-job-description-means/ this incoherent, babbling, jargon-filled mess of a job description,]] which isn't exactly helped by [[WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma some of the worst grammar to ever exist in something that was supposed to attract people to the job]]: [[NoPunctuationPeriod three full stops in the entire block of text]], random capitalisation, and abuse of apostrophes. This borderline word salad was more likely to have put people ''off'' applying than it was to generate recruits. |
| 321 | --> Zola the Gorgon (commenter on blog): "I think someone wrote this ad by running a mission statement generator (e.g. http://www.isms.org.uk/mission ...) and cutting and pasting all the results into a solid block of text until they met their word count." |
| 322 | * Most contracts and user agreements. Unfortunately, 'I didn't read the contract! It was too long!' won't do you any good in court.[[note]]Though depending on where you live, the legality of many EULA terms is dubious.[[/note]] |
| 323 | ** In certain countries, the tiny text dumps placed at the end of contracts, that most people are more than likely going to either quickly glance over or ignore altogether, are made illegal. In addition, text is required to have a minimum size and spacing in order to be included in said contracts. |
| 324 | * Programming can get this way if you don't use white space properly, good luck trying to debug otherwise. |
| 325 | * Students that are new to writing tend to type their reports without formatting for paragraphs or don't use enough paragraphs, which can result in several pages of text walls. Professors of higher-level classes may dock points off their students' papers for poor formatting since it makes it difficult for the professor to read the report to see what the student's main ideas are. |
| 326 | * In the March 2017 government elections of the Netherlands, no less than 28 political parties and over 1000 candidates ran, resulting in [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/15/with-28-parties-running-dutch-voters-have-to-use-these-literally-enormous-ballots/?utm_term=.6601d43a21f2 this giant wall of paper and text to choose from]] (and yes, each line within each column on that paper represents a political candidate you can vote for). For foreign news reporters, especially from countries that traditionally have a two-party system like the U.S. and the U.K., this was remarkable, and the size of it was commented a lot on BBC and CNN news. |
| 327 | * Many an internet forum, including this site's forum, have some users who like writing a bit too much, which occasionally results in this trope's appearance. |
| 328 | * Some of the longest single words ever created, especially the scientific name of the protein titin, which is '''189,000 letters''' long. Yes, [[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_protologisms/Long_words/Titin it has in fact been fully shown on some websites.]] |
| 329 | [[/folder]] |
| 330 | ---- |
| 331 | -->[[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-aint-reading-all-that i ain't reading all that]] |
| 332 | -->[[MemeticMutation i'm happy for u tho]] |
| 333 | -->[[MemeticMutation or sorry that happened]] |
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