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Being a Better Writer: What Drives the Reader?

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , ,

Welcome back writers, to the AI-free oasis! It’s Monday, and that means that once again it’s time for your weekly installment of Being a Better Writer, a series that any explanation of becomes a tautology. And, if I understand the term correctly, an analytic statement.

But you’re not here to discuss semantics. You’re here to talk writing! And talk writing we shall!

Though if you’d like to catch up on last week’s news, as well as understand more why I referred to the site as an “oasis” above, I’d recommend checking out last week’s news post. We talk about some other stuff to, so if you weren’t aware that there’s a project underway to get an Axtara – Banking and Finance audiobook made, well …

But no, that news is for those news posts. We’re here for Being a Better Writer, and we’ve got an interesting topic to discuss today. It’s … a bit of an odd one, yes. But it’s also a complicated one.

See, here’s the thing: If I were to go to reddit and post this question on a writing or reading sub, it almost instantly would dissolve into disagreement. I know this because I’ve seen it happen organically without anyone even asking. I’ve watched as people dismissively tell other posters that because they liked something but didn’t like something else that they were reading for “all the wrong reasons” because “real readers know that ____ is what you should really care about.”

Uh-huh. Obviously this is getting into a topic we’ve discussed heavily in the past (so heavily that it has a dedicated tag), IE audience. And yes, we’re touching on that, but I don’t want to dwell on it. Additionally, I’m not speaking of genre here, because any genre can focus on these “blanks” to one degree or another (nothing demonstrates this better than a suitably varied Sci-Fi anthology).

But I can’t avoid that yes, today’s topic does touch on audience a bit. And we’re going to discuss it, but only briefly. Because while audience matters, what matters more for our discussion today is this question: what do you want the reader to be driven by?

Hit the jump, and let’s see if we can find you an answer.

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Being a Better Writer: One-Note Stories

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back writers! It’s Monday once again, which of course means it’s time for another installment of Being a Better Writer. You know, as evidenced by that title up there.

Now, as you may also have gathered from that title, we’ve got an interesting topic to cover for today, one that’s been on my mind for quite some time. Even before it ended up on the Topic List, in fact. But before we can dive in, there are a few announcements to consider.

For starters, as many of you may know this week is one containing a popular holiday weekend in the US: Thanksgiving. Which means that next Monday will not be a new Being a Better Writer post (as I will be enjoying the holiday weekend), but a classic post. Which one I have not yet decided, but it’ll probably be related to whatever’s puzzling one of the writing hangouts online I hang out on.

Second, and fairly ordinary, be sure to check out last week’s news post for the latest on the site, Patreon, book work, etc etc. You can find that at this link.

Last, but not least, again I issue a pleading with those of you accessing this content through AI to use the site itself. Don’t let AI steal others’ hard work to resell to you. Support creators, because if you don’t, they’ll all disappear, and then where will we be? Read this post, and others like it, on the site. Do not give an AI your time, data, and money to read portions that have been regurgitated after being stolen.

All right, all the news and errata is out of the way. So it’s time to talk writing. And to start, this is once again one of those topics where we need to define what we’re talking about.

So hit that jump, and let’s talk about one-note stories.

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Being a Better Writer: Front To Back, or Back To Front?

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for Being a Better Writer. But before we dive into today’s topic, I do have a somewhat unfortunate bit of news that needs to be discussed, and some of you aren’t going to like it. It’s about AI, and how it’s killing Being a Better Writer.

See, Being a Better Writer has run for over a decade now. It’s offered writing advice on hundreds of different topics, maybe even over a thousand. It’s been a fixture of the site for the longest time. And during that time, it’s been run with a specific set of rules: no ads, and teach writing for free.

Now, this has never been entirely altruistic, though it mostly is. But there was the advantage of it bringing in readers to read my books, where the money is. Writers and would-be writers find BaBW, they read it, see there are no ads, that it’s offered freely, and along the way they do visit my site, the one you’re only somewhat likely to be on right now (yeah, here’s the problem), see the latest news on Axtara or whatever book is most recently out, check the other stuff, etc.

At least, that’s what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately … it’s not anymore. Nowadays, more and more of my traffic—over half, actually—is from AI bots. AI bots that come to the site, take my content, and regurgitate it in front of a reader somewhere else. Sans … everything else.

Let me tell you a story. Years ago, I had someone contact me about an “exciting offer.” They wanted to “share” my Being a Better Writer posts with a writing app on mobile, and asked for my permission to repost Being a Better Writer there. Immediately suspicious, I took a look. It was a free app … but there was a paywall too, if memory served, and I think some sort of “reward” structure for posters as well. You know, the usual walled garden sort of stuff.

So, suspicious of their motives, I told this person that they had permission to post the openers of each of my posts, along with the link that would lead back to the site. Not a problem, right?

Oh, if they’d been genuine, maybe. Instead, they went ballistic. Accusing me of being “greedy” and trying to “horde” knowledge from people that needed it, etc. Every accusation and name you could think of. Because the truth of it was they didn’t want to send any traffic my way. They wanted to repost and profit from Being a Better Writer without owing me anything. The classic, modern American dream: make somebody else do the hard work, get 100% of the profit from it.

Well, that “dream” (which is a nightmare for all the people who actually do the work) has come home to roost in a big way with AI. And right now? It’s hurting this site.

See, No longer are the majority of “readers” ever seeing the site. They’re not seeing Axtara, or Colony, or even the majority of the posts. They’re getting copied and pasted chunks from them, delivered by an AI that is, if it’s advertising anything at all, is advertising the AI owner’s content. Or even charging a fee for seeing what’s on my site.

In other words, these AI companies are taking something I provide to the public and making it their “product,” and even in the process shilling their own advertisements or even charging people for the service of “repackaging” content that isn’t theirs.

Ultimately, I don’t know what to do about this. Site “view” numbers have shot up, between double and triple what they used to be. But they’re not from people. Clicks on other links to content inside our outside the site, which used to be common, are dying, as “viewers” aren’t even viewing what they see on my site. It’s an AI engine grabbing it and repackaging it for them.

Is this wrong? Well, yes. Material on this site is mine. I’ve even got the little box checked on my host settings that says “forbid AI from accessing this material.” That doesn’t stop them, I just get hits through VPNs instead of from countries that obey those regulations.

Again, I don’t know what to do about this. Unusual Things relies on the web traffic and the interlinking content chain of “people come, read Being a Better Writer, and some of them check out my books or other material.” But those numbers? Those numbers aren’t going up. In fact, they’re going down. AI is taking my content and packaging it to AI users to promote their stuff … not mine, and in the process killing the site.

Do I kill Being a Better Writer, something that has stood now for over a decade? Do I risk putting it behind a paywall? Something tells me that would only kill it faster: I’ve seen other folks report that at least they’re getting a $5 fee monthly from these AI engines, but that hardly makes up for the thousands of people who are then repurchasing that content from the AI, not the creator. Worse, it leads into the “Patreon Pitfall” where people are expected to pay for content without seeing it, thus driving a creator into a diminishing viewership base.

I … honestly don’t know what to do. Unfortunately, the country where I live has effectively stalled or given up on almost all efforts to police AI theft, so I have no recourse there. Even if I were to try legal recourse, it’d be one author who’s struggling to make rent versus multiple companies with a cash reserve bubble that’s estimated to be between nine and sixteen trillion dollars. I’d have no hope of winning that.

Point being, readers, that these last few months have so rapidly been stripping away at what makes Being a Better Writer work in the first place that I legitimately am not sure how it’s going to be able to continue. Right now, this very post, this moment of typing, is effectively me “working” for some big AI conglomerate. They’ll take the post and use it to sell their services, while I will get nothing. I’m working for free for a megacorp.

I don’t like it. At all.

There’s not a conclusion here. If anything, this is a cry for help: If you’re reading this through AI, please stop. It’s stealing. Please, go to the site. The AI probably won’t give it to you, but with a good old-fashioned search engine, you can find it. Bookmark it. Put in an RSS feed. Read these post from the site, please, and stop supporting companies that are taking my traffic and my livelihood.

All right, with all that said, let’s dive into today’s topic, from what may end up being the last Being a Better Writer topic list if things don’t see some kind of change.

Hit the jump.

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Being a Better Writer: When Characters Won’t Do What You Want (and Why It’s a Good Thing)

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Unless you’re brand-new today, you know what this is. It’s this week’s installment of Being a Better Writer! Which is—again, if you’re new—exactly what it sounds like on the tin: A weekly guide to all things writing! Fully searchable, tagged by topics, etc.

Anyway, if you’re a veteran reader of the site, you know this. And you’re just wondering how exactly we’re going to cover today’s topic. I will give a brief, one-sentence aside to promote last week’s news here, but that’s all. We’re diving right in. Starting with how this topic ended up on the topic list.

There’s an old story, one that may be untrue, or may have happened exactly like it’s told. A story about L. Frank Baum, the man who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It’s said that during the writing of one of his books, his wife noticed him being in a funk and not getting any writing done. When she asked him what the matter was, he replied “My characters won’t do what I want.”

His morose attitude persisted for about a week or two, or so goes the story I read, until one day his wife suddenly found him in high spirits typing away. “Oh,” she said, “I thought you were having trouble getting your characters to do what you wanted them to do?”

“Ah, I was,” he said. “But we found a solution. I’m decided to let them do whatever they want!”

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Being a Better Writer: Choosing a Genre

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers, from our one-week hiatus! We’re back again now, as normal, and with another Being a Better Writer post for you to dig into on the nuts and bolts of writing! And today we’re leading with an interesting topic that online and among writing groups can be the subject of contention among many, to the point that I’ve seen it crop up again and again and even give rise to a sort of … Well, that’d be getting ahead of myself. But today’s topic is definitely worth a look. Even if you’re the experienced type, as you never know when you might run into it and it could be useful to have some words to share on the subject.

But before we dive in, I do want to offer a follow-up to last Thursday’s news post. I am pleased to report that several people got into contact with me about Beta Reading, and have begun reading through Blood Less Vile. I will also report, with a little frustration, that at least one of these was a previous Beta Reader who apparently hadn’t at all received their invite sent a week earlier. Thus confirming my theory that Google is literally having so much trouble policing spam from its own sources that my legitimate emails are ending up as casualties.

Which sucks, but … that’s the way things are. I’ll have to look into better methods of contacting the Alpha and Beta Readers in the future then, though as always, this site and the Discord remain solid tools for seeing what’s going on.

Oh, a little bit on that second option. As some of you may know, Discord is preparing to go public. That’s right, to stop being a regular company and start being one who’s only goal is “Burn the platform to the ground for as much money as possible short term.”

Yes, I know technically that’s not what “going public” means … but by virtue of the action of American companies, that’s what it most certainly is. So, in other words (and just so we’re clear, I’m far from the only voice calling warning on this one) Discord is probably going to start to undergo “enshitification” (it’s a real word, and I encourage you to look it up) before long.

So then, where will that leave The Makalay Camp? Well … I like the little community there. So I have an alternative to propose: An internet forum. What forum and where, you might ask? Well, here, actually. I know it’s possible, though I haven’t looked into all the details. But, if the worst happens and Discord is lost to us, I’ll see about getting a forum set up here on the site. We’ll take things here back to the late 90s, when forums were king and ads hadn’t taken over. We’ll be a bastion of calm on the web!

Well, you know, for fans and readers and the like. Still, I’ve checked on the possibility, and it’s something that can happen.

Okay, last bit of news: A Pirate Planet is rolling along, having passed 60,000 words, over a quarter of the way complete. Blood Less Vile is in Beta 1 (and I’m working on getting a cover figured out), and The Phoenix is nearing the end of Alpha 1 and will likely get an Alpha 2 to track some changes. Three books being worked on at once, yeesh.

Oh, and I recently played through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and at some point I do want to share my thoughts on a narrative bit I ran into during the state of the game. Which is excellent, by the way, and you should absolutely play it if you desire some Indiana Jones shenanigans.

Okay, that’s all I’m saying there. Let’s hit the jump and talk about choosing a genre.

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Being a Better Writer: Some Creative Writing Exercises To Get You Rolling

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Welcome writers, to Being a Better Writer! We’re kicking off this week with a bit more of a hands-on discussion. Almost a presentation, but if you’ll bear with me I hope to thread the needle between the two pretty well.

A lot of what Being a Better Writer presents is writing advice and guidance. We talk here about how to balance subplots, how to pace out a book, how to bring characters to life. We also talk about nuts-and-bolts sort of stuff: Use of dialogue tags, or paragraph structure. When and where to use proper grammar (almost always). Editing. Stuff like that.

But sometimes we dig into the more “brainstormy” stuff. We talk about worldbuilding. Design. Coming at ideas from new places. We even once talked about building character sheets.

Well, today is one of those days when we, as a rarity, talk about the more esoteric end of brainstorming. By a “sort of” request, we’re going to talk about creative writing exercises. A number of them, actually.

Now we’ve talked about writing exercises before. But then we’ve usually dug into specific exercises for specific purposes, such as writing scenery or challenging ourselves to come up with new descriptors. Today is much more general than that. Today, Being a Better Writer is going to present several different brainstorming exercises that are just about getting your mind working creatively. To come up with the basics of a narrative, or a character, a setting—or preferably all of those things—to serve as the grounds for a story.

Consider today’s post one of cultivation, and we’re talking about seeding your mental garden with a variety of seeds to see what springs up. Today, we’re going to look at various writing exercises that are designed to prompt you into new ideas and new avenues.

Oh, and you should check out the latest news post too. Open that link in a new tab and then come back to it later, because we’re already rolling here.

Hit the jump, and let’s look at some creative writing exercises to get your brain firing.

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Being a Better Writer: How Long Should a Chapter Be?

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Monday is here, and it’s not a holiday, so we’ve got a new, fresh Being a Better Writer post all hot and ready for you. Or maybe Being a Better Writer is better served chilled? Hadn’t thought about it before. It probably depends on the post.

Oh, don’t forget your side of last week’s news. Which is all about Axtara across all three books. Check it out!

Either way, we’ve got a nice serving of writing information today on an intriguing topic, another one that I’ve seen circle for years now—effectively ever since I started hanging out in writing circles. As with some of our previous topics from Topic List #25, this is something that I’ve seen discussed recently, though in this case as recently as quite literally the very day in which I write this post.

Yet I’ve never actually done a Being a Better Writer on it that I can recall. Which, given the way I’ve seen the online discourse swinging, means it’s high time. Because as the years have passed I’ve seen more and more people offering a “hard” answer, attempting to back it up with what I would consider quite dubious logic. Logic that, if rigidly adhered to, would not server the interests of a young writer.

So buckle up, grab your utensil of choice for eating a heaping helping of writing advice, hit that jump, and let’s talk about how long a chapter should really be.

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Being a Better Writer: Is Our Story Character-Driven or Plot-Driven?

Max Being a Better Writer , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Sorry for the delay with today’s Being a Better Writer post. I got a late start today. That’s on me.

Also, before I get started, I have some news about Being a Better Writer for the next few weeks. Through the end of this month, and the first week of next month, Being a Better Writer will be running a best of? Why? Because I’m going out of town and had to choose between writing new posts for the weeks I would be gone or working on Axtara – Magic and Mayhem. Naturally, I chose Axtara, since I already spent a lot of advance time this year writing posts pack a the start of summer. But we’ve never done a “best of” before. So starting next Monday, and until I’m back, Being a Better Writer will be featuring the most popular BaBW articles over the last decade in a “Best of …” format.

With that said, I’m going to dive into today’s topic, which was alluded to last week in out discussion on character-based prose. I want to talk about whether our story is character-driven or plot-driven—or even a mix of both—and what that means for your story.

So hit the jump, and let’s get talking.

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Being a Better Writer: Detail Direct and Inferred in Short Stories

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back, readers! To me!

Well, hopefully. See, this post was written while I was stuck dockside with nothing to do and a borrowed laptop. Could I have written it when I got back? Sure I could have … But I wanted to do a little writing at least while I had the chance. And getting a nice backlog of Being a Better Writer posts going seemed like a good idea.

So really then, I’m almost certainly back by this point (I am; see this post for details). Back in at my desk, and likely hard at work on Axtara – Magic and Mayhem. Which past me, writing this post in the now of the past before casting it ahead to the present of your now, has just spent a bunch of time workshopping and worldbuilding on.

But enough on that topic. Well, almost. Because since the Being a Better Writer topic list is sitting on my desk back in Utah (recall again that I write this from the past and Alaska), today’s topic is one that didn’t come from said list, but rather from some recent writing observations.

In particular, writing observations I made just before leaving on said Alaska trip, when I was wrapping up my submission for the Dog Save the King anthology. Now, it wasn’t something I didn’t know, but rather a conscious decision I made during the writing process that tickled my mind and said “Hey, this needs to be a Being a Better Writer post.”

So, writers, hit the jump, and let’s talk about detail both direct and inferred in your short stories.

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Being a Better Writer: The Brumak Rodeo Trope

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back, writers! Monday is here, and that means it’s time for another installment of Being a Better Writer! And this week? We’ve got an interesting one to talk about.

Yeah, I know you can all see it right there, up above. Some of you might even be thinking “Aha, a trope I can read about on TV Tropes later. Thanks!” but I’ll warn you that it isn’t going to be that easy.

Why? Well for starters, there is no “Brumak Rodeo” trope listed on TV Tropes. I’ve checked. That lack is one of the reasons I decided to write this post today. Because the concept that I associate with the term? Also not on TV Tropes.

In other words, the Brumak Rodeo is a trope that is not recognized. Either by the term I’m using, or as a trope acknowledged by that site. And … to be fair, I can kind of see why: It’s not something that’s commonly used across stories. In fact, it seems pretty darn rare. For a couple of reasons, among them being it takes a lot of careful setup to use, and use effectively. Used poorly, it’ll come off wrong with the audience and feel ill-earned, quite possibly tanking your pacing. At worst, it could feel like poorly paced pandering—not something you want interrupting your finale.

Maybe this is why we don’t see a lot of books use this concept. In fact, where I’ve seen it used most isn’t in books or movies—off the top of my head I can’t even think of a good example from a movie—but from video games. But even then, it’s not a common trope. Possibly because of the various difficulties of using it well.

But here’s the thing: Used well, this trope can produce some amazingly satisfying and cathartic moments for your audience. moments which can be some of the most memorable of the entire story. And while I’m almost certain that this trope is older than dirt (there’s bound to be at least one ancient myth that uses it in some fashion, even if I can’t think of one off-hand), again it’s so rarely seen that I wanted to make it a discussion topic today. Because it is one of those story tropes that should be in your toolbox, and I think that more writers should have an understanding of how it works. You won’t use it a lot—to date, for example, I’ve only used it once across my entire library of works—but it does make for a fantastic tool under the right circumstances.

So hit the jump, and let’s talk about the Brumak Rodeo. And for that, you need to know what a Brumak is, and where the term “Brumak Rodeo” comes from.

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