A Backhand From YouTube, Just In Time For The Holidays

I recently had a confluence of events happen that got me really excited as a creator! You see, I've been working with the Azukail Games YouTube channel for several years now, trying to get them monetized. I even went into overdrive last year when YouTube announced they were changing their standards for monetization, requiring channels to have 500 subscribers instead of 1,000, and only 3,000 hours of watched content instead of 4,000 to get monetized.

Well, we crossed that line a couple of days ago. I was in the midst of celebrating when I looked around, and saw the goddamn goalposts had moved. So I wanted to share my experience this week, and hopefully ask all the folks in my audience to help me pull off something of a Christmas miracle before we see the end of 2024.

It's not a great situation, and I could use all the help I can get...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

So... What The Hell Happened?

All right, let me set the scene for you. I started making videos for Azukail Games roughly three years ago at this point. They're one of my primary publishers, and they figured that video content would be a good way to promote the supplements we were making, and to diversify the content options our audience had. The goal was eventual monetization, but we had a long way to grow before we got there. We saw some steady growth over the first two years, and then last year YouTube announced their shifts in monetization policy. This lit a fire under me and Adrian (the fellow who runs the company and the channel), and we started working harder than ever to diversify the sorts of content we were making, to promote it in more places, and to try to get over that finish line. Even when the algorithm change hit in Fall 2023 and cratered our views, we built back, dusted ourselves off, and kept climbing.

Earlier last week we were at 2,980 hours, or thereabouts... roughly 20 hours away from that golden 3,000 hour mark we'd been told to shoot for by YouTube. Then my second World of Darkness video essay, The Problem With Pentex dropped, and had the closest thing we've managed to a viral success on the channel! In less than a week it racked up over 3,800 views, several hundred upvotes, nearly triple-digit comments, and it added close to 90 subscribers to our channel, which is a big damn deal for a channel our size.

So, in short, we blew past that 3,000 hour mark like a sprinter putting on a final burst of speed before they crossed that finish line!

So what's the problem? Shouldn't we be celebrating, and doing a victory lap after working for years to get to this point? Well yes, and we would be... if we'd actually achieved the goal we set out to achieve.

Because, you see, YouTube didn't actually change the requirements for getting ad revenue from your videos. In order to get a cut of that ad revenue, you still need to get 4,000 hours, and 1,000 subscribers. What they changed was that when you hit that 3K hours and 500 subs mark is that your viewers can now leave you tips, and choose to fund you via YT's version of Patreon. Things that are really helpful when you have tens of thousands of subs, but which are basically useless for a small channel, which we very definitely still are.

And that's the situation we're put in. We thought we'd finally achieved the goal we'd been working toward for years, only to find out that now we could accept tips straight through YT itself... something that's basically useless to us since Azukail Games already has a Patreon to fund the channel. And since we don't really do live broadcasts (it's just not the sort of content we make) none of those tools are any use to us either.

And while the above video did really well, blowing basically every video on the channel out of the water in terms of metrics, it hasn't blown up so big that it can single-handedly make up the extra 1,000 hours of watch time we need to hit that 4,000 hour mark and actually get our piece of the ad revenue... which is what we need in order to fund all the future endeavors we've been planning on.

What We Need From You!

While the latest World of Darkness video essay did really well, it really only added a few hundred extra view hours past the 3,000 hour mark. Realistically, we still need between 400 and 700 hours of additional watch time in order to get us over that hump, and to get our channel a cut of the ad revenue we generate. Revenue that Azukail Games can reinvest back into making new, better videos, as well as projects like the Chronicles of Darkness audio drama podcast Windy City Shadows, which is something I've been plotting out and trying to get ready for the day we finally get our piece of the pie (since big projects like that don't just appear out of thin air).

So, in short, we need everyone reading this to go to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and watch some of our content! If you just have time for a single video, watch The Problem With Pentex, or my earlier video essay The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost. But if you're willing to dedicate a little additional time to helping boost our signal, you could put on one of the following playlists instead!

- Spoken Word: This playlist contains all 50 of my audio dramas, and it's the second longest-running playlist on the entire channel! If you want a preview of what Windy City Shadows will be like, check this one out.

- Speaking of Sundara: This video series is where I talk about my fantasy RPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age for both Pathfinder Classic and DND 5E. So if you're looking for a new setting to try out this holiday season, come and take a tour of my world!

- Discussions of Darkness: A series where I talk about the World and Chronicles of Darkness settings, and how to avoid so many of the pitfalls and bad decisions that can leave serious black marks on your chronicle.

- Tabletop Mercenary: In this series I pull back the curtain, and show folks how you can make a living writing tabletop RPGs. If you've been thinking about doing this as a full-time job, or just as a side hustle, this is definitely a show you should check out!

- Tactical Plastic Report: This is a collection of videos I'm making about my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. So if you've wanted to get a tour of this game, and to listen to me talk about it as a creator, check this series out! It's the newest playlist on the channel, and you can currently get through all the videos on this list in a little under and hour.

There are only so many hours in a day, however, and YouTube tends to "revise" watch hours down if there are other videos playing on the same account, if too many videos are watching in too rapid a period of time, and so on, and so forth. So while I would definitely encourage folks to watch my videos as the primary means of helping, please consider doing the following as well:

- Sharing Videos On Your Social Media: You never know what is going to be the shout out that starts a genuine avalanche.

- Comment On Vides: Comments of at least 7 words shake the algorithm awake, and inform it that people are paying attention.

- Subscribe To The Channel: Subscribing makes a big difference to how the algorithm treats you as a creator. The more subs you have (and the more folks who hit the bell to get updates), the more the algorithm weights things in your favor.

At time of writing we have a little less than 2 weeks for us to hit this goal by the new year. So if you're someone who wants to help me end the year on a high note, getting the Azukail Games channel over this hump would be amazing. I have so many projects I want to pursue in partnership with my publisher, but it's really hard to justify putting together bigger, more expensive, time-consuming endeavors when the channel doesn't bring in any money to balance out that overhead cost.

Thank you in advance to everyone who takes a few hours of their time to help... your support of smaller publishers and creators is making a difference. Without you, we simply can't do what we do.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

Learning To Weave Your Story Threads Together Takes Practice

There's an old phrase by a talented artist that (paraphrased) goes, "Painting is very easy when you have no idea what you're doing, and very difficult when you do." This also applies to writing. Especially because "writing" isn't just the act of putting letters in the proper order, and putting together complete sentences. Writers need to be able to choose the proper word to convey the right feeling and action in a scene. Writers need to be able to create compelling, interesting characters. We need to figure out conflicts, how to convey someone's personality through their speech, we have to build entire worlds...

And perhaps most importantly, we need to be able to tie it all together with a pretty bow on top.

That last part, though, is also a skill in and of itself. And like any skill, it's something you will get better at with time and practice... but you need to train your brain to recognize, and create, patterns in your work to make sure everything hangs together.

It only looks easy if you don't see all the learning that went into this.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Pulling Disparate Elements Together (As If You Meant To)

As an example of what I'm talking about this week, I want to share a story from last year when I was running a live action game for Changeling: The Lost. For those who aren't familiar with the game, it's a modern fantasy roleplaying game where you all play changelings; humans stolen by interdimensional, god-like beings known as the True Fae. They tore out your souls, replaced them with magic, and altered you on a fundamental level. You escaped from their realm of Arcadia, and now you are trying to exist in the real, modern world. Your magic hides your supernatural nature, but you always have an eye over your shoulder, watching for your old Keeper to come back to reclaim you.

Anyway, I had between 11-20 some odd players in this game... that's 11-20 odd main characters whose goals and aspirations are what shapes the plot of the story we're all telling. So I had to balance out trying to make everyone's actions matter, giving them freedom and agency, and then making it seem like everything was part of one, cohesive whole.

In short, I was co-authoring a novel with nearly two-dozen people, and I had to make all of them feel like their contributions were seamlessly woven into the whole. Piece of cake, right?

In the first session of this game, I pulled several, random incidents out of my game supplement 100 Strange Sights To See In The Hedge. These incidents are totally random, and are simply meant to be filler for your story. But based on how players reacted to them, several of these incidents became canon to the unfolding story. The threads I wove together include:

- A small, fantastical bird alighting on a branch and croaking, "The Ashen Lord Will Devour Your Soul!" which startled one of the players.

- A hobgoblin is crucified on a tree bearing a sign that says Ironmonger, identified as a victim of The Ashen Lady

- A penguin in a Hawaiian shirt wanders down the forest path, roasting alive a fearsome briar wolf who tries to attack it. The penguin then begins eating the roasted wolf.

These three threads, for some reason, are what players decided to latch onto, and follow-up on, so they became the story threads. Worse, I actually misspoke when I said the Ashen Lady instead of the Ashen Lord in the second thread. So now I had a fresh element added into the mix.

That was when I got out my loom, and I started trying to pull all these disparate elements together into a singular whole.

The Ashen Lord and the Ashen Lady were True Fae who appeared to be contesting their shared title. There could be only one victor, and whoever wrenched it away would be the one who would walk away with the power. This created a political struggle between god-like creatures going on right at the doorstep of all the other players. Some wanted to ignore it, and some wants to join in. Some wanted to try to sabotage it so that both of them lost. But as they researched, delved deeper, and sought more knowledge about them, they uncovered more story.

The Ashen Lady was a recent upstart, and it's said she had stolen her part of the title from the Ashen Lord. More importantly, they found that the Ashen Lord had once been the Lord of Night, and that he had ruled alongside the Lord of The Sun. In an act of betrayal he had tried to slay the Sun King, throwing his realm into chaos as he usurped his power. Of course, True Fae are difficult things to kill, so it was likely that the King of The Sun was not dead, but merely hidden, or banished, and would remain so until his title was returned to him, or the conditions of the Ashen Lord's binding were broken.

What they found in the end of this plot arc was that the King of The Sun had, the entire time, been the penguin wandering the local Hedge! He had steadily been regaining his sentience, and some semblence of his power (hence his ability to breathe fire), but he could not speak or communicate who he was until his title was once again bestowed upon him... something the Ashen Lady had been attempting to do by stealing power away from the Ashen Lord.

Again, grab a copy if you're interested!

This is the kind of exercise that can help you, as a writer, weave together seemingly unconnected plot threads. Even if you don't finish an idea, the exercise of taking 2-3 different elements and pulling them all together into a cohesive whole is a way to train your mind into spotting and identifying patterns. Because even if a story has a twist ending, or a plot that seems to turn circles upon itself, pattern recognition helps us identify the structure of a well-told story.

This isn't the only time reaching out to earlier elements and building off of them in unexpected ways has featured in my work. I have a new upcoming addition to the Warhammer 40K fan series Gav and Bob (check out Part Four, The Emperor's Hand, and Part Five, Faith and Martyrs if you haven't yet) where I tie the whole plot up to this point together into a neat little package, for example. I also have an entire third novel for my hardboiled cat series which is all about tying up the loose end I left dangling in the original short story Leo debuted in.

When you start weaving something as complicated as a season of an audio drama, or a plot of a novel (or novels), this is an extremely useful skill to have... because you never know when that old, dangling plot thread is going to come in handy for you to tie up the current plot nice and tidy, or when Chekov's Gun is finally going to go off!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

The 1 Gift Every Author On Your List ACTUALLY Wants

It's the holiday season, and we're all asking that same question we always ask around this time of year; what does that special someone on our list really want this year? Whether we're trying to get a gift for our parents, our siblings, our partners, our children, or even just friends, it can be tough. You want to get them something they'll like, something that's meaningful, but also something that feels personal and shows you took an interest in them. However, if anyone on your list this holiday season is an author, I'm going to save you a lot of time, energy, and effort on this one. Because there is one thing that every author out there wants, and it will make them absolutely beam this Yule time.

Are you listening? All right, here it is...

Support their work. That's it. That's the secret!

There you go! Now start placing orders.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

The Kinds Of Support You Can Give

All right, so you want to give the author in your life the kind of support they're going to appreciate, and which is going to make them feel special. I'm going to give you a descending order of impact regarding the kinds of support the authors in your life need.

#1: Become A Patron

Whether the authors in your life have a Patreon, they're still on Only Fans (yeah, some of us use it for writing rather than... other content), or they've got another way for their audience to crowdfund them, just do that. An extra $20 or more a month can make a big difference to a creative professional... and if you can get a few other family members together on this one, it's possible you all could quite literally pay their bills throughout the year so they can work without worry. Or at least make paying those bills a bit easier.

I cannot overstate how much direct assistance helps. And, of course, if you're not as tech savvy or you want to have a physical something to hand over, suspicious envelopes of cash are a great universal gift.

#2: Buy Their Book

It sounds obvious, but authors get paid when people buy our books... so just do that when you can! And sure, it might not be that big of a deal if just one person buys one copy, but ask yourself how many people are in this author's extended community? How big is their family, their friend circle, etc.? Tally up what kind of royalty check they'll have if all of those people bought a copy of their book, as well as getting one for their friends, in-laws, and so on, and so forth. And, while you're at it, imagine the look on their face as everyone in their circle comes up to ask them to sign the copy they got for Christmas. Also, review their books online, because once they break 50 reviews, that's when the Amazon algorithm starts actually giving them attention.

Seriously, I cannot overstate how that feeling never really stops hitting you when you're an author. And for those who don't know, I've got all sorts of books on My Amazon Author Page, so go check it out if you haven't! Or grab yourself a copy of my new RPG, Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic... after all, who doesn't love a new game for the holidays?

#3: Consume Their Free Content (If It Pays Them)

Whether the author in your life puts work on platforms like Vocal.media, they have a podcast, they livestream themselves doing something creative, they have a YouTube channel, etc., support on those platforms is what determines the size of their check. So read their articles, watch their videos, listen to their episodes, and leave upvotes, comments, and share it around as best you can. Even if you don't have money to spend, showing your support like this can help them reach a wider audience through you, which can be encouraging, but also boost their signal enough to help them gain traction so they can earn more.

For folks who don't know, you can find a slew of my content on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, as well as over on My Vocal Archive.

#4: Follow All Their Social Media Pages

You know how when you have an indie band that's playing their first handful of shows how there's nothing more discouraging than looking out and seeing no one but the other bands and their significant others? How there's no fans filling the space, and no one interested in their performance, but they pick themselves up and play anyway? Well, following a writer's social media pages is basically you choosing the be the warm body in the audience cheering them on.

This matters more than just moral support, too. The social media algorithms pay attention, and if there are people following their pages, liking the things they share, leaving comments of at least 7 words, and resharing the content, that will make them more likely to get bigger boosts from the website itself.

There's Something For Every Budget

Some of us have a big, fat budget to buy gifts with. Some of us just have time, energy, and a willingness to try to make our loved ones smile. But if someone in your life is an author, the best thing you can do is help support their work in whatever way you can this holiday season.

And who knows? If you're not already an avid reader of their work, maybe you'll find out you like their books a lot more than you thought you would!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

Using The 5 Man Band In Your Stories

When your story has a main character, they are referred to as the protagonist of your story. A deuteragonist (a word a lot of us haven't heard a lot) is a term referring to a character who is secondary in a story. Sort of like how a superhero's sidekick is still an important character who contributes to the unfolding drama, but they aren't the one who's really in the spotlight. And for a lot of us, this is the traditional setup for our stories. We have our main character, a handful of support characters, the antagonists, and we're ready to roll!

But what about when you have multiple protagonists in a single story? Well, since they're all equally involved in the story, and they all have their own unique motivations and contributions, this is where you end up with a story about a team of individuals rather than any one person.

This is where we get into the 5 Man Band, which is a setup that I highly recommend you use for any team-based story you plan to tell.

Stay with me, and this will all make sense.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

Who Makes Up The Five Man Band?

If you're a fan of tabletop RPGs (or my sister blog, Improved Initiative), then you're likely already familiar with the idea of the 5 Man Band, as it's used in the construction of the "ideal" adventuring party. And if you read a lot of military fiction, the 5 Man Band is your basic fireteam of 4, with a medic thrown in as number 5 in a lot of stories. However, generally speaking, the roles filled in a 5 Man Band include:

- The Leader: The team leader, generally the center of the team

- The Lancer: The foil to the Leader, and often a rival or antagonistic friend or colleague

- The Heart: The emotional center of the team. Often a medic or healer of some variety.

- The Smart Guy: The brains of the operation, often a tech savant, wizard, etc.

- The Big Guy: The tank, the Big Guy is strong, tough, or sometimes both.

This setup is extremely useful for stories with multiple protagonists, and especially when you need to rapidly differentiate them from each other even if there's a great deal of similarities between them. For example, consider Kill Team Errant, featured in my Warhammer 40K story Blackest Knights, which you should read if you haven't.

Our team features:

- Cadmus: Leader

- Phobos: Lancer

- Chiron: Heart

- Daedalus: Smart Guy

- Garm: Big Guy

Now, every member of the Kill Team is a space marine wearing the same, blank, gray armor. However, there are a variety of clues to let the audience know which member of the team is meant to fill which role, and to slot everyone in place in short order (this is a short story, after all, and I don't have infinite word count). If you're looking for easy, quick-fix solutions for your own stories, consider some of the following:

Names

Every member of the team has an alias taken from mythology, and the legends these names refer to are meant both as a signifier of their skill set, but also as a clue to their role in the 5 Man Band.

Cadmus was an ancient hero, and a slayer of monsters, making him a proud Leader. Phobos was a minor god of fear, making him the dark shadow to the sergeant, filling the role of the Lancer. Chiron was the centaur who taught philosophy and medicine to the ancient heroes, marking him as the team's apothecary (space marine medic), but also as the moral compass and heart. Daedalus was one of the great, learned minds of mythology who built the Labyrinth of the minotaur, and Garm was the hound of Hel who would drag back any souls that attempted to escape that realm.

Armament/Equipment

Weapons and armor (as well as other equipment) always has a symbolic representation in stories, in addition to any practical use it has for the characters in question.

For example, Cadmus carries a power sword of fine craftsmanship. This weapon is prestigious, as befits a leader, and it's clear that he is skilled with it. It also speaks to command, as officers have carried swords as sidearms both practically and ceremonially for centuries. Phobos, by contrast, uses a combat knife and a bolt pistol. Both of these are nasty weapons meant for up-close-and-personal killings, and they tend to work more for an ambusher and slayer than for a soldier or a warrior. Chiron only seems to have backup weapons, though we find by the end of the story that he's a psyker, a power which is extremely common for the Heart in this particular setup. Daedalus focuses on his bolt rifle and explosives, both of which are custom tooled to his exacting specifications, and which require a highly technical mind to make the most of in his particular fighting style. And Garm is equipped with a power fist, which allows him to strike devastating blows with one hand, and a boarding shield, which exacerbates his toughness, and ability to soak up punishment.

Manner of Speech

Every member of the Kill Team speaks differently, but the cadence and rhythm of their speech, as well as the choice of what they talk about, says a lot about them.

Phobos is irreverent, and cruel, which is a perfect opposite to Cadmus who focuses on the team, their goals, and coordination. Chiron attempts to solve problems with his words, and he is concerned with the morality of the actions his companions take. Daedalus speaks in an almost mechanical way, implying he's far more comfortable with facts, figures, and programs than he is with organic interaction with other people. And Garm... well, Garm barely speaks at all. Not an uncommon trait for a Big Guy, as the strong, silent type is a trope for a reason.

Show Your Audience Who Is Who

We're always saying, "show, don't tell," when it comes to our stories, but when it comes to tropes like the 5 Man Band it's extremely important to focus on that rule. Mostly because the trope exists as a meta-conceit. It's not part of the world itself (most of the time, anyway), but rather it's a tool for us as writers, and our audience as readers, to find a comfortable foothold to easily understand the mold a story fits into.

And it's also important to remember that all of these positions are flexible in terms of how they present to the audience, the traits that they have, etc. Your Big Guy might actually be the shortest member of the team, but he posses potent power as a psychic, or he's so dense nothing can truly hurt him. Your heart might be a gruff, foul-mouthed, stern parental figure who, underneath it all, truly cares for those around them. Your smart guy might be a gym rat who biohacks himself into the body he wants, in addition to being a multi-doctorate scientist, and your leader could be dark and brooding with their lancer a chipper, upbeat sort who always pushes them to do the most heroic thing.

If you haven't played around with this trope before, I highly recommend it... and that goes double if you're planning on writing squad-based military fiction, or party-based fantasy stories. It really saves you, and your audience, a lot of work!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!