"Ready Player One," Identity, and Internal Consistency

So, a while back I sat down and listened to Ready Player One while I was on a road trip. I was really not all that interested in the book after all the things I'd heard about it, but Wil Wheaton was the reader for the audio book, so I figured what the hell, I'll give it a listen.

Everything you've heard is true... good and bad.

Before we go any further, yes the trivia about all of the nerd ephemera of the 1980s was interesting. Yes Wheaton's reading was engaging, and kept my attention. Yes the sheer amount of the different stuff touched on (video games, tabletop RPGs, movies, computers, etc.) all wrapped up in a Willy Wonka style hunt for the throne was a clever way to package the sheer amount of stuff the author wanted to hold forth about. On the other hand, it's also true that this book's style glorifies gatekeeping, is pretty incomprehensible in how the world and tech actually works, and it bends over backwards to make the nerdy, chubby, socially awkward white guy into a hero when, really, he just comes across like a whiny sad sack.

Now that that's out of the way, though, I want to touch on how the internal consistency of the book sort of falls apart regarding identity, experience, and who is and isn't "real."

Because it sticks out like a sore thumb, and it's a teachable moment.

A Modern View That Doesn't Fit The Sci-Fi Future

For those who haven't read the book, the world of Ready Player One is a crumbling, energy-starved dystopian hellscape where a massive, virtual reality computer world called the Oasis is the main place where people come together. You go to school there, meet people, attend parties, hang out, play video games, become a well-known celebrity, etc., etc. It's a tool that has been fully embraced for at least a generation, now.

Which is why the whole concern in the book about who someone "really" is, and the subtext of, "what if they don't look the way their avatar looks online?" hits such a flat note.

Because really, who are any of us?

That concern is rooted in a very 1980s/1990s view point, where we don't consider the things that we do online to be genuine. It's not real life, in other words, it's just the Internet. But in this book, the Internet IS your real life.

Our protagonist, for example, was a child when the Oasis first came online. He literally describes it as his first babysitter, keeping him plugged-in and entertained while his mom worked (also through the Oasis by doing cam shows, and similar digital work). He attended in-person school very briefly, but then switched to an Oasis school. The only people we ever see him interact with in-person till the end of the book are his aunt, one of her boyfriends, and a neighbor of his... literally every other interaction he has is online. For a majority of the story our protagonist is actually in a tiny apartment in Ohio, which he never leaves, ordering all his food and necessities from the net, and never so much as going outside. We see him shower once, but even his heartbroken brooding takes place online.

The idea that someone who's lived their whole lives knowing nothing else, and who can count the number of offline people he's had meaningful interactions with on one hand, would consider online friends to be somehow not their real selves is jarring, to say the least. And the over-emphasis on, "Do you really look like your avatar?" is equally weird.

Sci-fi with this amount of emphasis on the freedom and expression of the virtual world is typically used to dip into questions of race and ethnicity, of age, of gender and its expression, and dozens of other areas that it can be used to comment on... and there is a token nod to that with H, whose avatar is an athletic white guy while offline she's, in her own words, "a fat black chick." However, H chose that avatar so people would take her seriously, and so she could avoid harassment... realistic for today, certainly, but in a world where everyone is digital, and you could be a seven foot komodo dragon with a unicorn horn, are there really people demanding to know if their friends and loved ones really look the same offline? And rather than spending the middle chapters going on about the glitched screen in Pac Man's final level, wouldn't a brief moment to lay out some kind of anti-Oasis movement, or subcultures where you must have an avatar that truly reflects your appearance in the interest of some sort of digital code of truth be helpful to smooth out this oddly-placed emphasis on something that feels like a relic of the past?

Think Through The Implications of Your Extraordinary Elements

On the one hand, it could be argued that this book was just an excuse to wax nostalgic about all the pop culture elements of the 80s and 90s; a handy way to fit video games, giant robots, Internet culture, Monty Python, and all the other geek ephemera of the era into the text. And yes, the book does that.

But that doesn't make it a good book.

And, in this case, the world building falls apart because too much energy was being put into deciding which forty-year-old video games were going to be pivotal plot points, and not enough into asking what the culture, norms, and world was actually like after the introduction of such remarkable technology.

Because it's fair enough to say that someone who grew up offline, but who then adopted the online world would still have all sorts of hang-ups and cognitive problems telling physical reality from digital reality. But the book feels like a Gen X individual trying to write from the perspective of a gen Z character, who then goes on this whole tear about the world away from their screens, and their phones, and all these digital devices... things that only appear weird or unnatural to the older generation because they weren't in place when they were younger. To someone born to it, who grew up with it, these tools are just a part of how the world is... and the fact that the protagonist has a whole rant about who we really are offline, and how the world would be better if they could all leave the Oasis, feels like a rant from an out-of-touch grandpa who fell off the technology curve.

 For a book series that did this right, I recommend starting with Feed, the first in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy. Short version, zombie apocalypse happened, and now our protagonists who grew up in the next generation are just trying to make a living. And there's plenty of nostalgia for older media (particularly zombie movies), but we see how the world has changed through their eyes, and how what would be bizarre or unheard of is just normal to them.

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 sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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 Marketing Lessons We Could Learn From Elvis Presley's Manager

Marketing is a tricky beast, but if you're a creative professional then you can't afford to miss a trick... sometimes literally! That's why it pays to study some of history's great successful campaigns, and to take notes on them.

I was reflecting on one of those earlier, and I thought I'd share it for those folks who don't know about it. If you're not familiar with the ins and outs of the life and times of Elvis Presley, the example started with these handy little buttons.

Full honesty, I might have bought one of these, myself.

What These Little Buttons Can Teach Us

If you like music, chances are good you know who Elvis Presley was. Still referred to as the King of Rock and Roll by a lot of folks, his music remains popular, and going to see his home is like a pilgrimage for some of his fans. While he was a landmark in chart toppers and record sales, it was important to remember that not everyone was an Elvis fan. In fact, a lot of people back then actively disliked his music, and they were pretty vocal about that fact.

Some things never change, I guess.

Of course, just because someone hated Elvis, that was no reason he couldn't make money off of them. Or, at least, that was his manager's reasoning according to Boing Boing.

We got what they want, baby!

You see, back in the 1950s, Elvis's manager started printing buttons and other merch which declared that the purchaser hated Elvis and his music. Making these buttons was easy, of course, because they were already producing the "I Love Elvis" variety, so all they had to do was change the text for a different crowd. This was the marketing equivalent of selling guns to both sides of the conflict, which meant that whatever your opinion was all of your money went straight into the King's coffers one way or another.

Something For Everyone

While most of us aren't famous enough that we can make money off our haters with such a brilliant strategy (I mean, have you ever read and reviewed anything off my Amazon author page?), the core principle on display is sound. In short, ask what people who aren't buying what you're selling want, and offer them that, too.

You don't have to be as extreme as the anti-Elvis buttons to put this strategy to use, either. If you have an ebook you're trying to sell, for example, how many people have said they only read physical copies? If you have a physical book, how many people have told you they prefer ebooks? If you have tee shirts that tie in, how many people ask for those designs on buttons and pins instead?

Pay attention to what people will actually buy. Because while they might not say, "I'd buy that if only it was in X format," being able to read between the lines (and make some small leaps in logic) can do a lot to make sure that you clean up at the end of the day.

Just something to keep in mind, since we're in the midst of the holiday crunch, and all of us are putting together new plans for our marketing in 2020.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!

Fiction Creates Empathy (Yet Another Reason Inclusion and Diversity Matter)

How many times has a book or a movie brought you to tears? Probably more times than you're willing to admit in mixed company, but from Bambi to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 chances are good you've had some tearjerker moments in your life. And if you tried to stem those tears with logic, you might have asked yourself why you were so upset? After all, these characters aren't real. They couldn't have died, learned deeper lessons about themselves, or reconciled with their parental figures and estranged family because they never lived... they aren't real.

The problem, of course, is that for the couple of pounds of jelly housed in your skull that makes all of your decisions, real is a slippery thing to define.

But if Darkblade isn't real, is anyone real?

For the gelatinous thinking parts between our ears, reality is nothing more than sensory input. Our higher brains know there isn't a hulking masked killer in our homes when we watch a slasher movie, but the construction of the narrative allows us to essentially hack our own bodies to produce adrenaline and a fear high, along with the catharsis of release when the characters do something on the screen. That doesn't mean the sensations are somehow less real, just because the scenario that produced them is fake.

What psychologists have found in studies like this one is that fiction also creates the capacity for empathy in the reader. Because your brain can't tell the difference between reading about a person who doesn't exist, and actually knowing someone who does. As long as the book you're reading provides you with an emotional journey that invests you in the character's experiences (something Scientific American pointed out, even if they also took the time to shit on genre fiction while they were at it) it improves your ability to empathize with other people.

So, the more you read, the more able to see other people's perspectives you become. This also means that people could begin to sympathize with perspectives they wouldn't otherwise see, or which they simply have no first-hand experience of. The same way as if they had diversified their groups of friends or family members in real space.

The Ripple Effects of Inclusion and Diversity

This is where the true power of the written word really shines through. Because just like how a scary story might give us the vicarious thrill of being chased by an undead maniac, other stories could put us in other situations we've never experienced. What it's like to be a young woman for male readers. What it's like to have a disability for those without such a condition. What it's like to be an ethnic or religious minority just trying to make your way in a world that is doing its best to keep its boot firmly on your head.

Fight the man, you feeling me?

In situations like this, your brain can't tell the difference between reading about a character and actually making a flesh-and-blood friend. Not in the delusional way (people aren't going to go around talking about how they spent the weekend escaping the prisons of NarShan with their best friend, as a rule), but in the sense that exposure to characters and exposure to people can have similar effects on your brain. So even if you live in a white suburb, reading a book can make the injustices and intolerances faced by the black community feel more real to you. Even if you've never once questioned being heterosexual, you can catch a glimpse of what it's like to be unsure, or to have other people trying to push and pull you in different directions regarding your sexuality. If you're part of the most common religion in the nation, a good book can show you what it's like to be someone persecuted for their faith by the majority.

In short, making friends with fictional characters affects us. The messages we see in their worlds lodge themselves in our brains, and open up channels that might not grow in any other way. They allow us to see different perspectives as readers, and to understand people outside our own experiences and beyond our own skins, metaphorically speaking.

This is why it's important for people to read a varied diet, but it's also why it's important for writers to make sure that the characters and stories we present are the sort of things that we want changing people's brains. We need to make characters, not caricatures, and to present scenarios that have internal consistency and logic to them, while also being engaging to read. In short, we are the ones tasked with making brain food for the masses, and tricking them into eating a double dose of empathy because it has a candy coating of engaging story and tasty drama to it.

Nobody ever said this job was easy. But if you've ever wondered if what you're doing matters, know that it does. You are literally affecting the way people see the world when they chew through your story... who else can say that about their work?

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 sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!

Don't Be Afraid To Find A New Platform For Old Stories

For those who don't follow me on Facebook, I'm currently in the middle of what I've dubbed The Great Reshuffling. For many years I had an archive of content on the site InfoBarrel, and it earned me a small be respectable check every month or so. As the traffic to the site started to go down, and maintenance became less and less common, I stopped posting there. I instead headed over to Vocal, where I wrote a bunch of new content, and found it paid significantly better.

Now that InfoBarrel is taking ads off their site, and more or less going into a state of suspended animation, it's time to begin the process of moving the popular pieces out of that old archive, and into the new one.

Don't mind the grunting... this stuff's just heavy.

This is something I've been steadily doing since about last May or June... however, this is not the first time I've been forced to do this. So I figured I'd share the experience, and what fellow creators can learn from my many moves.

In The Days of Yahoo! Voices...

When I was in college, a friend of mine told me about a website that allowed writers to create whatever sort of content they wanted, and it would pay them based on their traffic. Sometimes they'd even qualify for an up-front fee, depending on the article, story, etc. in question. I was always looking for some side money, so I signed up, and gave it a try. So I put up articles, short stories, etc., and eventually I got enough views that I was earning roughly $2 for every 1k views my work got. And when a new article might generate 10k to 15k views, that was pretty nice work for a side hustle.

I even put up a couple of the steampunk short stories that acted as the basis for New Avalon: Love and Loss in The City of Steam.

Which has the first few tales for free, if you haven't read it yet, by the by.

The original website, whose name I can't recall for the life of me right now, was bought by Yahoo! It then became Yahoo! Voices, and for a few years I kept building my archive and making what earnings I could on it. And, for a bit, it seemed like I was going to be able to shift it from a side hustle to a rent-paying level of earnings... of course, as soon as I started pulling down triple-digit checks, that was when the site sent out a notice that it was closing down and deleting everything in its archives.

Shit.

I detailed this at the time in Improved Initiative Needs Your Help! over on my gaming blog. But once I lost that archive of 400+ active-and-earning articles, I had to figure out what to do with that mound of content. Not all of it was great, but a lot of it had been pretty popular. So I started looking around for a new home to get it back on the market. There weren't any websites at the time paying a flat fee for traffic, so I initially started putting my old articles up on Hubpages. I was just starting to make progress on the pile after a few months when, as you might have guessed, things went south again. As I detailed in the Part Two update, no sooner had I caught my breath and gotten into the swing of things again than Google kicked me off their AdSense platform. So now there weren't any websites I could host my old content on, or write new stuff for if I expected to make any money off those efforts.

After asking around on some forums, I found there was a way to host your content on InfoBarrel, and to make money off the site's total take, rather than off your personal AdSense account (which, again, I no longer had). I'd had an InfoBarrel account for years, but hadn't updated in a while... still, when I logged in, it was glad to have me back. And for a year or so, it worked out pretty well as a new host for me. I got the real gems of my old archive back up, and started adding new content. Then InfoBarrel rolled out their 2.0 version, and suddenly traffic plummeted. What would previously have generated thousands of views was now barely getting a few hundred, and instead of a check every month I was getting one every three to five months. After trying new tactics and waiting on updates that never came, I threw up my hands and walked away. Now, as I alluded to at the beginning, I'm once again moving a lot of my content that's on InfoBarrel over to yet another new home.

Why? Why go through all of that effort one more time when it's already been through half a dozen websites? Well, because good content never really dies, even if the hosting sites do.

Evergreen Content Has No Shelf Life

If you drop by my Vocal archive and check out the recent posts, you're going to see a variety of topics. There's going to be life hack guides like How To Make An Apple Cider Vinegar Fly Trap next to silly listicles like 9 Super Powers Your Cat Has. And mixed in there you'll probably find some celebrity trivia, like 5 True Facts About James Earl Jones. There's also a lot of stuff about tabletop gaming, for those of you out there who like rolling funny shaped dice.

You know who you are.

The key to a lot of this stuff is that it's not going to go out of style. It's not movie reviews, where the film will hit big, and then fade into obscurity a week later. It's not a how-to for a car that's popular now, but which no one will own in the next 7 years or so. Most of these articles are evergreen, and they're always going to be relevant to a certain demographic.

And you know what I've found by moving them over? People are still reading them. They may not be reading them in the thousands, but my daily view count has been steadily creeping up since I started shuffling over those old posts, cleaning up the language and polishing up their look. It means my archive is steadily growing every week, and that I always have something recent (if not exactly "new") to promote on social media. It's mostly a copy-and-paste job, but it's paying dividends.

That's the point I'm trying to make. If you put in the time and effort to craft something that matters, don't be afraid of finding it a new home when the old one falls apart. Whether it's a blog that closes up, a publisher that shutters its doors, or fiction site that shuts down... you put work into that story. Don't just let it sink... there are people out there who haven't read it yet! Clean it up, slap on a fresh coat of paint (and possibly a new cover), and put it back in general population.

The results may surprise you!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!

Preventing Characters From Becoming Caricatures

A little while ago I was reading a short story whose simple premise was that an abusive husband is paranoid his wife is going to kill him. As their honeymoon car trip developed more and more problems, and his temper flared, he grew more and more aggressive toward her. The purpose of his actions, in this case, was to create the story's central conflict, and to set him up as the character we were supposed to dislike, and want to see punished.

The problem was... well, he wasn't a character. He was a caricature of an abusive spouse, and that drained the drama and tension from the story.

Woman, didn't I tell you to bring me a beer 2.5 seconds ago?

This story could really have been unnerving if we were allowed to see the slow boil of the husband's rage, and watch the effect it had on his wife. If we could have seen her wince back, or watched her demeanor change, showing us without telling that she had moved into pleasing mode to avoid troubles. Maybe even rubbing at a place that had been hurt before on her arm, or her neck. It could have quickly established the dynamic and history of their relationship, making the reader wonder if this was going to be a flare-up, or if she was going to be able to defuse this bomb before it went off.

Instead of all of that, though, we simply got a guy who swaggered when he walked, talked like a time traveler from the 1940s (it was ostensibly set in the modern day, though it was hard to tell that for a fact), and who threatened his wife openly and clearly in a way that was... well, which kind of underscored how shallow the character was. The story didn't have our husband struggle with his temper, trying to keep himself under control, or making excuses about how it wasn't really his fault. We learned nothing else about him, either, so his sole defining characteristic was, "Dickbag wife beater." But they're on their honeymoon... what else did he have to offer? Why is she with him? Who is he the other 99% of the time when he isn't taking his frustrations out on his spouse?

We'll never know... but it got me thinking on the difference between character, and caricature, and how it so often gets lost in the mix.

Seeing Things in One Dimension

If you've ever seen a caricature artist at work, you'll realize that a lot of the art style is deciding what their subject's most noticeable feature is, and making that the centerpiece of the image. Obama is shown as a cartoon with huge ears, for example, and Jay Leno's portraits tend to be three-quarters chin. Whatever stands out, that's the feature that gets exaggerated until it becomes the single dimension that everything else in the image is hung off of.

You see what I mean.

The issue with caricatures in writing is that the one feature you wanted the character to have (in this case making it clear this guy beats his wife, and that he should be despised for that) ends up subsuming the whole character... and it brings down everything around it. Because it's a shallow portrayal, and having a shallow character in an otherwise fully-rendered world is the equivalent of having Bugs Bunny walking on set while the crew is shooting Casablanca; it's a jarring flat note in an otherwise rich song.

And if there's more than one caricature, then you have a bunch of flat notes that's going to ruin whatever piece you were trying to compose.

Caricatures come in a thousand different forms, and when they get particularly crass they can turn into rather awful stereotypes. From the gang members in the bar fight who all had their pants sagging and their gold chains out, to the greedy pawnbroker with the big nose and the small spectacles, to the bottle blonde with the tight sweater and the unfocused expression, these aren't really characters... they're caricatures.

Digging Deeper

The best way to avoid turning your characters into caricatures is to dig deeper. Unfortunately, there's no shortcut, and it's particularly dirty work.

So, better start digging.

The best thing you can do in this situation is to ask yourself what other aspects of this character matter? What other dimensions are there to them that the audience would see, even if it's only in passing? What can you do to avoid this character being just one note?

Let's go back to the bar fight scene I mentioned in passing earlier. Before the action, you've got your gang of stereotypical hoods in the bar. They look the part (tattoos, flashy jewelry, maybe a shot of a chrome pistol or two), but what can you add to these characters? Do we see that one of them has a quote from Banquo on his wrist, making the audience wonder what this shooter's relationship is to MacBeth's second-in-command in the Shakespeare play? Do we overhear one of the others talking on the phone to his kids, sharing an earnest moment that lets us know there are people that depend on the money he brings home? Is the heated conversation between two of the younger members over anime trivia, showing they have a life outside of gang life?

Every single one of those instances adds touches of character, and suggests depths that lay beneath the surface to these people. We've seen them in what amounts to their work attire, but we've caught glimpses of who they are beyond that. Enough to make us curious, and perhaps enough to add poignancy to one (or several) of them getting wounded or killed in the violence that's about to happen.

The More We See Someone, The More Depth They Need

One of the most common push backs I hear against adding more depth and nuance is people who argue, "Oh, so I'm supposed to know the whole life story of the waiter in scene two who takes their drinks, and then we never see again?"

No, and to even suggest that's somehow a requirement is ludicrous. However, it's important to challenge yourself to add at least two facets to any character you took the time to give actual lines to in your book. And the more time we spend with a character, the more depth you need to add as we get to know them.

Perhaps if you're still here by Chapter 7 I will tell you my name.

If your private detective is just ordering a drink from a bartender, we don't need to really know anything about him; he's just there as a background player to make sure your character has a scotch in his hand when the time is right. But if they start making conversation, well, now the bartender has lines. Even if he's not an important character, he's part of the tapestry now. If he's a witness, or someone who has information that proves helpful, then that means we should find out a little more about him each time. For example, we might have just thought of him as a big guy working a bar and busting heads when things get rowdy. But when we see him again in chapter 6 he's reading a romance novel. Maybe he mentions he picked up books again while he was doing time, and now he's just trying to keep up on the habit.

And so on, and so forth. Anytime we come back to a character, we learn a little more about them, and you need to pull back the curtain just a little more on who they are as well as what they're adding to the story.

However, there is a risk that comes with characters we see a lot; they might become caricatures through a process known as Flanderization. Named for the Simpsons' Ned Flanders, it refers to how a character slowly has their various traits stripped away, until all that's left behind is their single, core trait blown up to ridiculous, one-dimensional proportions. Much like how Homer's neighbor started off as a considerate man, all-around great dad, and guy who actually went to church, but eventually had most of that other stuff stripped away in favor of the ultra-Christian thing.

Creating and maintaining character depth isn't easy, but it's a habit. And like any other habit, it requires working until it becomes a reflex. Once you're there, maintaining it is a cinch.

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 sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!

Patreon Creators, Keep Your Patrons Happy (Without Busting Your Budget)

For folks who don't keep up on my offline doings, I spent the past weekend at Windy Con in Chicago. I saw a bunch of friends I've made over the years, and met a few new folks while I was at it. I sold a few books, and as usual sat on a couple of panels. Perhaps the best-attended panel I was on, though, dealt with crowdfunding, and how you can get your project off the ground. Some folks were experts on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, but some of us were more used to platforms like Patreon. Something I sort of rely on most months, and if you haven't read my previous post Why Patreon is a Lifesaver For Authors (Like Me), I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyway, it was while we were answering questions that an important point came up that I wanted to talk about this week. That point, in short, was that little extras and bonus gifts are what get people to pledge more... but you need to carefully consider what you're offering, and what these bonuses are going to do to your bottom line. Because the more it takes you to produce and send off those presents, the smaller your profits are going to get when all is said and done.

Don't promise, if you can't deliver.

Gifting Your Patrons (Without Going Broke)

If you've run any kind of crowdfunding enterprise, or just participated in a few of them as a backer, you've likely seen the kinds of high-dollar patron packages or stretch goal rewards. You know, stuff like tee shirts, or small statuettes, or signed copies of a bonus book, things like that. And you may have wondered why those only go to high-dollar donors when the items are so relatively small.

Relative is the key word, there, because you have to foot all the costs for it.

That means you need to buy the item in the first place, as well as designing it if it's a unique prize. Let's be generous and say it's only $3 for a paperback book that's being given as a bonus. You then need to pay the shipping on the item (sometimes twice if you need the item shipped to you so you can sign it, and/or repackage it before sending it on its way again). That could cost anywhere from $5 up to $15 or $30, depending on weight, location, and so on. You then need to perform this process for every person who contributed at a certain level, which means you need to handle all the costs, the mailing, and following up on deliveries.

Trust me, it hurts your bank account even more than your brain.

There is a middle ground here, though, and you've seen it even if you didn't put two and two together at the time. If you scroll through Kickstarter or Patreon right now, and you look at contributor rewards, you'll see all sorts of stuff that might strike you as kind of cool, but really low effort when you think about it. For example, a space in the credits of a film, or having your name on the special thank you list for backers for a book or game. If you're a patron, then you might receive free ebooks, digital art, or similar items in your email every month. If you support a YouTube channel at a certain level then you may be able to suggest topics for the show to cover, or even be treated like a sponsor and get a shout-out for the episode you helped make possible.

None of these things require a lot in the way of additional work, or (more importantly) additional costs to the creator. But they still provide something of value to a patron, or make them feel special, or valued in some way. Hell, I use this strategy myself. Folks who donate at least $1 over on The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page get a free copy of whatever gaming supplement I've released that month over on Drive Thru RPG. Why? Well, because they're digital, they're already out, it costs me $0 to send them to any patron anywhere in the world, and it provides them something of value that they no longer have to purchase outside of supporting me.

And that ticks all the boxes for what ideally makes a solid gift that should (at least in theory) act as a solid enticement to get your patrons to chip in just a little more every month.

Gifts and Prizes Are No Substitute For Quality

Since it has to be said.

To be clear, here, stretch goals, bonus gifts, tier levels... these things are icing on the cake when it comes to your crowdfunding efforts. They're nice to have, and sometimes they can be the extra little draw that gets someone to take a look at what you're offering.

However, the icing can't make up for a shoddy cake. Remember that, because you need to be producing something good in the first place if you want people to be happy with you. The extras are nice, and may draw some occasional extra funding, but you can't sell a plate of icing and call it a cake. Well, you can, but it probably won't go over as well as you think.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!

Older is Better: A Trope That's Become A Reflex For Many Writers

Ertrand raised his torch higher, examining the tomb of the ancient king. The name was incomprehensible, but the sheathed sword on the casket glimmered when he wiped at the dust. Taking hold of the hilt, he drew the blade, and examined it. It had the distinct sheen of the old styles of metal smithing, and the dry air of the tomb had kept it mostly intact. He slid it back into the sheathe carefully, and lifted it as if it were made of glass.

"Some collector is going to keep you on his wall," Ertrand said, wrapping his find in soft padding. "For my money, I prefer a sword that isn't so brittle it splinters when you strike a shield with it."

"Of course it's valuable! What? No, I have a high-carbon steel blade for a reason, you idiot!"

This is a scene we almost never seen in fantasy stories, and it's because of a trope that has bothered me more and more the longer I've been swimming around genre fiction; Older is Better. While this trope isn't inherently bad, I do think that too often writers in general (and those of us who work in sci-fi and fantasy in particular) reach for it out of reflex. We don't stop and think about whether it's a trope that makes our story better, or if it adds to the tale we're actually telling... we just put it in there for the same reason elves have pointy ears, and dwarves have beards.

Because that's how so many other writers have done it.

What Does It Say About Your Setting?

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of this trope out there. Conan's Atlantean steel sword that can slash through Cimmerian blades and survive hundreds of years in a dank cave with impunity, for instance. The missing STCs from the dark age of technology in Warhammer 40k that represent the pinnacle of ancient human achievement. Most of the old elven weapons we see in Tolkien's works that are leaps and bounds beyond what even dwarven princes are given to wear at their sides when adventuring.

However, this trope goes beyond weapons and gear; it can extend to everything in your universe.

Especially your magic.

Are the ruins of the old empires huge, sweeping things that were built with techniques that have been lost to the ages? Were their enchantments so potent that nothing today's wizards can conjure can match them for glory? Did the old ones have the skill to weave fabrics that could endure for generations, and fit themselves to each wearer?

All of that stuff is cool, but it poses a central question that you as the author should consider... why?

Humans (as most of the time we have humans as our core races) are really inventive creatures, and when you ask a few generations of us to reverse-engineer something, our results can be rather startling. All you need to do is read the rant on why humans are so central in Star Trek to get the impression that we are both extremely dangerous as a people, but also extremely inventive.

The first version of this question you need to answer is "Why can't that ancient thing be made anymore?"

The route most authors go for keeping ancient achievements from being a part of the modern age is that the technique for doing so was lost to time, which is a historically valid option if you're looking for real-world examples. We have amazing metal working skills today, for example, but we have zero clue how an iron pillar in Delhi has stood for over 1,600 years without a single speck of rust. And sometimes if the technique fell out of favor, or it was rigidly controlled and those capable of making the thing died, the knowledge could be lost.

The second question you need to answer, and arguably the more important one, is "Why hasn't anyone figured out how to do it again?"

This is where things can get sticky, but where you have a lot more options. For example, is the pursuit of independent knowledge considered heresy (as you see in Warhammer's setting), stifling any meaningful efforts to recreate these ancient miracles? Are there not enough examples of the thing to reverse-engineer it (or is doing so a particularly dangerous process)? Or, my personal favorite, is a key ingredient for the old process no longer around, making it impossible to recreate in the modern setting (the bones of a certain extinct animal, a seed from a plant that was harvested into oblivion, etc.)? If something is not just difficult to create, but out and out impossible, then it makes the surviving versions even more impressive. But it could also mean that rituals, rites, and other tools are truly beyond the grasp of your protagonists, unless they re-discover the element needed to make the old methods work once again.

How Has This Loss Been Compensated For?

Magic sword, huh? Cool story, bro.

One of the other issues that comes with the Older is Better trope is that it often creates a photocopied setting; each era is just a smaller, less impressive version of the one that came before it. However, if something that made a previous era of prosperity possible is lost or forgotten (whether due to resources, a dark age, or what have you), then ask what people did to replace its loss. What direction did society go in, and how did it change?

If magic lost some of its potency, or vanished entirely except in rare cases, did that lead to a rise in more reliable forms of alchemy? If the method for creating relic shields that could guard against any arrow was lost, did this lead to a change in protections, or a change in tactics? If shimmer cloaks became so rare as to be effectively non-existent, then what replaced them as a status symbol and/or means of personal protection?

While having relics from the past, lost rituals, or ancient rites are fun additions to a story, too often writers forget that subsequent generations don't stay in a holding pattern waiting for those things to be re-discovered. They're going to be moving, changing, altering, and finding new ways to accomplish old goals. Sometimes this means embracing new technologies, and other times it means changing your entire society... but rarely do things stay exactly the same for huge swaths of time.

Even language changes, and a way of speaking or writing that would be quite plain just a few generations ago can feel strange and foreign. After several hundred years of linguistic drift, well, that might be another reason that lost methods remain lost.

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 sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

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!