Overcoming The Bystander Effect is Important For Building Your Audience as a Creator

Imagine that you're drowning, flailing your arms and doing your best to shout for help. Would you rather have a crowded beach full of potential rescuers to come to your aid, or just one person who happened to be walking by in your time of need? While a lot of us might think that the former situation means you'd have more people to come help, it seems you're actually more likely to get help if there's one person around to throw you a line.

This is called the Bystander Effect, and it is a serious problem for creators of all kinds out there.

Don't worry, you've got 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!

Even Murder Can't Get People Off The Sidelines

One of the most famous examples of the Bystander Effect as pointed out by Psychology Today is the murder of Kitty Genovese. In 1964 this young woman was stabbed to death outside her apartment in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses. No one stepped up to stop the assault, or even to call the police; everyone watched, but no one did anything, and the killers walked away.

Why did this happen?

Anybody got a problem?

It's a complicated situation to be sure, but it also works as a great example of the Bystander Effect. The two major factors involved, according to Latane and Darley, are called diffusion of responsibility and social influence. Diffusion of responsibility can be described as, "Well surely somebody is going to help?" Because if you're alone, and someone is in trouble, you know it's down to you to help. If you're in a group of 30+ people, though, that responsibility doesn't feel quite so heavy on your own shoulders. Social influence refers to how we often look around and examine the behavior of others to see what's the appropriate thing to do in any given situation is. And if nobody else is helping, we feel like maybe we aren't supposed to help either. And even if we'd like to help, we have to overcome that inertia to be the ones to start the ball rolling.

This is where the Catch-22 for creators comes in. Because we need literally tens of thousands of people to step up and help us make our projects successful, but when you address large audiences to try to rally those numbers you get a lot of people all agreeing that somebody should help you, but nobody lifts a finger to actually assist you in hitting your goals.

Become an Atheist (A Parable)

There's a story about a holy man who said that God made everything, and one of his students asked, "If God made everything, then why did he make atheists?" The holy man smiled, and said that atheists existed to provide an example for everyone. For when an atheist gave someone food, shelter, and care, they did not do so because they believed that God would judge them, or because they needed to avoid hell, but because they saw a problem and chose to step up and fix it because it was the right thing to do.

So when you come across someone in need, do not pray for God to help them. Rather, in that moment, become an atheist, and be the help they need.

I got you, brother.

Something I would tack onto this is something known as Rule .303. I talked about this in Want To Get Your Character Involved in Plot? Remember Rule .303, but for those who've never come across it can be stated simply as, "If you have the means and the opportunity, that confers upon you the duty to help."

Once you get into the mindset of someone who wants to help creators you care about (whether they're making things you like, or they're fellows in the industry you want to support), you find out that there's actually a ton of stuff you can do... and a lot of it is actually free!

How You Can Help Today!

Take a moment and think about a creator whose work you enjoy. Whether they're an author, a podcaster, a YouTuber, a game designer, or any other kind of creator, ask what you're doing to support them.

If you have money:

- Buy their work (for yourself, or as a present).

- Become a patron on Patreon.

- Give them a tip on Ko-Fi (or any other tipping platform).

- Buy their merch (seriously, tee shirt proceeds are how a lot of folks pay their bills).

If you don't have money:

- Subscribe to their social media (algorithms decide who gets promoted based on follower count).

- Like, share, comment, and reblog to boost their signal (again, interaction persuades the algorithm).

- Review their work (particularly important for Amazon).

- Talk about them in groups (I call this "doom posting," where I big-up people's signals en masse).

- Consume their content (read articles, watch videos, listen to casts, etc. even if it's muted, because these numbers are what contributes to their paychecks).

If you made it this far and you'd like to help me, specifically, here's some things you can do!

- Follow My Facebook

- Check Out My LinkTree

- Subscribe to My Weekly Newsletter

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

- Subscribe to My Daily Motion Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

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 as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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!

Why Do People Think Writing Is Easy? Largely Because of The Dunning-Kruger Effect

If you're a writer, you know there are a lot of people out there who think what you do is easy. People who assume that, because they have the ability to pick up a pen and write intelligible sentences, that there is really very little difference between them and you. Oh sure, you might have a little more practice, maybe a few more connections, but if they wanted to be an author all they'd need is a little time. They've got stories, man, and if they wanted to they could write them up the same way you do.

You just watch, I'll write my own novel! With hookers, and blackjack!

If you've ever had to deal with these folks, then you already know they're full of shit. Because sure, they might be able to construct complete sentences, and put them into paragraphs. It's even possible they'll be able to explain a cohesive story to a reader. But as we all know, those are just a few ingredients needed to make an author. You need to mix in a lifetime of reading, stir it with genuine love of stories, and add a pinch of experience to be able to tell what does, and what doesn't, work. Just because you've got some flour and a few apples, that doesn't mean you can bake an apple pie from scratch. Even if you think you can.

So why do so many people seem to think all you need is a notebook and a few months of spare time? Well, it's complicated, but science calls it The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Who With The What Now?

Have you ever noticed how people utterly unequipped to do a task not only think they'd be pretty good at it, but rate their performance as higher than it really should be? Well, that's the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action. In short, dumb people are too dumb to understand that they're dumb, and thus think they're doing pretty great. Or, put another way, if you completely lack a skill, then the only way you'll realize that is if you sit down and actually receive some training for that skill.

Sharon, I know you think you can do Susan's job. Trust me, you'd be as effective as a match in a hurricane.

Put into more scientific language, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias. Your brain tricks itself into believing something that isn't true, despite evidence to the contrary. The original study, performed by Dunning and Kruger natch, was inspired by the curious case of a bank robber. This guy had pulled off two bank robberies before getting caught, and he did it after covering his face with lemon juice. His logic was that, since lemon juice is used in the making of invisible ink, it would obscure his identity and make him impossible to record on security cameras.

Was that one guy a lone loony for believing that? Or was that just an extreme example of how people think they've got the inside track on life every, single day? The scientists decided to find out. They asked students in a psychology course to rate their own skills in areas like grammar, logical reasoning, and even humor. Then, after students were scored on a test (how you score humor I don't know, but that's not the point), they were asked to evaluate how well they did compared to the rest of the class. People who scored well, and who had some demonstrable skill in a given area, pegged themselves pretty accurately. If anything, they underestimated their own abilities. Those who had scored poorly? Well, they figured they were still slightly above average. They weren't, though. In short, the people who belonged in the D and F categories thought they deserved at least a low B.

You Can't Explain It If They Don't Speak The Language

Among Americans (since our culture is what gives rise to this effect), there really is no winning. Even if you want to sit your co-worker, extended family member, or casual friend down to explain why writing a book is really difficult, they aren't going to get it if they lack the skills and experience in doing any of the tasks associated with it.

At the end of the day, authors really do speak our own language. A language only other authors can understand. The more you write, the better you'll be able to speak and understand that language. So, congratulations to those willing to put in that work.

Speaking of which... shouldn't you be writing?

That's all for this week's Business of Writing post. While it might sound like it belongs in the craft section, trust me, you're going to need this knowledge when you work in the business side of books, blogs, and other literary endeavors. If you'd like to stay on top of all my latest releases, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. And if you want to support me so I can keep making content just like this, head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. For $1 a month you can buy my unending gratitude, and some sweet swag. So head on over, and pledge today!

"The Audacity of Hope" or "Why Variable Ratio Reinforcement Keeps You Writing"

Hope is a powerful thing, as every writer knows. Hope can keep readers coming back book after book to see whether or not their favorite characters really do fall in love. It can keep someone turning pages all night even though he has work in the morning because he can't believe there's no way out of the dark place you've taken your lead. Hope also keeps writers putting words on the page even though there's no guarantee that the blog entry, article, short story, novella, or novel will bring in a single, red cent. The kind of writers who are banking on selling books, getting ad clicks, or otherwise earning a living from the things they create for the public to consume do this every, single day.

Why do writers do this to themselves?

Hope. Hope, and a concept called variable ratio reinforcement.

That, and robbing banks is dangerous.

 What is Variable Ratio Reinforcement?

Reinforcement is a psychological term that is used to describe situations where someone's behavior is strengthened. If a child reaches for a hot stove and gets her hand slapped, that punishment reinforces the idea that reaching for the stove is a bad thing that shouldn't be done. On the other hand if a student earns $20 for every A on her report card, then that reward will make her even more likely to shoot for that 4.0 honor roll. When someone takes an action the result of that action leads to behavior being reinforced or discouraged. The more often the result happens the more solidly the behavior is reinforced.

So where does the irregular part come in?

In addition to rewards and punishments there's a reinforcement schedule. This schedule is how often that behavior is reinforced. If every time someone breaks a rule he gets punished, then there's a certainty that bad things will happen if certain actions are taken. That's a fixed ratio. A fixed interval is applying a certain reinforcement after a certain amount of time; getting a yearly raise every year one maintains a job, for instance. Variable ratio reinforcement is when you perform a certain action, but you don't know how many times you have to perform it before you get rewarded. This is essentially how slot machines work, but it's also how a lot of writing works as well.

How Do You Mean?

If you keep rolling this until your character succeeds, you already understand.

This concept works best when you use examples. When I wrote an article titled "Is Thou Shalt Not Suffer A With To Live A Biblical Translation Error?" (which you can still read here if you're of a mind) it got a lot of page views. I looked at the subject, comments, and content, and decided that writing about religion and how our modern interpretations of it are skewed was a smart way to make some money. So I published several other articles including one about a devil named Azazel from the Old Testament (found right here), and another about the Satanic Panic, one of America's great moral panics from the 1980s (still live right here).

These articles did get some page views, but I didn't recreate the months-long splash and more-than-decent royalty payments I'd earned from the first article. They got fewer views overall, and those views dropped off more quickly. Because I'd seen that an article about religion could generate a lot of traffic though I kept at it. I never managed to recreate the original article's success, and the website got a great deal of content out of me it might not otherwise have received for a lot less payment.

This works the same with book sales. Let's say that you wrote a book about a vampire private detective, and that book shot through the roof and made you a lot of money. Your next, logical step would be to write another book to try and make the lightning strike twice. Even if subsequent books didn't do as well, or if they did terribly, knowing it's possible is sometimes enough to keep you running on the hamster wheel just a little bit longer than you otherwise might.

But I've Never Had Any Successes Like That!

What if I told you that you didn't need to actually experience the success in question to make this effect happen? Knowing that just one pull on the slot machine can make you rich is often enough to make you put your last quarter in the slot. If you've actually won a lot of money on a slot machine before though then you're a lot more likely to keep pulling that one-armed bandit until you either run out of money or you win.

Writers do this all the time, except the slot machine is the publisher and the coins you're hoping for are royalties.

This is easily illustrated in short story anthologies. One anthology might offer $30 for an accepted story, and another one will offer an even split of the royalties. Even if the story is an electronic-only anthology from a first-time publisher, there's a little bug in the back of most writers' heads that tells them royalties might be a better bet if this book takes off. It also means more than one payment, if all things go well. More often than not books in this scenario sell enough copies that no one but the publisher makes a profit, and the writers end up being paid $0.68 each quarter for a year.

Why do we do this? Because the next one might be what hits it big!

Like this book right here, for instance!

The media doesn't make this any easier on us as writers either. Just look on the Internet and you see stories about self-publishing authors who make six-figure incomes off trashy romance and monster porn. That monster porn thing isn't a joke either; read this in case you thought I was fucking with you.

What's The Problem With Hope?

Part of the problem is that I'm a hard-bitten, cynical bastard who likes spitting in your eye. The other part of the problem is that hope does more than keep your energy up, and your outlook positive. Hope, much like cocaine and meth, can blur your energy and make it hard to remain focused and realistic. You can get so high on your own hopes and the potential of victory that it's easy to forget you're betting black on a roulette wheel with a disproportionate amount of crimson on it.

Is it possible for your short story or novel to springboard into national or international fame even though you're an indie author no one's ever heard of with no one to help advertise your story or spread the word about it? Yes, it is. It's happened, as the news and the Internet are only too happy to point out. But the chances of it happening are astronomical.

Keep your hope, by all means. I'll be the first to admit that hope of infecting the world at large mixed with a genuine love of my story (and a touch of spite, if I'm honest) is the cocktail that keeps me going on some projects. But it's important to make sure that you're not just jerking the lever and hoping against hope that the Bestseller Gods take pity and shower you with big sales, TV interviews, and book deals for sequels. If that's the kind of thing you want it's time to grab a shovel and start laying your foundation. Hope is just as useful, but a lot less necessary, when you've actually done the work to build a readership, earn a place with a good publisher, and made certain to refine your craft until you can cut right into your readers' hearts and guts with it.


As always thanks for sticking your head in here at The Literary Mercenary. If you'd like to keep me going feel free to toss your loose change in by clicking the "Shakespeare Gotta Get Paid Son!" button in the upper right hand corner, or going to my Patreon page and becoming a backer. To keep up to date with my latest hits put your email address in the other box on the top right, or follow me on Facebook or Tumblr.