Overwhelming Your Reader With Too Many Characters (Don't Do This)

Have you ever been to a holiday gathering for a significant other, or maybe gotten dragged to a big meet-up by a friend of yours? If so, then you probably remember how you were immediately thrust into an environment where there was one person you know and were familiar with, and you spent the rest of the event in a blur trying to build a map of who was who? You might have remembered that Jim, the big guy with the receding hair and the dad-stashe, was your friend's work-husband. Maybe you managed to remember the woman with the red hair was named Jessica, and she was your friend's ex from high school. But beyond that... well, it's mostly a blur. Even worse, you spent so much time trying to learn everyone's name, and to figure out what their relationships were, that you completely missed the evening's conversations, and anything that was happening throughout the night.

That feeling of exhausted discombobulation is the same feeling readers get when they're immediately shoved into a book that has a massive cast, and you're throwing names and descriptions at them faster than they can handle.

Who the hell were you again?

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!

Frogs and Boiling Water

You've likely heard the old saying about how you can't just drop frogs into boiling water. If you do that, they'll just jump right out again. However, if you put them in lukewarm water, and then ratchet up the heat a little at a time then they'll just stay in the water while you cook them. While we aren't looking to harm our readers, this is generally the method you should use to introduce them to both your world, and to the characters who populate it.

So, there was a thing called the Fast Food Wars, and, ugh... well, it's complicated...

There are generally two methods you can do for this. The first is to have a long story so that you can introduce your cast of important characters over time. This is probably the most common strategy used for those writing a novel series. The second strategy is to have a flash-introduction for the whole cast all at once, but not to linger on them. Then, one-by-one, we find reasons for our readers to spend time with them, and to fill in their details so they gain depth and personality.

Consider a book series with a massive cast of characters, like A Song of Ice and Fire. Even if we just include the main cast, there's more than 20 some-odd characters we spend a lot of time with, and at least a dozen of them become point-of-view characters throughout the story. However, we're introducted to this cast over several very large books... and more importantly, the audience is often told about characters before they meet them, so that when they actually show up the audience has at least heard of them before. And as new members are added to the cast, and new events happen, we get to add more and more names to the roster without confusing the audience.

Of course, it also helps that they seem to get pruned every couple of chapters as well.

Prime examples of the latter strategy, though, tend to be mystery stories and cop/private eye dramas. For example, consider a story like Murder on The Orient Express. The cast is rather large, and we get them in a rather rapid succession... but we aren't slammed with all of them all at once. We, instead, get smaller touches of conversation, as well as interviews with Monsieur Poirot. In this way we can introduce a number of characters in a controlled environment so that our audience can "meet" them all, but they're also there to be examined and learned, as we're looking for details about their lives and possible involvement in the unfolding murder. You'll see similar setups with the Benoit Blanc films Knives Out and Glass Onion, as well, which allows us to easily juggle a dozen characters or more with relatively little stress.

The key in both situations is being able to breathe in between bites. If each new character is a new dish, it's important to give your audience time to take a bite, chew it, analyze it, swallow, and maybe take a drink of water to cleanse their palate before you give them a new one to taste. Space out how often you introduce your cast, and just as with your plot or world building, don't just jam a funnel into your reader's mouths and pour until the bottle is empty.

No one will enjoy that experience, and it's likely to lead to readers putting your book down and walking away before they ever get close to the dessert course.

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!

Care and Feeding of Your Creators (5 Steps All Fans Should Take)

So, you've been out wilding on the Internet, or maybe you were in real space at a convention, and you found someone who makes things you like. You want this person to be able to keep doing what they're doing, but you've never had a pet creator before. How do you take care of them? How do you ensure they've got enough enrichment in their enclosures to keep their creative juices flowing properly? What do creators even eat?

Don't worry. Just take a deep breath. I'm going to give you the inside scoop on just what your creator needs, and how you can make sure that they continue to do that thing you love for years to come!

Stimulants may be necessary, but we'll get there when we get there...

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 5 Steps To Taking Care Of Your Creators

In the old days, artists had patrons who would give them money, food, a place to live, and so one. Whether it was rich nobles who wanted to show off by having a pet artist, or the church who needed their skills to create works of art to ensure the proper feeling of reverence in the populace, these old style patrons handled the day-to-day expenses of the creators so they could focus on using their skills to make art.

The world has changed since then. These days it's possible for anyone to support the work of an artist they like, though, and we definitely need all the help we can get.

Just follow these 5 Steps, and your artist will be perking up in no time!

Method #1: Direct Patronage

Seriously, every little bit helps.

You may not be a member of the Medicis, but you can still help creators directly. Whether you want to become a Patreon patron and give them a specific amount every month, or just toss them a tip using a platform like Ko-Fi when you have a little bit to spare, these tips can add up when there's a lot of people participating. Never underestimate the power of a lot of people doing something small in large numbers... that is going to become a running theme throughout this post, for folks who are wondering.

And if you want to give me a hand up, consider become one of my Patreon patrons, or giving me a tip on my Ko-Fi.

#2: Buy Their Merch

Since a lot of folks haven't checked out this novel yet...

Did you know that a band makes way more money from the purchase of a tee shirt or a CD than buying a ticket to their concert does, more often than not? In fact, most of the money made from concerts (even those that sell out) often go to pay for the expenses of the show. Even some tours that seem really successful from the outside can barely break even... or in some case leave the performers in debt if they don't sell enough merch to actually make a profit.

So if you have a creator you like, take a look at their merch. Authors have novels, RPG rule books, and so on, which makes them easy to support in this regard. But even if you have a YouTuber, a painter, or any other kind of creator, ask what kind of merch they put out. Do they have stickers? Tee shirts? Shaker cups? Prints of their artwork? Or do they have a sponsorship deal with a product or service that you would actually use (since every purchase through the creator's link puts money in their pockets)?

For those interested in novels and short stories, check out my Amazon author page. If you're more of an RPG players, I've got nearly 200 titles on Drive Thru RPG. And if you're a fan of energy drinks that I can attest absolutely get the job done, consider clicking right here to check out Dubby!

Method #3: Consume Their Content

If a creator you follow makes content that is free for you to consume (they have a YouTube channel, a podcast, or they publish articles on a website or a blog), then make sure you're actually watching, reading, and listening to the things they make! In some cases that free content does have a method of getting the creator paid, such as how YouTube gives a portion of ad revenue to the person who runs a channel once they've met the website's qualifications. Your reads, views, etc. will only be a tiny fraction of what they'd need to make a living, but it costs you nothing, and increases the creator's numbers, which matters a lot.

Why does it matter? Because the algorithm, which can decide our success or failure, pays attention to numbers. Videos, articles, podcast episodes, etc., that get a lot of interaction (which is both watches/views/listens, but also shares, upvotes, reviews, etc.) are the things the algorithm chooses to signal boost because it believes they're more popular. So the more you can add to a creator's numbers, the better they look overall. As such you should listen, but also like, comment, subscribe, and all those other things that can help them push the rock up the hill a little further.

For those who'd like to help me in this regard, I help out with the Azukail Games YouTube channel, but I also have an archive of 329 articles and growing on Vocal.media (and every 3 articles read basically puts a penny in my earnings cup... so reading even 1 article a day would make a big difference if enough people did it).

Method #4: Actively Follow Them on Social Media

On it, chief!

Social media is the lifeblood of how a lot of us stay in touch, as well as how we find new things. The problem is that thanks to platform decay, only those with the loudest followings and the largest numbers actually seem to get anywhere... everyone else is just drowned out by the sea of noise, ads, and bots that exists on these platforms.

Again, if you want the algorithm to notice the creators you like (and possibly pay them, as apparently that's a thing that can happen if your following is big enough), do your part to increase their numbers!

That means you should absolutely follow/subscribe to the creators you like on all the platforms they're active on, but that's just the start. Interact with their posts by liking, commenting, and sharing them. Turn on notifications if that's an option so you don't miss posts. Make sure you're plugged-in so that you see the things they put up, and if possible try to persuade your friends to do the same! Pushing someone's signal up takes literally tens of thousands of people, but it can be done if folks show up and keep the energy going. Like the other stuff above, this isn't a one-and-done... make this a part of your regular routine. It will only take a few minutes a day, if that, and it does make an impact.

All of my social media links are at the end of this blog for folks who are interested... Hope to see you there!

Method #5: Make Sure You Tell Them How Much You Like Their Work

Being told that people like your work, that people are excited for a thing you made, is like a straight shot in the arm for a lot of creators out there. We put hours of time, energy, editing, an often collaborating to make our creations into things that can be experienced... and when we do all that, and no one ever reads, watches, listens, etc., it can feel like it was for nothing.

I wrote Waking Dogs Part 3: Warhounds a few months ago, and the audio drama above by the YouTube channel A Vox in The Void gave me chills to listen to. Even more than hearing someone else's interpretation of my work, though, were the comments folks left behind!

I'll be honest, I wrote the first story abotu Crixus and his bloody adventures in the grimdark galaxy because I was hoping folks would then turn around and check out my novel Old Soldiers... but this little fanfiction series has taken on a life of its own. And seeing just how excited folks were not just to have a new installment of the series, but how stoked they were to know I had plans to keep it going... that's a great feeling to have, and it's one that we don't get as often as you might think.

So if you love a creator's work, tell them. Because a lot of the time we might be wondering if anyone actually cares, and if there's anyone actually rooting for us to keep going. Sometimes a little cheering from the sidelines really does help us keep putting one foot in front of the other just a little bit longer.

Final Thoughts

I want to make it clear to folks that this advice is universal. Any creator you're following, whether they're an author or a graphic artists, a YouTuber, a podcaster, a voice actor, or an essayist, they need you to help them keep their career alive. You are literally the life blood of art. PBS wasn't screwing around when they said we can only do what we do because of viewers like you... without your support, a lot of us will have to stop making art... so support the people whose work you want to see flourish!

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 Real World Slang and Swearing In Your Fantastical Story (Dos and Don'ts)

This week I want to talk about a very particular trend that seems to be cropping up in a lot of books. It is, simply put, the tendency that a lot of writers seem to have of letting modern colloquial slang and swear words just drop out of the mouths of characters in settings where that kind of language simply doesn't make sense. Whether you're out on the rim of a far-off asteroid belt, or riding shaggy aurochs across the frozen tundra of Marvosa, the words your characters use shape the story... and if you end up having them sound like someone from small town America somewhere in the mid 20-teens, that's going to shatter readers' immersion.

"Yeet!" Scarbrand roared, hurling the great spear toward the charging frost giant...

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!

Why You Shouldn't Do This

There are a lot of books that have done this in recent years. Fourth Wing, Quicksilver, and A Court of Thorns and Roses to name a few. However, each of these acts as a good example of why using modern language in a non-modern story without thinking is a problem... because it undermines your world building, and it takes your readers out of the story.

Now, for clarity, I'm not talking about digging deep into the cultural origin of words here. If you're writing a story about a war on the other side of the galaxy between alien factions, and one of them has a heavily-armored vehicle with a large main gun and additional support weapons, you can still call it a tank. The fact that it's completely divorced from the weapon development during the first World War on Earth when the British tried to hide the development of these armored vehicles by claiming they were new kinds of water tanks (hence the name) isn't the sort of thing that's going to take readers out of the story for the most part.

Yeah, this one you can get away with.

No, for this case what I'm talking about is using modern slang, or truly modern phrases, but letting them come out of the mouths of characters who have no business talking like this. As an example, if you have a high fantasy story about dragon riders, and one of them wants to compliment the other on a great feat of riding, or bravery in battle, they wouldn't clap them on the shoulder and say something like, "Based maneuver, comrade," or, "Poggers flying! You're lucky Skyrake didn't yeet you off."

If that example got a laugh out of you, good. However, the point remains that the way people talk, and the words they use, are a part of the underlying nature of the world your story takes place in. So if you're going to have particular phrases in your world, or particular pieces of slang, it's worth asking why they exist, and if they make sense given the culture of the world you've set up.

Just like how an urukhai declaring, "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!" means that there are restaurants in Mordor, and that these magically-grown murder monsters understand the concept of a menu in the first place, you can sometimes get away with one or two instances... but not if you're using it every, single conversation.

When You Can Get Away With It

As with every rule, there are always going to be exceptions. The first one, which might be a slightly controversial take, is that you can get away with these words if there is some kind of explanation that makes sense in-world. If you're writing a historical fantasy, for instance, you might come into contact with The Tiffany Problem, which is when we don't realize how far back into our history certain ideas, concepts, or even names can go. The other side of this coin is when you have stories set in the far future, but there are still bits of our colloquial language that have survived the test of time, even if the exact origin and meaning has been lost by those who've adopted particular turns of phrase.

More on the Tiffany Problem in the video below, if you haven't seen it yet.

The second time when you can more or less get away with modern parlance is when it's a word that conveys a particular feeling, but you don't want to make up something unique to this setting. As a for-instance, lots of fantasy novels will have made-up swear words in them ("bags" was a common one in the fantasy novels by Terry Goodkind, for instance), but it's quite common for grittier or more hard-edged books like the Witcher series, or the First Law series, to just use modern swear words. Shit, fuck, damn, and so on are all perfectly serviceable, and they've existed in some way for hundreds, if not thousands of years. So even if these aren't the specific swear words we're hearing (if you subscribe to the idea that fantasy stories are written in the native language of that world, and we are seeing a translated version of the tale), the meaning is more important than the specific word in this context. And sometimes made-up swear words just don't convey the right feeling.

The third situation where you can get away with this, and where it might even be the whole point of the story you're writing, is when it is done for comedic effect. This is particularly true when we stray into the realm of parody. For example, perhaps you want to have a traditional high fantasy story, but all the characters talk like they're in a high school teen drama from the 1990s. Maybe you want to write a cyberpunk novel set in an alternate year 2020, but while the technology is all vastly different, the subcultures and slang are largely the same, which is kind of a hilarious juxtaposition. Perhaps you want the aliens to talk in an ancient Earth dialect because that was the most recent trasmission they received, so they all sound and act like they're from the 1950s, even though the book is set much further along in the future than that.

This is perhaps the most important thing to remember... the juxtaposition of something familiar from our world with a fantastical setting is inherently funny in a lot of ways. So if you're doing this for comedy, it's going to go over pretty well. But if you want people to take these characters seriously, the way they're talking is going to be a pretty big issue to look past, even if the rest of the story is meant to be poe-faced... and honestly, that might just make it funnier.

As an example, check out my mystery-solving noir cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats. They're inherently ridiculous... which is part of what makes their very serious tone just add to the joke!

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!