Writing Is About The Process, Not The Output

Normally when I talk about writing I'm concerned with the technical aspects of storytelling, and trying to help folks overcome common pitfalls. However, with the advent of plagiarism software, I think there is something that really needs to be addressed. Something that is so intrinsic to making any kind of art that we didn't even need to put it into words before now... but this is the world we live in.

In short, the output you generate is worthless if it doesn't have a soul. What makes a story, a drawing, or a sculpture worthwhile is that it reflects the process the creator went through. It has to be the result of action, creativity, blood, sweat, and tears. If all you did was turn the assignment over to a computer to execute on your behalf then not only did you not make something, but you are poorer because you didn't even have the experience of making something.

That is what makes art valuable, and what lends it a unique flavor; the fact that it is made by a human creator who did their best to execute this piece to the fullest extent of their ability.

You can't trust the process if you aren't even going through it!

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!

Making Art Is About Having An Experience

I want to take a moment to reference a piece of fiction from a place even bleaker than our world, but which at least realized it should ban any form of Abominable Intelligence. In the grim darkness of Warhammer 40K, the Emperor of Mankind genetically engineered several sons who were colossal in size, strength, and power, considered demigods forged from science and warp-touched sorcery. One of these was Fulgrim, a being who sought perfection in himself, and in all things.

Fulgrim once entered a competition to carve a statue against a baseline human sculptor. Like something out of a Greek myth, the human artist couldn't hope to defeat Fulgrim... but somehow he did. Because while Fulgrim executed a technically perfect piece of art, there was no denying that the other man had carved something that truly made a connection with the observer. There was a soul to his art that people could read into, gaze upon, and which made one feel something. When they looked upon Fulgrim's statue, all they saw was a flawless depiction of a subject, but it seemed empty. Hollow. It had no soul, and no story to tell. Even Fulgrim himself, enraged and with his pride bleeding, acknowledged that the human had made a better piece of art than he had... he just couldn't understand why.

How... how do they do it!?

There are dozens of examples of fiction talking about the process of creating art, and what a quintessentially human experience it is (Asimov had a lot to say on the subject, too). However, I find myself thinking of this example from a very silly dark space opera series about big manly men having violent punch-ups, because this one snapshot encapsulates so much about the fundamental misunderstanding so many people have about creating art. Any art.

People who are defending AI, who get super stoked about being able to push a button and have it make things for them, are Fulgrim. They have the ability to effortlessly create an output, that even if it is technically perfect (generative AI isn't, but we'll set that aside for now) it is empty, soulless, and the eye just slides right off of it. He is so fixated on why his flawless sculpture has less regard, and less beauty, than the flawed creation made by someone who lacks his enhanced gifts, and his unusual abilities. How is this art made by a mere mortal better than his?

And we can have the whole debate about using words like soul to describe a piece of art, or arguing over whether something digitally painted is less "real" than something made in a physical medium... but that gets into higher, philosophical hair splitting. However, generative AI creates an uncanny valley effect. Even if it gets the hands right, and even if it gets the proper number of teeth, just looking at it we feel there is something off about it. It feels like an imitation of something in a way that triggers our brains that it isn't safe, and it isn't right. It's off-putting, and once you recognize it for what it is, it's ugly in a way that no crayon drawing can match, because at least those were made with genuine effort.

Don't worry, this applies to text-heads, too.

Everything I said above about sculptures and images? It applies to books, too.

Because even if you get lucky, and an AI manages to write a story that doesn't have massive grammatical errors, constantly forgets who the cast of characters is, and has plot twists that spiral in on themselves in a way that makes no sense, it feels off to read. Reading something written by generative AI feels like hearing something in the Apalachian wilderness call out in a voice that sounds human, but which clearly isn't. You don't know if it's the intonation, the accent, or just that no living person speaks like that, but you know it isn't right... and it creates that same uncanny feeling.

Roll Up Your Sleeves, And Get Stuck In!

Art is about doing. Yes, at the end of the day, the output is going to matter if you want to be able to sell your art and make a living as a creator. But it takes years to hone your skills, and to be able to make art with your own mind, your own hands, and your own skills. Whether you're writing, drawing, making videos, or sculpting, that end result is not the end-all-be-all. It is the result of your journey, and the experience you had getting there. It is the result of your process.

You cannot skip the process just because you don't want to do the hard work, and then claim this uncanny fey creation is your work. You didn't make it. You just pushed a button, and made a pact with another creature, who did the work for you.

It's sort of like people who download video games that play themselves without any input from you. Or people who just pay to win a game without actually playing, skipping straight to the end scene. Those people didn't have the experience of playing the game, didn't develop the skill necessary to achieve that victory, and as such they didn't actually do anything. The experience, even when it's hard and frustrating, is the goddamn point of it all!

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)

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!

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!

Is Blue Sky A Haven For Creators? Or Just Another Social Media Mirage?

Social media has been in something of a spiral for creators the past several years. I talked about this a while back in The Reason Social Media Sucks For Everyone (Not Just Creators), but to catch you up on it we're caught in the middle of serious platform decay. If you've never heard the term, that's when social media platforms have sucked up a huge audience, and then the people in charge start tightening the screws in order to suck more money out of advertisers, as well as users on the platform. It's why Facebook has edged out more and more of your actual friends to show you ads, it's why Reddit has ever-more vigilant bots that attempt to stop you from sharing things instead of buying ad space, and so on, and so forth.

One of the worst, of course, was what happened to Twitter. The bird site was where a lot of independent creators spoke directly to their audiences, and where they made a lot of their online sales. And Musk, like any spoiled kid with an expensive toy, has been breaking it ever since he acquired it so that it's nearly useless for the purpose it was made for.

Enter our supposed savior... Blue Sky! A website that (supposedly) functions like social media was supposed to back in the glory days. A clean interface, a suite of perfectly normal features, and your feed is full of things from people you actually follow and subscribe to. It sounds like a perfect solution, but as we've learned well over the years anything that sounds too good to be true probably isn't.

So, what can I say about Blue Sky?

Well, I've been flying pretty high since I joined!

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!

What Has My Experience Been Like So Far?

I want to start with something of a disclaimer. I was never a heavy user on Twitter. I'm still technically there with just over 1,800 followers under @nlitherl, but I never really got much in the way of traction on that site. Even with participation in online follow trains, and being part of regular events like Self Promotion Days, I'm lucky to get any interaction at all on my posts over there. Usually 1 or 2 people will give something I share a heart, and maybe retweet it, but that's about it.

For comparison, I've been actually active on Blue Sky on @literarymercenary for a little over a week and change. I've had the account longer, but it was mostly dormant until recently when I started purposefully trying to expand it. At time of writing I've got only 72 people who are following me on there, but perhaps some folks reading this right now will be kind enough to push me toward triple digits. However, even with such a dramatically smaller audience, I'm finding that my posts are regularly getting a minimum of 4 interactions from people actually following me, and often it goes pretty well above that number.

So, absolute base numbers, Blue Sky is definitely showing promise, since it's outperforming the site it most resembles pretty much straight out of the gate in terms of people actually seeing and interacting with your posts.

Of course, those numbers are just one aspect of things.

Raw numbers and interactions do not a social media website make, though. With that said, Blue Sky does have some other features going for it that I feel are worth mentioning.

One of the things I find most valuable is that it has no trouble generating previews of images from your posts. A picture is worth a thousand words, and if a post you make has a black box or no preview at all, then no one is going to stop their scrolling long enough to register what it is you're talking about. When I shared my recent blog entry World's Oldest Profession... Is The Third Time The Charm? on both Blue Sky and Twitter. On the former, folks got a lovely preview of the shiny cover of the supplement, while on Twitter folks just got a bunch of text, and no image at all.

Seriously, check this thing out if you're a tabletop gamer!

In addition to this feature (which is pretty damn important if you're looking to expand your audience, make sales, etc.), Blue Sky has made statements that it won't allow content generated on the site to be used for AI scraping... which is something Twitter is apparently going to do. Blue Sky has an entire culture of blocking people who harass or abuse you without arguments and drama, unlike Twitter where not only is this kind of toxicity the day-to-day business, but there have been talks about modifying or outright removing the block feature.

Does this make Blue Sky perfect? No, don't be ridiculous. It's still a social media website, which means there are conflicts between users, there's technical issues due to the massive numbers of people they're onboarding, and there are going to be some features you want that aren't there, and there will be decisions they make you won't like. It's operating as an alternative to other websites out there, which means it is still a business.

With that said, if you're someone who has been dismayed at the state of websites like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. with regards to your promotional efforts, I would recommend at least reserving your place on Blue Sky. Whether you want to build up your following and use it seriously to try to reach a bigger audience, or you just want to keep it in your back pocket, it's certainly worth taking a little bit to set up your profile, and to reconnect with some folks.

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. 

Marketing Misconceptions: Let's Talk About Affiliates, and Audience Reaction

Regular readers know that among the various hats I wear I'm an author, RPG designer, and occasional audio drama creator. However, what I feel like a lot of folks either don't know (or forget) is that probably a third of my income every month comes from affiliate marketing. I've talked about what that is and how it works on this blog before in posts like If You're An Author, You Really Need An Affiliate Marketing Account, but the short version is that when you're an affiliate marketer you make special links to products that you then share on your social media, in your content, and so on. Whenever someone clicks your link and buys a product, the company gives you a cut of their proceeds as a commission for being instrumental in making that sale.

And there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about this process, who it does and doesn't hurt, and how it actually works. So I wanted to take a moment to talk about a recent experience I had, because it illustrates a lot of things folks out there might now know.

Landlords don't take wooden nickels, friends. We do what we have to do.

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!

Mercenary Work For A Good Cause

For folks who don't know, Owen K.C. Stephens has had a recent run of really bad medical stuff come his way. An RPG designer and big name in the community, he put together two really big bundles of gaming content to try to help him pay his bills. Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #1 and Owen's Medical Bills #2, in case you haven't checked them out yet, and you're a fan of TTRPGs.

When I saw the news about what was happening, and I saw the bundles go live, I wanted to help. After all, if I were in his position, I'd want people to do the same for me. However, before I made a single post, I reached out to Owen and asked him if he was cool with me attaching my affiliate ID to the links I shared. He knows the struggle of being a game designer as well, and he enthusiastically supported my doing that. Because both of us knew that the 5% commission I would receive for the sales I helped make wouldn't come out of his earnings... they would come out of what Drive Thru RPG, and its parent company One Bookshelf, would have made.

So with the blessing of the person I was trying to help, I set about sharing the link and boosting the signal. By the end of the day I'd been permanently banned from two forums, temporarily banned from one more, and had at least two more posts removed. In every, single case the reason was because I had used an affiliate link instead of a "clean" link. Several individuals left comments claiming I was "just trying to make money" off of someone who'd received a cancer diagnosis, and others argued that since I didn't have any products in the bundle then I had no right to make this kind of link. Other colorful things were also said, but those were the two most common accusations.

Most important to note here, though, was that no one said these bundles didn't belong in the groups I was sharing them in. No one argued that they were not a good deal, or that they shouldn't be present. Only that the way I'd chosen to boost the signal (namely taking my commission from DTRPG) was somehow so bad that it tainted the entire process. Fruit from the poisoned tree, and the like.

There were some very strange flexes, is what I'm saying.

First things first, I want to make something clear. The commission you receive as your affiliate payment is your motivation for helping do the marketing for someone else's products. Even if I like someone, even if I enjoy their work, or even if I want to help, I do not have an hour or more a day where I can just share a link around on social media. Especially when you consider a lot of groups limit how often you can post things, meaning that I would have to choose between paying my own bills by sharing something I made, or helping someone else by sharing something they made. Being able to still get paid for helping boost other creators' signals is the reason I can actually afford to help get eyes on other peoples' work.

Secondly, let's say that sharing these bundles was a purely numbers-driven decision on my part. Let's say I didn't know Owen, and I didn't care about his condition, but I felt that these bundles would make sales, so I decided to do my part to share them around. What does that change? I am still boosting the signal on his bundles, I'm still getting more eyes on his product, and I'm still helping make sales through those efforts. Not only that, none of the money going into my pockets is coming from him as the creator, or from any other creators I've helped over the years.

Again, One Bookshelf is giving me a cut of their profits. The company's profits. The same way that if I use an Amazon affiliate link, I'm getting a part of what Amazon would make, not part of what the seller is getting paid. End of the day, whether it was an affiliate link or not, the person who made the thing is making the same amount of earnings.

Don't Defend Corporate Earnings

I get it, none of us like advertising. None of us want to be exposed to constant posts about buying stuff. However, I feel that it's important that we understand the mechanism for how these aspects of our online experience work, and about how they affect the creators we see in our spaces.

Because if the argument had been that someone didn't want to see advertising, that's a fair enough statement. If the objection had been that nothing for sale should be posted in these groups, then that would make sense. But the argument was that I was trying to take advantage of someone who I was specifically trying to help earn more money, and that I should have just shared the link to the bundle without attaching any of my affiliate information to it.

And I genuinely believe that people making this argument have no idea how the process works. Because that statement basically boils down to two things:

- You shouldn't be paid for any of the work you're doing on behalf of another person.

- The corporation shouldn't have to share their earnings with you, despite you being responsible for helping them make money with your labor.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be mad about the constant monetization of everything in our world, or that there shouldn't be limits on where people can promote their work, and how often they can do that. However, if you are specifically mad about affiliate marketers getting paid for doing a job on behalf of themselves and fellow creators, take a moment and ask yourself why. Why are you siding with corporate profits over people doing a job getting a small piece of the pie for their efforts?

Because if someone out there wanted to do essentially free marketing to try to help me move copies of my books, I sure as hell would want them to get a commission from the corporation who owns the platform my work is on so that both of us can pay our bills at the end of the day.

Speaking of Good Causes...

If you got to the end of all of that, and you're wondering how you can help Owen out, give my blog entry Help Owen K.C. Stephens Roll His Save Against Cancer (And The Healthcare System) a read.

And if you'd like to help yours truly, my first Kickstarter just went live yesterday, at time of writing. So if you're in the market for an unusual TTRPG experience, check out Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, and help me reach my goals on it today!

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!

You're Never Going To Get Better as a Writer If You Never Start

Going to the gym intimidates a lot of people. They know that establishing a routine is important to getting in shape, and they want to do it, but all they can think about is how everyone must be judging them. Whether it's because they're lifting tiny weights, or their stamina is too low, or they clearly don't know what they're doing, the idea of being new where other people can see them paralyzes them with indecision. When that happens, a lot of folks prefer to just stay home, and not take the risk.

One more chapter... come on...

The same thing happens to a lot of writers out there. And, unfortunately, that inability to start is what stops you from getting any better.

There's Only One Way To Get Better

The only way to get better at something is to do it, and the same is true for writing. I talked about this way back when in If You Want Your Art To Improve, You Need To Invest In It, but it's one of the hardest steps for a lot of people to take.

Because no matter how naturally talented you are, and no matter how many years you've been reading books, or how much advice you've read on the subject, chances are good that your early efforts are not going to win you any prizes. In fact, no beating around the bush, they're probably going to suck. Just like how your form is going to be terrible your first time lifting weights, your stamina is going to be lackluster on your first long run, and your early paintings are probably going to be awful.

But if you want to be Bob Ross, Stephen King, etc., then you've got to go through that learning period.

It was a lie, there are mistakes. A shit load of them.

I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do. Far from it, I'd argue that buckling down to become a writer takes grit, determination, and the willingness to be bad. But if you don't have that willingness then you're never going to get any better.

So if you're worried about writing a story with plot holes you could put a fist through, a main character with glaring flaws, a timeline that doesn't make sense, or a hackneyed plot, you have my permission to do it. Right now. I release you from the responsibility of the flawless, because perfect is the enemy of done.

Take Your Ego Out of The Equation

One of the biggest problems for creators of all sorts of that we get our egos caught up in our work. We treat it like an extension of ourselves, and when criticism hits, it splashes back onto us. Sadly, there's no getting around this. They say that the master has failed more times than the student has even attempted, but the thing is that you don't see those failed attempts when you're looking up to a creator. You see the successes they put on display, but not the mountains of bad prose, awful poetry, cringe-worthy plot devices, and the armies of beheaded characters who did not serve a role within the story.

What he said.

You need to be able to hold your work at arm's length and see it for what it is. You should still love it, and enjoy it, but you also need to learn to recognize its flaws, and to see where things went wrong. That's part of the creative process, and while it might hurt to admit our mistakes, it's the only way we get better. And as I said in Want To Be A Better Writer? Make Lots of Pots, the experience of completing a project is far more useful than taking years and years to make one, perfect thing. Practice makes permanent, and it's only by writing that you build up the muscles and the mental reflexes to spin ideas out of the ether, and to see problems at a glance.

Just like there's no way to get 6-pack abs while sitting on the couch eating potato chips, there's also no way to become the best writer you can be if you never sit down and write. So go do that... now. Don't worry about not being bad, like I said, you've got a permission slip.

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, or my short story 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!