Let's Talk About Conflict in Your Story (3 Simple Tips)

Most of us think we have a pretty decent grasp on how a story works. We understand character and description, goals and motivations, tropes and world building... but something we often don't think about very much is conflict. Which can be a problem, because conflict is the central part of basically any story. Without it you just have a bunch of people standing around for no particular reason.

And since I've come across my share of stories that didn't seem to have any conflicts, or had ones whose conflicts felt flat and empty, I wanted to take some time to talk about this topic.

Seems basic. But that's why it's important.

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Tip #1: Make Sure It's Clearly Defined

Brevity is the soul of wit, as they say. Even if your story is a huge, sprawling affair you should be able to summarize your conflict succinctly. This both shows that you understand the nature of it, and it can help you generate a solid elevator pitch when you need to sell someone on your story.

As an example...

Old Soldiers is the longest novel I've ever had published, weighing in at close to 100k words. The central conflict of it is pretty damn straightforward, though. "After surviving an assassination attempt a de-commissioned supersoldier re-activates his old squad, and uncovers the conspiracy that targeted them in order to yank it out by the roots."

While there are a lot of twists and turns in this book, and it takes its sweet time building relationships, laying out the world, and unveiling the mystery, that's the central conflict; a race against time, and unknown assassins, to uncover why it is they're trying to kill our protagonists.

Tip #2: Ensure It's Immediate

Folks often say your conflict should be interesting, but interesting is subject to taste. However, if a conflict has immediacy then it is something that is actively going on in your story. It's not a background element, or something that could simply be sidestepped; it's an oncoming train.

You can't just walk away. Not in these alleys.

The plot of Painted Cats, for those who haven't checked out the second novel in the Hard-Boiled Cat series, is Leo is trying to find a friend of an old flame that's gone missing. One of the main conflicts of the story, though, is that a lot of street beasts are going to an inordinate amount of trouble to steal a kitten named Trouble, who happens to be the missing cat's kitten. Trouble is under Leo's protection, so we have alley scratchers, bruisers, and back biters all coming out of the alleys trying to take Trouble away, which only complicates Leo's attempts to find out where the kitten's mother went.

Think of a conflict like a thrown punch; when it's rocketing at your face, you're paying attention to it.

Tip #3: Assign Stakes To The Conflict

Conflicts come in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes. With that said, a conflict needs to have understandable stakes underwriting it so that your audience can get a sense of why it matters. Because even if a conflict is immediate, one without stakes is going to just slap like a fat drop of rain instead of hitting you like a truck.

Time's running out in the north country.

The plot of my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife is that Dirk Crier is dispatched by his witch grandmother to retrieve his cousin. The boy wandered afield, and is in over his head. The stakes, though, are set up right in the introduction to the book, where we see his cousin Teller trying desperately to escape from a cult that has taken him captive. He's recaptured by the end of the prologue, and we the audience know that if he isn't dead yet, he's got an extremely limited amount of time before he will be.

Stakes is what makes the conflict matter. Because if there's no real negative that comes with the lose condition, then who cares how it turns out? But if the protagonist loses someone they care about, has to leave their home, or might lose their life, these are stakes that add serious weight to the conflict... what was a trapeze act is now being performed without a net!

Crisp, Clear Conflicts Work Best

Conflicts often drive the plot in convoluted ways, and depending on the story may force characters to make hard choices, or to come up with intricate strategies in order to come out on top. However, the conflict itself should be easy for the audience to grasp.

Think of conflict like a fight scene in a movie. You want the audience to be focused on the action you want them to see, and no matter how involved the maneuvers on display, you want it to be easy to witness. Shaky cam, in this case, is the equivalent of a shaky storyline that can leave your reader confused and disoriented about what's happening, and why. And just like a fight scene in a film a conflict can have clear winners and losers, it can be left ambiguous, or it might remain unresolved for a time as the forces clash again and again to determine who is the ultimate winner.

Just something to think about for your next story.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

With Drugs and Books, A Free Sample Can Go A Long Way

It's become something of a Hollywood cliché that if a drug dealer spies a prospective target, and they've never tried their product, that the dealer gives them a dose for free. After all, while the dealer loses out on profit for that dose, if the drug sinks its claws into the prospective buyer then they're going to become a long-term client who's going to provide a great deal more profit over the coming weeks, months, and years.

What got me thinking about this, though, is that's literally how all product marketing works. While our sneakers, fast food, and lip balm may not be physically addictive the way hard drugs are, the same marketing tactic often aims to create that kind of customer loyalty. It's why so many companies give out those little snack boxes, tee shirts, and travel-sized trial samples of their products. It costs them money in the short-term, but it also gets that product into the hands of people who may never have tried it in the first place, and who now want more of it.

If you tell stories for a living, this can be a way to help build your readership. "Can" being the operative word.

Don't worry... first one's always free!

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. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

There's Still Other Obstacles To Overcome

On the surface, this seems like a simple enough proposal, right? You either hold a giveaway of one of your books, or you create a story that's expressly offered for free as a way to get readers' interest in the hopes they'll actually buy more of your books once they've had their free trial.

And in theory, it is that simple. In practice... not so much.

Just go for it! The jump isn't THAT far...

Price is just one reason people aren't reading your work, and in some instances it isn't even the biggest reason. If you don't have a huge following of people subscribed to your social media channels and boosting your work, then the algorithm may be strangling your signal so that no one actually hears you. You might be writing in a genre folks aren't a huge fan of, or your elevator pitch might need some work. Some people may not like reading electronically, while others are looking more for audio so they can listen to your stories while doing something else. Maybe your samples are decentralized, making them difficult for folks to find more of even if they liked one of them.

The list is legion, and it's daunting as hell.

However, as I so often tell people, you can't win the game if you don't roll the dice. While free samples may not be the perfect solution for building your audience and brand, they can make for enticing bait when you're fishing for new readers. So don't depend on them alone to get people interested, but at the same time, remember there are folks out there who will become supporters because you gave them that "no strings attached" taste of what you can do.

And remember, stories aren't like chocolate chip cookies or loaves of bread; they don't have a shelf life. So just because you gave them out once, that doesn't mean you can't hand them out over and over again until you reach the people you need to.

Speaking of Free Samples...

If you made it this far, and you're one of those people who enjoys trying a bunch of different flavors any time you're at an ice cream parlor, I've got a treat for you. I've put out a lot of free stories over the past few years, and I thought that since this was my topic for the week that I'd collect and categorize them for folks who are looking for something to kill a bit of time with.

For those who enjoy these tales, I have full books on the market as well! However, even if you don't have the money for making purchases right now, sharing the stuff you like on your social media channels so that it gets more attention is also a big help (especially for the audio, since I'm still trying to build that YouTube audience). So make sure you follow my social media pages linked at the end of this post, and subscribe to any channels whose content you enjoy!

Now, without further ado...

Pathfinder Tales

Folks who've been following my work for a while know that one of my earliest publications in the RPG world wasn't actually for game mechanics; it was the short story The Irregulars which was part of the Pathfinder Tales series by Paizo. To recapture some of that high-fantasy fun, I thought I'd do something similar and write a pulpy series of shorts following my current game group's run through the Hell's Rebels adventure path.

The city of Kintargo is under the bootheel of Barzillai Thrune, who has brought the iron fist of the hellknights of the Order of The Rack to quash any independent ideas running through the populace. This hardline stance, though, has inspired a ragtag group of revolutionaries who want to break Thrune's hold on their city. In their search they've found references to a group that's been all but scrubbed from the history books... the Silver Ravens! Adopting their name and mantle, these revolutionaries set about trying to free their city. Thrune won't let go without a fight, however, and then there's wild cards in the deck... like the mysterious Ghost of Old Kintargo who appears when the Silver Ravens need his aid, and then vanishes just as suddenly!

- Part One: Devil's Night

- Part Two: From The Ashes

- Part Three: Raven's Nest

- Part Four: Circles in Salt

World of Darkness

I am a long-time World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness fan, and I find the setting absolutely fascinating in a lot of ways. It's why I've released a good deal of content for players and Storytellers, including my 100 Kinfolk Project Bundle for Werewolf: The Apocalypse, along with supplements like 100 Resources and Rumors to Find on SchreckNet for Vampire: the Masquerade and Buyer Beware: 10 Goblin Markets for Changeling: the Lost. However, mixed in with these supplements I've been testing the waters with short fiction pieces as well.

For example, if werewolves are your thing, then you should check out Tales From The Moot. And if you're not sure this is an anthology you really want to spend a couple bucks on, you can read the introduction story for free! It's by yours truly, and it sort of establishes the framing device for the book going forward.

Or if you're a fan of audio dramas and short fiction, then you should check out this little piece about a Nosferatu trying to make contact with a fellow lurker, taken from the SchreckNet collection above.

Or for those who prefer their skullduggery to have a faerie flavor, you could follow along with this story as a Winter Court handler meets with one of his field agents after dealing with enemy operatives, taken from 100 Mourning Cant Dialects, Phrases, and Meanings.

The most recent piece we have, which I titled "Hedge Caller," is also up now. The first in a series of small adventures featuring the Hedge guide Jacoby, it gives us a little insight to the bizarre things that can happen in the Hedge.

As mentioned above, make sure you subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel if you like these, and want me to keep doing them! The publisher pays attention to numbers, and the more subscribers and views I bring in, the more of these I can make, and the more involved they'll be able to get.

Warhammer 40,000

In case my love of grim, dark things didn't give it away, I'm a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 setting. I find its sprawling nature fascinating, and the sheer amount of potential it offers intriguing. And it was out of a desire to add a few drops of my own to the bucket that I wrote a couple of tales set out in the blackness of the far future.

- Waking Dogs: A World Eaters Tale: On a lost and unimportant battlefield, one of the infamous World Eaters space marines stares around him. Amidst the blood and carnage, he remembers a time when he had a greater purpose. When all the violence meant something. In that moment a sea change happens within Crixus, and the War Hound aims to remind his erstwhile allies that this old dog still has his share of tricks.

- Field Test: When Inquisitor Hargrave came to New Canaan days before an ork rock was going to hit, she promised them a weapon that would wipe out the greenskins. Caught up in the fury of movement and preparation, all the people on the world looked to the skies... but the inquisitor's weapon was right there, moving among them and ready to be unleashed with a single command.

Now, while I would ask everyone interested in these tales please read the text versions linked above (and share them to help me get eyes on the stories), as I said above I know that digital reading isn't everyone's cup of tea. Which is why I wanted to let folks know that the very talented A Vox in The Void has done dramatic readings of these stories. So check out both versions, see which ones you like better, and subscribe to his channel while you're there!

My Novels and Independent Short Stories

In addition to tinkering in existing worlds and universes, I also create quite a lot of independent, original content. I've got several novels on the market, all of which have pretty generous free samples to help you decide if this is the kind of book you want to dedicate your time, energy, and wallet to. And I've also got some free short stories that you can take a peek at, as well!

- The Rejects: A collection of short stories that always wound up as bridesmaids but never brides, I decided it was time to give them a home of their own. The first story in the collection, Dressing The Flesh, is a tale about a homeless kid on the streets of Chicago trying to find a missing friend after a blizzard. He winds up in the teeth of a monster worse than the storm outside, but Ace still has a card up his sleeve.

This story was also read by yours truly at the start of the pandemic, so take a listen if that's your preferred medium!

- Crier's Knife: A sword and sorcery novel, when Dirk Crier's cousin goes missing, it's his job to track the boy down and haul him home again. If he's alive, so much the better, but if he's not then Dirk aims to be certain he has plenty of company on the dead man's cart.

- Old Solders: The Myrmidon were made during the war with the Hyperion that reduced the Earth to a polluted, subterranean wasteland. They helped win the conflict, but now Pollux wanders through this city like a ghost, unsure of where he belongs in a world that no longer needs him. Trying to build a life, and to grapple with the demons that live in his head, he's starting to get his feet under him again. When an assassination attempt fails, though, he rounds up what's left of his old squad, and opens the caches they stashed just in case... whoever was behind this is going to learn they should have just let these old soldiers fade away.

- Marked Territory and Painted Cats: Leo is a Maine Coon bruiser who likes to keep his nose out of other people's business... but problems just keep washing up on his doorstep. From helping out a church mouse on the south side and uncovering a turf war that makes no sense, to helping track down a missing cat for an old flame, Leo just can't stay away from old friends, and new enemies.

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, 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!

"Trope" Isn't a Bad Word

Over the past several years I've met a lot of writers and hopeful writers who have come to me for advice. Sometimes it's because I'm the only professional they know, or they heard me speak on a panel, or they read an article of mine and thought it was really insightful, so they want to get my thoughts on a story or idea of theirs. And there is a recurring theme among these conversations that I wanted to address this week; namely that so many newer writers seem particularly averse to anything considered a "trope" when it comes to their stories.

Bottom line here, you may as well tell me you want to be a mason, but you don't want to use any bricks in your construction. Every story is going to have tropes, because tropes are the mechanisms we use for telling stories.

And without gears, the plot won't turn.

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Tropes, And How To Use Them

A trope, according to TV Tropes, is basically a kind of storytelling shorthand. It's a shortcut, a device, or a convention that, by putting it in your story, you can be reasonably sure your audience is going to recognize it. For example, if you're watching an old-timey Western, and a man rides in with a black hat and a black duster, you know he's the bad guy. The fellow in the white hat? That's the good guy. How do you know? Because this became storytelling shorthand, giving birth to the tropes Bad Guys Wear Black (or just Black Hat for short) and Good Guys Wear White (or White Hat).

For more color-coded tropes, see Disney Villain Green.

Now, not all tropes are created equal. There's a lot of tropes we don't use anymore because the sort of stories they're connected with are things we've moved past (or should have moved past) a long time ago. Consider, for example, the trope Mighty Whitey, which refers to a displaced white person who ends up living with native people of another region, and while there becomes their greatest champion, leader, what have you. Your Tarzan, your Phantom, and the list goes on. Or the trope Yellow Peril, used to refer to the xenophobic tendency of turning Asian crime bosses or syndicate leaders into racist caricatures. This is where you get characters like The Mandarin, Fu Manchu, a lot of H.P. Lovecraft villains, etc.

Some tropes are no longer in circulation for a good reason. However, a lot of the time when someone talks about how they want to avoid using tropes, what they actually mean is they want to avoid using cliches. Which is definitely something I can get behind... within reason.

What's The Difference?

A cliché is a phrase, a motif, or even a trope, that has become such a part of a particular genre or story type that its presence is expected. For example, nobody opens a horror story or a mystery with the phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night," anymore unless they're being ironic. Calling your gelatinous monster from beyond the stars indescribable isn't something anyone does legitimately in most stories anymore either.

However, the thing to remember is that even cliches have power. They are a bedrock foundation of understanding. Even if your audience rolls their eyes as soon as they see it, they immediately know what you're trying to communicate to them. And the thing about cliches is that as long as you give them a new coat of paint, or just change the lighting in the room a little bit, they can become instantly new and unique once again.

For those looking for an example...

For example, take the cliché of The Indescribable Horror. This goes back to the early days of cosmic horror where the idea was that because the creatures were so alien that to gaze upon them confused and cracked the mind of those who saw them. They violated natural law, and the number of dimensions they could exist in, leaving onlookers unable to truly describe what they saw.

Unless executed with supreme skill, that is very difficult to pull off these days. However, you could interpret this cliché in a new and unique way, reinvigorating it and putting a new spin on it so that it seems novel once again.

What would that look like? Well, you could have a creature that literally stole words out of people's vocabulary, making them physically unable to describe it; the longer they look, the more words they lose. This creature's bizarre nature might make it impossible for people's memories to store accurate images of it, perhaps going so far as to cause brain damage and memory loss when it's seen. There are all sorts of different ways you could take Howard's refusal to actually tell us what half his bestiary looked like, and twist it into a new, unique, and dreadful form that would actually affect your audience again.

So, while it's all well and good to say you don't want to have any cliches in your work, remember that these are the lingua franca of storytelling even more than the bigger tool chest of tropes. You just need to use a little elbow grease, and spit polish them up a bit so they're fresh and unique for a reader who thinks they've seen it all. You don't have to do that, of course... but just because a trope is well known, or it's become a cliché, that doesn't meant you can no longer get any use out of it.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Authors, You Can't Bootstrap Yourself to Success

We've all heard the phrase, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." More importantly, a lot of us are realizing how patently, utterly ridiculous it is. After all, it was intended to showcase how absurd it was that any one individual, merely by the dint of their own efforts, could lift themselves into the air just by tugging on their feet and wishing as hard as they could.

This is for all the authors out there who are trying to hoist themselves into success all by their lonesome, and for all the readers and potential readers who keep urging us on in these fruitless pursuits. Because, as I've said time and time again, authors are actually a relatively small part of this equation; to make the thing actually work, we need help.

Tug all you want, those ain't getting you off the ground.

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. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

You Can Only Do So Much

Though it's become a phrase referring to hard work and independent effort, Useless Etymology points out that the idea of lifting yourself by your own bootstraps was first used as a textbook case of something physically impossible. As in you found it in a physics textbook asking why it simply could not be done. And when the term was first applied to one's socio-economic status, it was often a term used sarcastically. After all, if one person could just work harder and make themselves wealthy, then surely that's what everyone would do, isn't it?

The phrase became common around the time labor fought literal wars with capital. Just saying.

"But isn't that what authors do?" you might be asking. "You write stories, books, blogs, articles, etc., and the more of them you have out on the market the more money you make over time? So if you're not making enough money, all you need to do is sit down and write more stories?"

I thought that when I first started out, too. Unfortunately if that's what you're thinking then I'm going to have to disabuse you of the notion that the main factor in your success is your talent... because it usually isn't.

Because at the end of the day, you can pour blood, sweat, and tears into your keyboard and not earn a single red cent. It's also entirely possible for you to just fart out your random thoughts, and to be showered in money. It isn't fair, but you can't do anything about it until you understand why it happens.

The Process

Regular readers probably know this already, but for those who don't I'm going to go step by step through what it means to be an author. And I'm going to cover different kinds of projects so that I have as wide a focus as I can. All right? All right.

First and foremost, you start with an idea. Maybe it's a novel, a short story, or an article. You write it up, put it through editorial, and then when it's ready you find it a home. If you're going a traditional route then you might submit your book to a publishing house, or your short story to a magazine. If you're going non-traditional you might publish the book yourself, going through Amazon or a site like Vocal (incidentally, check out my full Vocal archive to see examples of this).

And then money?

Rarely, yes. Generally, no.

In the old days when publishing was much smaller, larger companies regularly gave authors advances on their work. You'd get a check that was basically to keep your bills paid until you started earning royalties, but if your book didn't sell that was likely the only money you were going to see from it... worse, if that book didn't sell, you were unlikely to get a second shot at the market because you didn't have a good history as a publishing risk. This practice still happens at bigger houses, but it's nowhere near as common as it once was.

If you're going with a smaller publisher, or you're self-publishing, you don't get an advance. If your book doesn't sell, you don't get paid. The same is true if you're writing an article, posting on a blog, etc. You might put in hours and hours of work, but you don't get paid when it goes up... and if the public doesn't come along, then you may not get paid at all. While there are still a few publishers out there that will pay you up-front for your work, typically to put it in a magazine or on their website, those are quite few and far between these days. Worse, the rates they offer haven't gone up much from what H.P. Lovecraft and his ilk earned back in the days of the pulps, so the sheer amount of work you'd need to get accepted just to maintain a poverty wage is absurd.

So How The Hell Do You Make a Living?

This is where we come back to the bootstrapping.

Because as an author, you could write a brilliant book, or tell a phenomenal story. You could repeat this process day-in and day-out, hammering your keyboard to bits and working your fingers till they bleed. You aren't going to be able to stay ahead of your bill collectors just doing that, though, because most publishers out there either want the content you're creating for nothing up-front (promising a share of the earnings as a royalty payment), or for a pittance to keep you going (half a cent per-word was great in 1910, but not so much in 2022).

You need the readers, because without them you're just screaming into the void.

They are the ones that ride and die for you.

Every time a reader buys a book, you earn a royalty. Every time they read an article it boosts your numbers, and gets you traffic on an article archive or blog. It is the readers who follow you on social media to help you overcome the inertia of the algorithm, and it is the readers who fund your Kickstarter, back your Patreon, and who help provide the cash so you can keep your bills paid to keep making the things they like.

In order for you to succeed as a creator, you should create the best product you can. You should share it as widely as you can, and try to help it get seen by the people who are going to love it. But you can't just publish another article, or write another book because you need more money as an author. There is just as much a chance that's going to be a massive waste of time, energy, and effort as it is another pay day.

What determines that is whether your audience is eager to pick up more of what you're laying down.

So if you're an author, understand that you need a coalition of folks who are ready, willing, and able to boost your signal when you drop fresh work. And if you're a reader who's wondering why that creator you like is slowing down, or isn't making as much as they used to, remember, we need literally thousands of you all working in concert to share our messages, leave reviews, buy our stuff, and contribute to our projects in order for us to just keep the lights on and the wolf at bay.

We need you... otherwise we're just standing there in the dark jerking on our bootstraps and wondering why we haven't become bestsellers yet.

For all the folks who want to help me (and other creators like me who are having just as tough a time), drop by my Amazon author page to buy a book, leave a review, and tell your friends about it when you're done. Or become a Patreon patron, leave a tip on my Linktree, or kick me a Ko-fi. Every little bit helps, and we really do need every penny if we want to keep the lights on at the end of the day.

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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, 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!

To Write Better Stories, Set Your Ego Aside

It takes a certain amount of ego to be an author in the first place. Because anyone can make up stories in their head, but to dedicate dozens to hundreds of hours to put that story down on a page? And then, once you have manifested it in the world to put it out there for people to see? To decide that the story you have to tell is good enough that people (many of whom you have never met in your life) should take time out of their day to read it? And not only that, but that they should pay hard-earned money for the privilege?

Yeah, that's how art should work... but you've got to admit, in this climate, it takes some serious fortitude to stand up and make that claim boldly.

However, the flip side to this coin is that a lot of us become so reliant on our egos to help us plow through those trying to stop us from making art that we deafen ourselves to legitimate criticism. Which is why it's important to maintain your forward momentum, but to also learn how to listen to people who raise issues we need to actually think about.

Is that a hater, or a helper? I can't tell...

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Hear What They're Saying, and Evaluate

First of all, let's address the elephant in the room. You are not required to just shift gears and bow to every opinion that comes your way. A safe rule I've found is that if you wouldn't go to a person for advice, then you probably don't need to give serious weight to their criticism.

With that said, though, criticism is going to come your way whether you seek it out or not. What you need to do is figure out how to set your ego to the side, and to evaluate what's being said so that you can decide what to do about the issues being raised... or if you need to do anything at all.

Incoming negativity. Analyzing...

My recommendation is that you ask a couple of questions, and try to put yourself in this other person's shoes so that you can see your work the way they see it. Some good places to begin are:

- Is This a Matter of Taste? A lot of the time criticism comes down to whether someone personally likes or dislikes something. There's no right or wrong there, but it helps to ask if the issue is structural (something in the story is actually weak) or flavorful (the presentation/style isn't to the person's liking). Maybe they wanted a Happily Ever After, or a certain character got killed that they really liked; being personally disappointed is valid, but may not rise to the level of making edits.

- Did This Have an Unintended Consequence? Sometimes the way we tell a story just doesn't land, or brings up things we didn't intend to. Maybe a particular term is actually really offensive among a certain community, so using it to refer to characters in your story makes it racist even if that wasn't your intention (Pro Tip: The proper term is Inuit). Maybe the way a villain is queer-coded plays into problematic stereotypes. It's better to fix an issue than to double-down on it, especially if you genuinely didn't see this reaction coming.

- Is This Situation Necessary? Let's say you were writing a psychological revenge thriller, and you wanted it to have that grimy, nasty feel from films like I Spit on Your Grave. However, we aren't in the 1970s anymore, and sexual-assault-as-plot-device is pretty gross regardless of when the story was told. Is this absolutely necessary? Or could the character seeking revenge have been wronged another way? Did someone spread vicious rumors that got them kicked out of their social circles? Did someone not speaking up and telling the truth lead to them getting thrown out of school? Losing out on a big job? Being sentenced to prison for a crime they didn't commit? If someone asks whether a particular situation, tone, event, etc. is necessary, stop and genuinely ask yourself if it has to be that way, or if there are alternatives that would work better.

- How Much of an Effect Will This Have? Sometimes an issue with a story is relatively minor. You have a historical inconsistency that a lot of folks may not notice at the time (looking at you Titanic), or you have a character use a particular turn-of-phrase that isn't right for the location where this story is set. Sometimes an issue is major, and it leads to the audience rolling their eyes, or being taken out of the story entirely. Evaluate the scale of both the issue, and what changing it would cost in terms of time, energy, and effort.

Most importantly, when looking at criticism leveled at your work, ensure you have an answer as to why you aren't making changes to it. Perhaps it's because a certain event is key to a development that happens down the line, and you would have to re-work an entire plot or subplot by making too many changes. Maybe it's a deliberate homage that you feel is an important part of the story, even if not all your readers are going to like it.

Generally speaking, though, you should always have a reason beyond, "Because I don't want to change it." Of course you don't. No author ever does. But you need something more compelling than that.

You Aren't Obligated To Change Anything

The important thing to remember here is that you are not obligated to change anything in your story. It is yours, and you can tell it how you want to. However, it does behoove you to examine the criticism, and see what validity it has. When you reach this point not changing things should be a deliberate choice you make, rather than simply your standard position.

Figured I'd share a few of the ones I dealt with.

For those who haven't read Crier's Knife, it's a sword and sorcery novel I put out some time ago. It's been generally well received by folks who've actually read it, but there were more than a few criticisms that came my way when I was getting it ready for release. Some of those (and my response to them) were:

- The Introduction Is Unnecessary: The intro of this book starts with a young man escaping captivity, and sending up what amounts to a magical signal flare to let his family know he's in trouble. One person I spoke to told me I should cut it because it was a waste of space, and distracted the audience from the actual story. I was fully in agreement that the introduction wasn't a necessity, but I kept it for two reasons. First, because I wanted to make an homage to classic sword and sorcery novels where we were presented the situation before our hero came along to fix things. Second, I didn't want to make the word count up somewhere else in the book.

- The Magic is Confusing: Our protagonist comes from a family whose matriarch is a witch who lives on a mountaintop. We see her magic, as well as the magic of a strange cult, in action several times throughout the book. This criticism came from a reader whose background was more in high fantasy and RPGs, and was used to Vancian magic systems. As a piece of pulp, magic is significantly softer in this novel, and shouldn't be easily understood (especially since our perspective character is a warrior, not a witch). So while I understood the criticism, I felt it was more the reader being unfamiliar with this genre and expecting it to act like a different kind of fantasy.

- I Don't Get The Setting: The world where this novel takes place isn't like a lot of high fantasy settings where there are ancient, long-established kingdoms and nations. There are, in fact, no countries on this map. Most people exist in smaller communities like villages and hamlets, with a few large city-states existing as centers of power. The way I brought this across was how language changed from one place to another, making it clear there weren't huge highways like we often see empires build, or how most trade was done with barter instead of with coins. Input from other readers said this made the setting feel unique, so I'm glad I didn't change it to make it more conventional.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!

Authors Need An Audience To Keep The Fires Burning

Normally I have a clever introduction, or some example of a situation that I want to expand on when it comes time to start one of these entries. This week, though, I wanted to get straight to the point. Because when you're an author you need your work to be seen and discussed. Praise is best, of course, but even arguments, disagreements, and outright hate still means people are at least seeing it.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing worse than silence.

Silence echoes between your ears. Silence makes you question everything you're doing. Silence tells you to turn around, and go in a different direction because there is nothing the way you're going. Silence smothers your fire, and leads to burnout faster than almost anything else.

And this shit is HARD to light back up 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. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Inspiration, Motivation, and Desperation

Writing is generally a solitary activity. While you may have beta readers, editors, and people you work through plot snares and story issues with, a majority of the work is done by yourself. Not only that, but the work could go on for hours when it comes to writing an article, weeks for composing a short story, or literal years when it comes to writing a novel.

And if you're writing something for no reason other than because you want to, then the only result that matters is that you like it. That you had fun with this project, and you're satisfied with the result. However, those of us who write professionally have concerns above and beyond that. We need to know if our audience likes the direction we're going in, if this project is sustainable, if it's profitable, and whether it's something our readers want us to dedicate more time to or not. Unless we're sitting on a massive nest egg of earnings, inheritance, or previous work that's paying royalties, we need those eyeballs to come our way, and we need to hear what the audience wants from us.

And when we're left in silence we're basically left flipping a coin and hoping for the best.

Are they watching? I can't tell anymore...

This is complicated by the fact that so many of us are limited by the means we have to actually reach our audience. I had a prime example of this come back to me recently.

Shouting Into The Void (And Hoping For The Best)

The following post was shared not just on my own Facebook wall and professional page, but in many groups where my work appears regularly.

A Request For Aid

As a lot of folks reading this know, I write for a living, and a large part of my income is from RPG content. However, I wanted to pull back the curtain a bit, give folks an idea of how the sausage is made, and ask for some specific help today.

For me to cover my bills (rent and utilities) for a month based on sheer traffic (not asking anyone to buy anything today), I would need to get roughly 90,000 reads on articles in my Vocal archive. That is a frankly absurd amount of traffic, especially when you have to fight the algorithm every step of the way. However, since good things come in threes, I have a specific way all the folks reading this can help.

Please take some time out of your day to read the Silver Raven Chronicles. This re-telling of my group's run through Hell's Rebels currently has three installments, and they're filled with atmosphere, mystery, unique characters, and kicking devil-worshiping fascists in the teeth! And if you like what you see (or don't have time to read but still want to help) please leave a like and a share to help me boost the signal!

The goal behind this was to get folks to read the Silver Raven Chronicles, a collection of free, fantasy short stories I've been putting out over the past few months. There are over 700 people on my personal friends list, over 800 on my business page, and groups I shared this post in, along with links to the stories in question, varied from a few hundred members to over 100k members.

So why isn't this a celebratory post?

Despite sharing this post pretty widely (for an independent operator, at least), and getting a signal boost from a lot of fellow creators, this basically went nowhere in terms of actual response. Because while I blared the horn as loudly as I could, the actual results of all this effort was 20 reads. Not even 20 reads per story... 20 reads in total. Barely a nickel's worth of activity for hours of promotional work, to say nothing of all the energy that went into writing the stories in the first place.

The question I was left with, then, was what caused this silence? Was it my signal being throttled by the algorithm? Was it that I was telling stories about Hell's Rebels, rather than another adventure path? Was it that RPG tie-in stories just weren't popular? Was it that this was short fiction rather than something longer? On and on the questions went, because nothing kicks attempts at pattern-recognition into overdrive quite like something going wrong. And since no one responded in comments or left any feedback, there weren't even straws to grasp at in terms of trying to course correct.

Think of it like when professional wrestling tried to keep having matches during the pandemic with no audience. Without the crowd to give feedback to help guide the course the match takes, and to help decide how the performers act, it really struggled to maintain the level of energy and enthusiasm that kept it interesting. Same thing, and with the same issue of trying to reach an audience on the other end of the screen.

What You Can Do To Help

I've said this several times, but anything true bears repeating when appropriate. You, the readers, are the ones who make or break us as creators. You are the ones whose time, energy, clicks, and purchases we base our work off of. Because while I have no plans to write a sequel to my dystopian thriller Old Soldiers right now, I'd reconsider those plans if 10,000 people all bought copies and started asking when the next one is coming out. I actually have a sequel planned for my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, but it's never sold well enough for me to spend a year of time putting it on the page.

When you demand, we listen. But when you stay quiet we move onto something else, even if you may have wanted to see where that other project was going.

Like this one, for example.

So if you don't have money, but you want to help, here's a list of things you can do.

- Follow my social media pages found on my Linktree.

- Like and share my posts to help me increase the number of people who see them, and to fight the tyranny of the algorithm.

- Read my posts (this is particularly important for stuff in my Vocal archive, which pays me based on reads, but which ignores clicks that don't involve scrolling or other activity).

- When you see me make a post, leave a comment of 5 words or more, and preferably one that starts or participates in conversation. That stuff always increases ripples!

For readers who specifically want to help boost my numbers on the free fiction I have out (especially if you're stuck inside on a snow day like I am here) make sure you take a look at Devil's Night, From The Ashes, and The Raven's Nest, which are the first three installments of the Silver Raven Chronicles... a free fantasy series all about punching fascists and undermining a corrupt government of devil-binders! And for folks who are more interested in grimdark sci-fi, consider my other stories Waking Dogs: A World Eaters Tale, which is about a fallen space marine who takes the first step toward reclaiming his honor, and Field Test, which is about an inquisitor who's using an ork invasion for target practice to test out a fresh weapon she's been cultivating.

And for those of you who DO have money...

If you're one of those readers who does have a bit of spare dosh to throw around and you'd like to help give me a boost with it (my thanks in advance), I'd suggest the following:

- Become a Patreon patron! Or if you're not ready for a big commitment, buy me a Ko-Fi as a tip.

- Buy a book! My recent release Tales From The Moot is a collection of quality Werewolf: The Apocalypse fiction, but I've also got my hard-boiled cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats in addition to any other books I've mentioned above.

- Buy an RPG supplement (or five). I've got 130 titles on the market at the moment, and they're all on a convenient pin board!

Any combination of these things is good for me as a creator, but in addition to the tangible benefit it provides (which is sorely needed), it also gives me some numbers to actually work with. The more copies a particular kind of book or supplement sells, the more likely it is to be further explored down the line. The more reads an article gets, or the more buzz a particular topic gets, the more of that stuff I'm going to produce until people signal they're done with this topic.

I cannot stress enough that there's only so much that I or any other creator can do. Because we need our audience. Your views, your purchases, your reviews, your comments, buzz, and word-of-mouth are what sustain us. Without that, sooner or later the fire is going to go out.

So take a moment to throw a few twigs into the embers, will 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 noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, 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!

3 Simple Ways To Avoid Info Dumping in Your Story

There are few things more frustrating as a reader than the dreaded info dump. You're just getting stuck into the narrative, engaging with the characters and the world, and then the author jerks up on the hand brake in order to give you a miniature lecture on how hyper drives function, or the political history of the Sisterhood of The Seven-Fold Veil, or to go on at length about orc biology to the point that you just want to close the book and pick up something that feels less like a textbook and more like a novel.

If you've found yourself prone to info dumping in your work, and you're looking for a way to stop, I'd recommend trying some of the following solutions. They aren't perfect, but I've had pretty solid results following these guidelines over the past several years.

Open your mouths, it's all coming your way!

Before we get started, remember to sign up for my weekly newsletter if you want to stay on top of all my latest releases. If you want to help me keep the wheels turning and the lights on, consider becoming a Patreon patron. And lastly, to follow all my followables check out my Linktree!

Now then, let's get to it!

Method #1: Provide Context Clues Instead of a Lecture

"They did what? To who? Oh... oh no."

Readers are able to intuit a lot of information from context clues in a story. Everything from the reluctance someone has to talk about a subject, to the reaction the protagonist has to the sight of a space ship engine or a display of super strength fills your audience in on the world. Even a quip like, "You remember back when guys had to wear body armor to be bullet proof?" said by a detective engaged in a firefight with a metahuman bank robber fills the reader in on a lot of information; metahumans are relatively common now, this happened within the memory of a single cop, and it's become normal enough that it's a frustration rather than something to leave them in awe over.

Little clues like this, peppered throughout your narrative, can paint a picture for your audience. While it might be tempting to present them a full timeline of when the first metahumans emerged, explaining who they were and the powers they possessed, and then talking about legislation, normalization, cultural backlash and adjustment, etc., don't do that. Instead, just clue your readers in through observing how the world functions, what people say, and how they act. Trust them to fill in the blanks without taking them aside to explain the full history of this world they find themselves in.

This has the added benefit that readers will be interested to know more, and you can peel back the curtain slowly to maintain engagement... much like we see with the world building in the film John Wick, for those who want a concrete example of this tip in action.

Method #2: Work It Into (Natural) Conversation

"Oh dear... come take a look at this. Let me tell you what it means."

Originally I was just going to leave this tip as Work It Into Conversation, but an info dump with quotation marks around it is still an info dump. Having the barkeep or detective vocalize the necessary information out loud doesn't inherently make it less of a dump... you need to have context for the conversation so that it slides naturally and organically into the narrative.

For example, say you want to clue your audience in on certain incidents that happened between Mars and Earth. If you just so happen to have a Martian marine present who was there, you could have them talk about what they saw, and what they did during the war in question. Maybe the context is that they're doing a weapons check or armor and suit maintenance, and another character wants to know just how serious this basic task really is. So the marine starts listing off death toll numbers from the Void Reach conflict, talking about how many died on each side... and how often it was improperly-maintained suits rather than actual enemy fire that lead to death tolls. This provides some of the hard facts you want your readers to have, but it also leads to context clues regarding character habits and personalities, as well as why there may still be bad blood between particular factions.

You may not be able to fit every detail you want into a conversation, but if you flex your mental muscles you can fit a surprising amount of relevant information into scenes where characters are doing something else, but talking at the same time.

Method #3: Ask If The Audience Needs To Know

You know... they probably don't, now that I think about it.

Info dumping, in general, comes out of a need to gush about something in the story you're telling. Maybe it's just cool background stuff that you're really proud of, or you did a lot of research to understand a particular aspect of law enforcement, military tactics, medical examination, or astrophysics, and you don't want to just let that sit in the background.

However, consider how much information your audience needs to have in order to understand your story. Not only that, but how much of that information do they need right now in order for the ride to continue on down the tracks? Because contrary to the way a lot of us feel, your audience doesn't need to know everything up front in order to get stuck in. And if they do, you should restructure it so that they don't have to chew through an entire dump of information in order to actually get to the story. Because the background is just that... background. People like worldbuilding, but that's the sauce on the sandwich. Just enough really pulls it together, but most of us don't want a mouthful of mayo with a bacon garnish on the side.

As such, evaluate what information your audience needs to have. Once you know what they need to know, figure out how to spread it throughout your narrative. Work it into conversations and observations, show the audience these things in action, or just make simple statements that fill in a gap without going on and on about it for half the chapter. Most importantly, let things go if they aren't helping your story. Because while the mythology of the ancient elves or the inner workings of dragon engines might fascinate you, if you're putting a stop to everything to tell your audience about them, there's a lot of people who are just going to get off the ride.

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 cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel 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!