Long-form writing is a dying art. In a world that has the attention span of a fruit fly with ADHD, the superficial has eclipsed the substantive at incredible intellectual and cultural cost. Content is a buzzword—*smacks fruit fly*—that employers, brands and platforms throw around like glitter. Like glitter, the content might be sticky, but it can also be irritating and end up everywhere except where it belongs.

Like, I dunno…in long-term memory? Where it can make a lasting impact?

We’re producing mountains of material designed to capture attention, but how much of it is designed to be remembered? Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a reader. Perhaps it’s because, before YA was its own publishing category, my generation was inhaling Stephen King’s The Stand, McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, and Clavell’s Shogun.

V.C. Andrews was proof one didn’t need TikTok to be addicted to deeply disturbing content. We had long-form emotional damage and couldn’t wait for the next installment.

Those of us who grew up before the Digital Age was in full-force had comparably incredible attention spans. Was it something in the hose water? Maybe. Or, maybe long-form writing trained mental discipline, patience, and attention to detail.

Trust me, when you were reading a story that spanned almost thirty years, two generations, and literally fourteen POVs over almost twelve hundred pages…you kinda had to pay attention or the story would unravel and make zero sense.

(Note: TL;DR is Too Long Didn’t Read just in case…because you know it’s “faster”).

Long-Form and Neuroplasticity

In my book, Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World, I spend quite a lot of time explaining just how the human brain responds to its environment (so if you want all the research behind this check out the book). Oral cultures have prodigious memory. Why?

Because they have to.

Since nothing is written down, stories, lessons, information is passed down by speaking and there’s a heavy emphasis on memorizing with perfect exactness.

***Modern fMRI imaging demonstrated this with the Aborigines.

Once humans developed writing, we see an explosion in abstract thinking. Again, why? Because twenty-six letters forming every conceivable notion in human imagination is, by definition, abstract. As a consequence, memory centers shrank and abstract thinking centers started taking up more space.

We don’t see a massive shift until after Gutenberg.

Great, now EVERYONE can be published.

But seriously, with the advent of the printing press. books were no longer a luxury item fit only for royalty and the wealthy. Books, newspapers, pamphlets, etcetera increasingly entered our learning and entertainment sphere. Humans started reading…a LOT. Newspapers went bonkers in the 19th century and competition was fierce. Multiple papers, several editions throughout the day, no dumbed down vocabulary…and all of it in SIX font.

Radio arguably altered the human brain again and we started doing better with cut-scenes and multiple POVs. POVs tightened once film went maintream. Instead of the super-popular omniscient, we see POV telescope as humans became more connected. From distant third, to third shifting, to first person and now the deep first.

Brains Adapted to the Environment

Ever notice that all our social sites have a FEED? Interesting play on words because the brain isn’t much different than our bodies. Our bodies reflect what we regularly consume. A diet of energy drinks and jellybeans will produce a very different result than one of high quality fats, proteins and nutrient-dense vegetables.

Same with our minds.

Now that we are a global culture addicted to TikTok videos, YouTube clips, X posts (“tweets”) and clickbait blogs, what do you imagine that’s doing to our capacity to remember, reason and empathize? Every brand out there—corporations included—are all vying for attention. They want the clicks, the shares, the engagement so what do they do? Make it shorter, louder, catchier and slather it in SEO.

We all stand, mystified, that people seem irritable, distracted, and emotionally distant, but couldn’t that possibly be a reflection of the modern intellectual diet?

Long-Form Developed Our Empathy

Many writers grew up as readers. We stayed up until three in the morning, desperate to finish a novel only to hate ourselves the next day. Not only because we had to be at school/work in three hours, but we experienced profound loss. Long-form writing allowed time for a world to feel more real than the one we inhabited. Characters were people only better. Long-form gave us LIFE…in distillate.

The clown in IT disturbed us on a visceral level for the simple reason we’d lived (by proxy) in Derry long enough to feel the rising evil. Since we spent time with each member of The Loser’s Club, we were emotionally vested in a wide range of characters and experiences (Black, Jewish, female, fat kid, kid with ADD, the one with the stutter, the boy with hypochondria, etc.). We even hopped into the heads of the bullies where we learned that life isn’t always black and white, good and evil.

Long-form allowed us time to feel what it was like to be an outsider.

The Skin You’re In

Stuttering Bill was a painful character from his POV as well as others. When inside Bill’s perspective, we inhabited a mind that worked so much faster than his mouth could cooperate. Yet, when we pivoted to a friend’s POV, we experienced a different pain. The pain of not only trying to listen to Bill and grasp what he was trying to say, but the pain of feeling helpless when someone we cared about was struggling and humiliated.

We inhabited the experience of a myriad of abuse victims. Bill’s parents emotionally abandoned him, whereas Eddie’s mother smothered the life out of him. As readers we felt what it was like to be the Jew, the fat kid, the weird one, or the punching bag. Long-form gave us time to not only care, but to inhabit a human space in a way that no other form of “entertainment” can reproduce.

In all other forms, we (the audience) are the spectator. Writing, long-form writing uniquely, breaks down that fourth wall.

Long-Form Demanded Much but Gave More

We didn’t have to leave our bedrooms to travel to the jungles of Africa, rural Maine, or the planet Arrakis. Long-form gave the time and depth required to break down that membrane between reality and imagination where they could marry together. Settings had time to become their own characters, characters we sometimes loved as much if not more than the characters.

From Middle Earth (J.R.R. Tolkien) to Cedar Cove, Washington (Debbie Macomber), we discovered imaginary places we never wanted to leave. Various combinations of twenty-six letters manifested entire realities we couldn’t wait to revisit. Whether that was buying then inhaling the next book, breathlessly awaiting the next in the series, or just rereading the same book until it fell apart, it didn’t matter.

Yes, long-form was (is) demanding. We had to pay attention as well as give the story time to come to a rolling boil. Today, we’re bombarded with click bait that only serves up nonsense. The gratification might be immediate, but the payoff has all the substance of spun sugar.

How many of us remember a YouTube video we watched ten years ago? Contrast this with how many of us remember a favorite novel?

As modern writers, we are at a crossroads. Audiences crave the immediate dopamine hit social media serves, but IMO, it’s retraining the brain to avoid content of substance that’s far healthier to ingest. We have become not much better than B.F. Skinner’s rats blistering our paws to get the next sugar hit or shiny light.

Long term? That’s how a civilization dies.

What is the Digital Age Creating? REALLY?

Supposedly AI is freeing up all this time so we humans can create. Instead of drudgery, robots can do all that! Why learn how to write when you can type? Why learn to type when you can just talk into a machine? Hey, why bother talking? We can just implant Alexa, Claude, ChatGPT, etc. into our skulls?

What exactly are we going to imagine if all the building blocks that forge a robust imagination are outsourced? Why wouldn’t every character sound the same if the creator never spent time inhabiting another POV? Doesn’t it stand to reason that we’d become increasingly tribal in a world where search engines cater to serving us only what we like and agree with?

If we can’t give a book more than three pages to be interesting, exactly how patient will we be with others? With ourselves? With life?

Because the children in Stephen King’s It exhibited remarkable patience, kindness, devotion. They tolerated Richie’s ADHD motor-mouth, Eddie’s germophobia, endured Bill’s stutter, and Stan’s rigidity. His friends weren’t just empathetic, they were sympathetic.

It isn’t enough to merely feel and talk is cheap.

The Loser’s Club combined all their money to wash bloody towels for Beverly, instead of spending it on candy and comics. They teased Ben about his weight but damn near got themselves killed defending him from bullies. When Eddie had an asthma attack down in the bottoms, Bill nearly gets himself hit by a car half a dozen times racing into town for an inhaler.

Long-Form Writing and How Humans Mirror

These kids had skin in the game with each other because they were all they had. We find a similar kind of camaraderie in books like The Stand, Pillars of the Earth, Lord of the Rings, etc. In fact, one of the reasons series were (and still are) so popular is because we bond with the characters and the worlds they inhabit.

In these worlds there is no unfriend, unfollow, hide or mute button. Characters have to face the ugliness of life, brave it and defend what was right and true and beautiful.

Since we humans are creatures who learn by mirroring, what exactly is the Digital Age training us to think like? How to treat ourselves and others? And I am not judging anyone. We are all being bombarded nonstop, so it isn’t I don’t have time to read a text, I just don’t have the mental and emotional bandwidth left over.

Technology that’s supposed to be making life so much easier mostly makes me want to hide in a blanket fort with brownie batter and a spoon. I have emails for my emails and passwords for my passwords. Instead of just cranking in a piece of typing paper and writing, I have to launch a three hour forensic investigation to find my document on OneDrive.

Why isn’t it opening? What’s the password? What email was I using ten years ago when I agreed to this $h!t?

I’m like too little butter scraped over too much bread.

Long-Form Writing Solution for the Short-Form Ouroboros

I “get” that companies need to make money to give us all jobs and, since the power company won’t take social media likes as payment, that’s good. Yet, I wonder how much of the relentless catering to short attention spans is contributing to so many modern problems that have appeared and expanded at a rate that would impress the Big Bang.

Yet, we live in a world where rage, envy, and lust are commodified. Complex ideas are boiled into memes. Everyone has a megaphone but how many of us have become terrible at listening?

In long-form works, we learned this thing called character arc. We understood that people do stupid, hurtful, spiteful things but they also can change. Can even surprise us. How many people thought they knew Severus Snape but did they? Did they know Draco Malfoy? Really? Some characters we meet and immediately defend them, only to later realize they were actually a monster (Amy Dunne in Gone Girl).

Long-form writing teaches us that first impressions aren’t always accurate, and even if they are, given enough time and emotional investment, even that can change. Maybe it isn’t neat and tidy, like Sméagol. One minute I loathed him, the next my heart was breaking for him. Perhaps a character we struggle to even tolerate ends up utterly melting our hearts (Ove in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove),

Long-form writing teaches us intellectual humility.

The Digital Age and social media reinforce the snap judgements that long-form writing trains us to mistrust.

Long-Form Writing & Life Lessons

Inhabiting a story not only builds our intellectual muscles–memory, reasoning, vocabulary–it strengthens our humanity. We learn that the world is a lot more complex than black and white. Most people don’t wake up in the morning asking themselves, “How can I be positively monstrous today?”

We all have bad days, bad seasons, make poor decisions, can be selfish, greedy and stupid but those are just a few shades of a far larger palette. I remember in college that almost all the professors I hated on Day One eventually became my favorites. Why? I was forced to spend time with them.

Single-serving macaroni is awesome; single-serving friends, not so much.

Is AI fantastic and wonderful and has a lot of uses? Sure! Yet, if we rely too much on the FEED and on being FED, what are we relinquishing? How can we ever become polished at anything if we remove all the friction? Is it even possible to be proud of “art” when we made almost no effort learning the craft (and enduring the frustrations and failures along the way)?

Maybe it’s time we stopped treating every demand on our attention as a problem technology needs to solve. Long-form writing asks us to slow down, pay attention, wrestle with difficult ideas, and spend time with people and perspectives we might otherwise dismiss.

In return, it gives us something far more valuable than another dopamine hit.

Long-form writing gives us depth, empathy, imagination, and the patience to recognize that neither stories nor human beings can be understood in thirty seconds. Perhaps instead of constantly demanding that writers make everything shorter and easier, we should remember that some things are worth the effort.

Because if we keep sacrificing substance for speed, eventually we’ll have a world overflowing with content and precious little worth remembering.

What Are Your Thoughts on Long-Form Writing?

Personally, I’ve given up on a lot of contemporary fiction (though obviously not ALL). I feel like this trend of hooking early and something always needing to happen has gotten annoying. And this is from the person with the attention span of that fruit fly with ADHD.

Do you struggle with memory now that you can simply Google? Long-form writing always helped me learn topics at a far deeper level and I feel like the click and skim is costing us intellectually.

Personally, I love writing where I inhabit an entirely new WORLD. Last week I read Joe Lansdale’s The Bottoms then reread it two more times because I just fell in love with the characters.

This past weekend, I read Alix Harrow’s Starling House. I’m a huge fan of settings as a character. I also read a psychological thriller that I won’t mention because I didn’t care for it. Sure, it was long-form writing but in the modern sense of sacrificing depth for something new always happening. For me, the world was flat and the characters (to me) felt like paper dolls.

This is why I do a LOT of rereading. I’ve reread the unabridged It more times than I can count is probably healthy and still need therapy after Pillars of the Earth (but now know how flying buttresses were invented).

What are your thoughts on long-form writing? I don’t mind cotton candy now and again, but it seems like we are being buried in it over the past several years. Do you love long-form writing? Settings you want to get lost in? Characters who feel more real than living, breathing people? Do you think readers have gotten lazy, wanting the instant fix/hook? Or am I being too picky?

The post Long-Form Writing in a TL;DR World appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Perspective is one of the most commonly overlooked skills we authors can build, and the stronger the skill, the better the stories. Whether we write in first-person, third-person, third shifting, third close, it really doesn’t matter if the character is not believable. We’ve already discussed how POV (point of view) shapes a story and how each “type” creates a distinctive psychological experience.

But, POV is merely casting who will be holding the narrative camera. The next question we should ask is, “Exactly whose experiential lens will be telling the story?” Followed immediately by asking, “And is it believable?”

Once we choose a certain POV and which character we want telling the story, we need to make that character believable, relatable and someone we want to invest time getting to know (and hopefully root to win).

This is where perspective can be the game-changer.

Recently, I bought a second book from a debut author I LOVED. The first book was so excellent I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times, and even bought a hard copy and had Spawn (my teenage son) read it. So trust me, when the second book came up to preorder?

TAKE MY MONEY!

Then, no matter how hard I tried with the second book, I could NOT get into the story. Trust me, I tried. The author was still skilled, the story was excellent, so why was it losing me? And me being me, I needed to understand what (for me) had suddenly gone so wrong.

Perspective Has to Be Believable

In the author’s first book, I fell into the world and forgot to come up for air. Why? The MC, though irascible to the point I wanted to hare-lip him, was utterly believable. His mood swings, temper and often illogical decisions made sense, since he was a veteran suffering PTSD.

Hiking, hunting, fishing and being outdoors all had helped him handle (though not confront and master) his darker emotions. Not only did his stupid choices still make sense (and serve up some great dramatic tension), but his knowledge base also made sense because it was his world prior to the inciting incident.

What happened with the second book?

I’m not naming names because I want people to fall in love with the author’s books without me poisoning the well. This is merely MY opinion. That said, after many starts and stops and finally giving up, I had to backtrack what exactly went wrong.

Perspective. The author wanted me to believe a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent could see and experience the story events in a way I found utterly implausible.

Perspective Can Only Stretch So Far

The author chose to write through the POV of a young teenage boy who’d never set foot outside of a poor urban community in the South. Who’d never seen mountains in person, yet somehow knew all the terms that a person who’d grown up in the Rockies, Tetons, whatever, would toss out without even thinking.

He not only knew what a topographical map was, but why it would be important to have one…and how to read it. That’s a tough sell regardless of the character’s age. The simple fact his MC came from a sheltered, poverty-riddled life in a bayou already made this incredibly implausible.

Additionally, how the character experienced his world, problems, and even regular interactions rang false for someone that age, who also happened to come from a sheltered background (for that setting).

Had the story been set with an urban background requiring street smarts, maybe my opinion would have been different. But the author chose not only a young protagonist, but a fish-out-of-water that felt more like a fish that suddenly sprouted legs because the writer needed him to.

What bothers me most is that the story would have worked beautifully had the character NOT been so knowledgeable. Again, no one minds a fish-out-of-water story. We love them enough they have their own term. Yet, we need to make sure we are remaining true to that perspective.

It’s okay for a character to not know something. In fact, often it can be BETTER.

Eyes and Age

Some of my favorite books are written from a young person’s perspective. Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Joe Lansdale’s The Bottoms, Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin and Stephen King’s IT, are all written from a young person’s perspective. THREE of these titles are told from a young teenage boy’s perspective, the same type of character that somehow–in this other story–fell flat.

Which made me start thinking. All of these books have incredible detail, sophisticated stories and the vocabulary is elite. How did Bradbury, Maberry, Lansdale, and King pull that off? How could they pull off such erudite description while also remaining believable as “children”?

My only working theory is the teens in these stories are all well-read, regardless of socioeconomic level. They think and observe with eyes they’ve earned from inhaling books.

Harry might be a twelve-year-old boy in rural East Texas during the Great Depression, but he has access to a library of sorts (an old maid who lends him books and rewards him for reading them).

Authorial Voice

Yes, Ray Bradbury has an authorial voice that’s unmistakably elite, but we never question the boys’ observations or the ways they choose to see their world because AGAIN, reading is part of their identities. Same in IT.

The words they choose, the details they notice (narration) are all a benefit of working their observational muscles using books that are hardly fluff: King Solomon’s Mines, The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo are far from comic books (though we’ll get to comic books in a moment).

Reading is one of those activities that definitely can enhance a young character. The average adult wouldn’t normally know that the overhang thingy we pull our cars under is called a porte cochère (I didn’t). If they read Dean Koontz, however, they totally would know that.

Guess how I learned?

Reading Expands Perspective

If we want a fish-out-of-water, young or old, that’s fine…so long as they remain a fish-out-of-water. I don’t want to get hung up on age, because age is only one element of perspective. That said, if we want to transplant someone out of a Florida swamp into the Smokies, there better be a story-specified reason they (in narration) suddenly know/or at least have an idea of common terms in an utterly unfamiliar world.

Maybe we want to write a romance about a woman with a crush, and the main love interest mistakes her for a nurse upon waking from a bang on the head. She doesn’t want to admit she’s a dog-walker because the job is embarrassing.

Okay. So maybe she grew up with a mom in nursing school and she happened to be the only person (despite being only thirteen) who could help her mother study. Maybe she faints at the sight of blood, but still found her mother’s textbooks fascinating. Perhaps she dated a medical student. She might even have mostly dog-walking clients in the medical district, so she absorbs an unfamiliar world via a sort of osmosis.

She can possess just enough knowledge to make the deception plausible while still being wildly unprepared for what might happen next.

Her partial expertise becomes a potential source of conflict.

That’s good storytelling.

We ARE What We DO

Perspective is an incredible literary device that can transport the reader into a world so thoroughly they never want to leave. This is why it is crucial we make sure the perspective rings true. Perspective will impact vocabulary, decisions and even what a character does or doesn’t notice.

Try a fun little exercise. Think about a neighborhood, a restaurant, or a shopping center. Describe the same place but from different perspectives.

A veteran suffering from PTSD will react to a roll of carpet lying in the road very differently from a real estate agent hoping to sell a house three doors down from the trashy neighbors using an old toilet as a planter.

An architect will “see” an old gingerbread house with a sagging porch far differently than a twelve-year-old kid who might read far too many comic books. Two different jump scares. The architect is blanching at the cost of repairing the termite-infested pier-and-beam floors, whereas the tween is certain an evil clown lives in the crawl spaces.

Perspective is Accumulated Experience with an Opinion

Suffice to say that our background, where we come from, the education we’ve had (or haven’t had), the job(s) we’ve done all inform perspective.

For instance, I haven’t worked in industrial sales in over twenty years, but I still notice the quality of a company’s corner board (or lack thereof). I also happen to be a generous tipper. Why? Because I waited tables through school and know they rely on tips to survive. Meaning I pay attention to more than my own dining experience, and can tell if a server is in the weeds or dealing with an incompetent kitchen staff. It isn’t her fault the hostess spread her tables across three time zones.

Additionally, as a middle-aged Gen Xer who’s “seen things”, trust me when I say my cumulative experiences make me notice things others might not. Anyone old enough to legally buy BEER would likely say the same.

Conversely, a young character–as we mentioned above–might possess impressive book knowledge, but their lack of practical experience should come across in the writing.

King does this brilliantly in It. No matter how book smart or even street smart a fifteen-year-old might be, there will be areas of authentic naïveté. At least there should be if we want our characters to be sympathetic/believable.

Yes, our spunky fifteen-year-old girl boss might know weapons and Kung Fu and have special vampire killing powers…yet also be oblivious as to why Mom might be having an aneurysm over the power bill.

Method Acting and Perspective

A dimensional character should feel as if they’ve lived a life before setting foot in our stories. Where did they grow up? What environment? Were they well-off or fast friends with poverty? Maybe a mix of BOTH?

Did they come from a sane family or a broken one? What roles have they inhabited (or not)?

An only child won’t have the same emotional repertoire as the eldest child made responsible for tending house and keeping a gaggle of younger siblings ALIVE as well as fed, clothed and entertained. Neither is good or bad, merely different.

I say this when I look at my only-child husband like he’s an alien…and he’s staring at me with the same expression. As for Spawn (only child, homeschooled, and a Zoomer)? There needs to be a translation app.

***INDULGENT SIDE QUEST: When Spawn was in Kindergarten we saw a “spooky” rotary phone in the Halloween decor and he genuinely had NO CLUE what it was. Not only that, but he genuinely believed I was punking him when I told him it was a phone. *me dying of old age*

Anyway….

Perspective is Cumulative

All our life experiences (or lack thereof) build in micro observations that make a character seem more than simply a paper doll there for the author’s amusement.

Ideally, we want to get inside the head of our characters to the point we practically inhabit them. If you’re writing a character who’s elderly or maybe a fighter with a recently blown knee, what would they notice? What would suddenly become important?

While an athletic teenager might not think a bathroom is scary unless the mirrors start bleeding, try tackling a shower without being able to trust your balance.

Someone with an unstable knee might notice slippery flooring, the absence of grab bars, or the distance between the shower and something sturdy enough to hold.

A healthy teenager might never register those details.

The environment hasn’t changed. The character’s relationship to it has.

In the End

Ultimately, plenty of people loved the book that started this whole post, so I wouldn’t say my advice is some sort of Holy Grail or anything. Yet, there is something to be said for reading (and more than just for any young protagonists we might want to write). I’ve read two books a week for almost a decade, and I dissect all of them.

If I loved them, what did the author do? Or, as was the case here, if a book fails to capture my attention, what was missing? What was too much? Is there a way the author could have kept my interest and if so, what?

I’ve said this time and time again over the years, but writers who don’t read aren’t fooling anyone. I can tell in one page a writer who doesn’t read because the prose is about as appetizing as food from a chef who only eats Hot Pockets. I know none of y’all are guilty of this, but pretty sure we have all met the “author” who believed anyone could write and their story was so extra special they didn’t need to bother about reading anyone else (or learning craft).

Yet, perspective, like vocabulary, narration, setting, theme, are all those advanced techniques that immediately can demonstrate mastery if we are willing to do the hard work.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Does this make you think a little differently about what exactly makes a dimensional character? Had you given as much weight to perspective before? Has this post maybe given you new ways you hadn’t considered to add additional depth and mystery to your characters?

I love hearing from you!

The post Perspective: The Secret to Authentic Character Voices appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

In the modern age when everyone can use AI to produce at least passable work, mastery is more critical than it’s ever been. AI has largely eradicated typos and poor grammar that used to signal inexperience which has some benefits. Those who struggle with spelling or grammar aren’t as far behind the Eight Ball as they used to be. You can now dig into storytelling mastery, even if spelling is your nemesis.

*waves to the dyslexic folks*

Side Note: I love how everyone seems positively giddy when a writer makes a typo on-line. Um, sir, we are writers, not Spelling Bee Champions *adjusts dictionary on desk*

Thus, if spelling makes you bonkers and grammar trips you up, AI definitely can be a game changer that redirects where you focus your mastery efforts. NO ONE is getting to the end of a book, giddy from reading delight saying, “There wasn’t a single misspelled word! Oh, the use of semi-colons was breath-taking.”

But, don’t get too excited.

AI Can’t Fake True Mastery

While AI can fake competence, it cannot manufacture/replicate writing skills only learned through study and practice. Therein lies the danger.

Without the normal roadblocks rookies of old used to tangle with, AI can be confidently WRONG and mislead new writers that their skills are far more polished than they really are.

A quick story to illustrate.

In our family, we absolutely FORBADE any of the children from using water wings or floaties. We insisted on teaching everyone to swim—at least dog-paddle—while still in diapers. Why? Because floaties could give a young child a false confidence that could get them killed.

They wouldn’t learn to respect the water and would have no idea that it was really the foam in their Little Mermaid/Spiderman swimsuit doing the hard work, not them. And that was a good way to have a child confidently dive into the deep end without the requisite skills to survive it.

Similarly, AI can land writers into a deep end they don’t have the mastery to navigate, which begs the next obvious question: How do writers achieve mastery?

Many folks claim it’s practice, but I disagree.

We hear it in kitschy writing slogans all the time. Like this one.

Yeah, no.

If there’s no correcting what we are doing wrong, then we’re simply practicing and ingraining bad form. Learning to survive being tossed in the water is a long way from being an excellent swimmer.

***Last I checked, no one is eagerly awaiting the Dog-Paddling heats in the Summer Olympics.

If you learn to swim the butterfly, that’s awesome…unless you have bad form. You could swim five miles a day and are far more likely to end up with wrecked shoulders and blown discs than you are to be a contender for the GOLD.

Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect. Practice makes permanent.

Give Yourselves Permission to Be NEW

Before we cover the five mistakes that reveal a lack of mastery, I want to make something clear. Every great writer started out dog-paddling as a rookie. Writers, like Olympians, don’t just magically launch into greatness solely off natural talent, so PLEASE! Give yourself permission to be NEW. In fact, I promise if you stay at this long enough, you’d MISS the early days (like childhood), so enjoy the feeling.

The Writer’s Journey: From Total Newbie to the Joy of Mastery

On Writing: Why Mastery Should Matter to Authors

Now that we’ve come this far, what are common oopses that either fail to hook readers or just lose them completely? While audiences might not be writing coaches, humans possess an innate sense of what makes a good story. While they might not be able to articulate WHY they put down a book, that doesn’t mean they didn’t have good reasons to slip in that bookmark. Of course, “Um, I just didn’t like it” is not exactly helpful, which is why we are all here today.

So what exactly is it that coaches editors, such as myself see that immediately flags weak writing?

Mastery Habit One: Ditch Excessive Stage Direction

Stage direction often reveals a writer who hasn’t learned to distinguish movement from meaningful action. A character turning, nodding, reaching, or looking isn’t inherently a problem. The issue is whether those actions accomplish anything other than coaching readers on the obvious.

She turned and reached in the back seat for the gun.

I would certainly HOPE SO! The thought of her NOT turning to reach in a car’s back seat is nightmare fuel.

Similarly, trust that we readers understand how everyday actions are accomplished.

She opened the cabinet to grab another glass.

Well, unless she’s one of the missing X-Men, I’d certainly hope so. Yet notice how this stage direction differs greatly if we write this, instead:

She flung open the cabinet for another glass.

Here, the character isn’t opening a cabinet because we, the reader, have thus far been mystified as to how fresh glasses are accessed. The verb flung implies a distinctive mood: anger, frustration, resentment. Additionally, using the word another suggests subtext. Is she angry that her sister showed up unannounced in the middle of an intimate date? Has her mother showed up to dissect her failing marriage and she’s struggling to be hospitable?

Notice how the action has shifted from stage direction to dramatic action.

Additionally, while punctuation and italics can be used to coach readers in free internet blogs…I’d advise against punctuation prompting in your fiction.

Ellipses are wonderful, just don’t get crazy. Feel free to use an exclamation point now and again, just don’t add “she yelled” as a tag. Instead of an exclamation point, though, see if you can strengthen the dialogue so you don’t need to signal the reader more than a flightline worker on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Trust me. We not only understand the physics of obtaining a glass, we are also aware what the exclamation point is for.

Mastery Habit Two: Nix Needless Modifiers

If we look at the above example, the verb flung is doing some pretty excellent dramatic work. Notice, however, the other word that immediately implied a story without belaboring exactly how one reaches glassware…another.

Another is doing a lot of work for such an unremarkable word. Nobody would ordinarily single it out as a powerful storytelling tool. Yet in context, it suggests repetition, an additional person, or an escalating situation without explaining any of them. In fact, the not explaining is precisely why a reader is likely to keep reading.

We are all human and humans are notorious rubberneckers. We’re nosy, so use that to your storytelling advantage.

Modifiers come in all forms, but adverbs seem to spark the most controversy.

Some purists claim we should never use adverbs, but I disagree. We demonstrate mastery when we know precisely when to use one and when not to. My advice here is, again, to avoid explaining the obvious.

He whispered quietly.

The verb whisper already tells us the quiet part out loud because it’s inherent in the verb and is vastly different from someone whispering menacingly, seductively, or conspiratorially.

We “get” that, unless expressly told otherwise, characters yell loudly, run quickly or stab someone violently.

As opposed to the ‘non-violent’ stabbing?

But take note:

• Another creates a question.
• Quietly answers a question nobody asked.
• Menacingly introduces information that changes the meaning of the action.

A modifier should contribute something the reader couldn’t already reasonably infer.

Mastery Habit Three: Avoid Low-Hanging Description

This is another place my writing advice might differ from other experts. Description is part of authorial voice and is a matter of taste.

No one is going to mistake Flannery O’Connor for Ernest Hemingway because they have very different descriptive styles, which is great! Not all readers enjoy the same kinds of stories. In fact, audiences will often divide along this line in particular: readers who can’t get enough of rich, immersive description and those who have no taste prefer lean, austere prose.

KIDDING! Mostly.

Hemingway could accomplish remarkable things with restraint. O’Connor could use rich, often grotesque detail to reveal character, culture, and moral conflict. Neither approach is inherently superior.

Yet, if we’re discussing mastery then I’d like to point out the large elephant in the room.

See what I did there?

Seriously, if we choose to use description, remember true masters are wordsmiths. In fact it’s our wordsmithery (it’s a word) that intrigues many readers who enjoy this style. Thus, whether you choose to use a little description or a lot, do better than any average person trying to write the same scene.

Emerald eyes? Fire red hair? Ivory skin?

That kind of description is only slightly better than a bad police sketch.

Mastery Habit Four: Sometimes Less is MORE

Now let’s look at the flip side. While sparse description isn’t necessarily amateur writing, elaborate description isn’t automatically mastery. Trust me, I love rich, evocative vocabulary more than most people. Yes, I dog-ear and highlight books when I find an adjective or turn of phrase that gives me a thrill I want to revisit (and possibly probably steal).

And no wailing from the bibliophiles! I can dog-ear, write notes in or color an entire novel with a pink highlighter if I want to. I bought it. Frankly, as an author, I can think of no greater compliment than a reader marking up my book so much they need to buy a second pristine copy…for show.

Be aware that we don’t have to describe everything. In fact, when we describe everything, we can risk describing nothing. As a die-hard logophile, this is my weakness even after 20 years writing professionally.

For instance, there is likely no one who loves the word cerulean as much as I do, but it doesn’t exactly tell the reader much just on its own. Sometimes blue eyes are just blue eyes and using cerulean is just (clumsily) showing off.

Years ago, I judged a writing contest and GOD BLESS the writer who chose “amethyst bicycle”!

Yeah, Girl, it’s okay. You can just use purple.

Mastery Habit Five: Understanding Selectivity and Brevity Aren’t the Same Thing

And knowing the difference is what demonstrates mastery. True skill is understanding when and how to deploy lush or sparse description, a talent that only comes with a TON of reading and even MORE practice WRITING.

When a writer chooses to linger over a description or uses a uniquely evocative word, that attention ought to earn its place. Let’s use my favorite word here again….cerulean.

She stared into his cerulean eyes.

She stared into his cerulean eyes, but couldn’t quite reconcile how their innocent brightness—the color of baby showers and summer skies—so skillfully camouflaged just how monstrous he could be.

***Yes, it’s wordy. Hey, give me a break. I’m writing examples in a teaching blog, not hoping for a Pulitzer.

Yet, notice how, in the first sentence, cerulean is merely a fancy-schmancy way of describing eye color.

In the second, the contrast between innocent brightness and monstrous behavior gives the description a purpose. The imagery creates dramatic irony and tells us something about the character beyond his appearance.

And the baby showers and summer skies are particularly interesting because they’re not simply prettier alternatives to blue. They’re associations that establish the innocence we’re contrasting with his monstrosity.

The reader innately understands that the POV character is struggling to reconcile the man’s appearance with what she knows about him. That makes the description part of her experience rather than an author stopping the action to admire somebody’s eyeballs.

And yeah, yeah, I get it. Habits Three, Four, and Five are closely related, but notice how each way of using description is doing a different job.

One addresses originality, another restraint, and the last judgment.

Mastery is More Than a Checklist

I hope you enjoyed these tips, because I strive to take my own advice. It’s low-hanging fruit to lecture writers to ditch all adverbs and never choose a fancy word when a plain one will do. But doesn’t that strip all the fun out of writing? The JOY out of reading?

Many writers began as readers and we loved being immersed in fictional words so much, we decided to become authors…then promptly water-boarded potential readers with metaphors.

This is where practice, reading, getting excellent feedback can all help us ditch the writing water wings and strike out across the open cerulean sea.

Shut it. Don’t judge me .

What are Your Thoughts?

Still wearing writing water wings? No worries, chuck them off and just paddle along the edge. Hopefully, today’s list might help you “see” some of the simple bad habits that could be getting in your way.

When was the last time you fell in love with a word or turn of phrase? Did you find a way to make it your own?

Are you describing what matters, or simply everything you can see? Where might a little restraint make your prose more powerful?

The post Writing Water Wings: 5 Habits that Betray a Lack of Mastery appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Fear is, in all likelihood, the single most complex human emotion. Our fears can keep us up at night, but they can also be the only thing that keeps us alive. They can save us, strangle us, liberate us or even destroy us. Like fire, fear can be intoxicating and even addictive and for sound reasons.

We understand on some primal level we NEED fear—that fear DOES keep us alive and often safe. Fear keeps us within society’s guidelines, since most of us (wisely) are afraid of prison.

We check food expiration dates, pay our taxes, and avoid accepting loans from anyone with ‘THE’ as a middle name, (Vinnie the Fish, Marty the Clown, Jimmy the Snake etc.).

Fear is to thank for many of these sound decisions.

Alas, fear can also be the ‘tame’ tiger who’s our best cuddle buddy for ten years…until it tries to eat our face off. Ask Siegfried and Roy. Thus, fear’s dichotomous and volatile nature can’t help but draw us in like those proverbial (and suicidal) moths to the flame.

A few years back, I wrote a post about how shame is the beating heart of great fiction. But if shame is the heart, what is the BLOOD? The life force of truly magnificent stories?

My POV? Fear.

Fear IS Fiction

Some folks reading this might have a knee-jerk response of, ‘Oh, I don’t like horror.’ Yet, I want to point out ALL genres hinge on fear. What is a good romance without the fear of never being loved, never finding love, or finding then losing love?

Fear is what adds the breathless expectation, the race to the end turning pages as quickly as we can because we are AFRAID the couple we’re rooting for won’t get their act together before it’s too late.

Whether an MC is overthrowing an evil wizard, stopping a drug cartel, or opening that cupcake shop despite all her family’s nasty barbs and undermining, FEAR is the lifeblood that gives the story LIFE. The larger the fear (and more universal) the more resonant the story.

A Fearful Genre

All fiction has its place. Some fiction is purely fun and escape, and the world needs more fun and feel-good. Certain books are simply a holodeck. These stories allow us a safe space to get away.

Many books offer mental respite from the mundanities of life, a haven where we can regroup after dealing with the overwhelming pressures of being an adult (kids, laundry, bills, car repairs).

These stories serve as a place of rest and we all could use more of that!

But that isn’t all fiction.

Many writers (myself included) desire to go far deeper with our fiction, explore wounds and human issues. We’re compelled to poke and prod at larger social dilemmas.

Stories offer a mechanism where we can ‘safely’ expose that which is diseased and ALSO show these cultural cancers can be eradicated.

Speculative fiction is an excellent outlet for easing our anxiety and that of the reader’s. It’s a genre that is still pretty hot due to a plethora of factors including but not limited to: artificial intelligence, geopolitical threats, global media, living in a surveillance society, loss of privacy, government intrusion, and Facebook.

Oh, my bad META *rolls eyes*

Then, there’s the constant exposure to every variety of threat (terrorism, politics, pestilence, artificial intelligence, robot girlfriends, Alexa, Siri, Amazon Prime, global warming, and…whatever the hell a Labubu is supposed to be *shudders*).

I know writers are told not to write for the market, which is partial advice. Horror (and speculative fiction) historically ebbs and flows in how popular it is. Usually, when times are tense? Believe it or not, people want MORE.

Horror and Humans

Stephen King did a great job explaining the purposes of ‘horror’ in Danse Macabre and he made an observation I will never forget. Horror usually reflects what society is collectively worried about/can’t deal with.

In the 19th century, books like Frankenstein or The Island of Dr. Moreau reflected how emerging science and technology impacted our humanity. Fast forward to the 1940s and 50s and you see a lot of creature features (post developing nuclear technology), alien invasions (the space race, Sputnik) and even “Pod People” (The Red Scare.)

By the 1970s, horror ended up with a tarnished reputation because the slasher flicks took off with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yet, despite me hating slasher fiction, why did that movie resonate?

Because there was nowhere and no time of day that was safe.

Previously, characters had to just survive until dawn or get to a church, then suddenly there was absolutely nothing you could do. Reflective of the Vietnam conflict much? No rules, no clue who might be a combatant, no real objective other than staying ALIVE?

Then in the 70s and 80s we had loads of movies (and books) like The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and all this was happening largely in tandem with the Satanic Panic. By the 90s, horror fell out of fashion and tipped into comedy *say “Hello” to the Scary Movie franchise by 2000). Yet, this breather didn’t last long until everything was zombies…right about the time our world was becoming digitally connected and social media was on the rise.

Even Cormac McCarthy’s The Road released in 2006. The entire premise of the story is that somehow humans have irretrievably messed up. BIG. We never get how we did it (*coughs* too many data centers?), but we’ve managed to obliterate every living thing on the planet except, apparently ourselves.

Sounds about right.

So no food. Except Barbara from HR.

Anyway….

The Man and Boy DO have an objective—get to the coast—but the point of the story is less about IF they get there and more about HOW they get there. If they resort to snacking on fellow humans along the way? They have FAILED.

Yet the story begs the question:

How much of our humanity are we willing to relinquish to ‘survive’?

Still a very poignant question.

Fear as Therapy

If you hate these kinds of stories, by all means, avoid them PLEASE. Trust me, I “get” it feels like we have been LIVING this genre for frigging years. But, this genre is always an excellent staple for sound reasons. Speculative fiction (horror is included in this) offers a myriad of ways to help us mere humans face all the stuff we fear the most. It helps us COPE.

Since fear practically saturates every area of our lives, readers are gravitating more and more to books that allow them to put a face to the fear and then kick its metaphorical @$$.

We can’t do much of anything about AI taking over every aspect of life, the thought of another pandemic, or watching people literally turn into zombies before our eyes *watches kid walk into a pole staring at phone*, but we CAN comment on it, expose it, pry it apart and find what our fears say about our humanity.

And, since we DO NOT LIKE feeling powerless, these stories hand us back some form of agency and ease our terrors. Come on, I can’t be the only one who’s dreamed up a story where we rise up against the self-checkout machines.

Okay maybe just me.

What is Speculative Fiction?

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term publishing uses to describe narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements. This includes but is not necessarily limited to fantasy, science fiction, horror, utopian, dystopian, alternate history, apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction.

Basically, all the weird stuff.

(And forgive me because today we are using seriously broad strokes.)

But what makes the difference between the laughable 1950s science fiction matinees and the long-forgotten pulp fiction versus the works of Philip K.Dick?

What makes The Road literature even though it’s a post-apocalyptic novella? Why is Heart-Shaped Box or Wool so deeply disturbing and simultaneously resonant?

Why did star-packed big-budget films like Jupiter Ascending absolutely bomb? Yet Blade Runner is a science fiction staple worthy of being remade…and remade…and, yes, remade again?

*Probably a horror story premise in there. Transformers 75

Plot & FEAR

It’s easy to dismiss speculative fiction as escapist fluff and some of it is. But, when we look to the great speculative fiction, we see the authors are disguising explosive social commentary within narrative so it can be viewed and experienced behind the safety-glass/containment field of story.

By using story, we writers place the reader into this world then (hopefully) generate empathy that is impossible to create any other way. I’ve seen the movie I, Robot countless times and I bawl EVERY time during this scene.

This is me every….single…time…I watch that scene *BAWLS*

Animal Farm 

Was a treatise on socialism and the dangers of groupthink. The peril that comes with handing over too much power to those who claim to have noble and benevolent intentions without asking the hard questions.

Brave New World 

Was Huxley’s stab at a culture propelled by temporary highs, unlimited choices and instant gratification while rejecting that which endured—love, family, marriage—because that which lasted required time, sacrifice and work.

He showed us an eerily accurate picture of what society could become if we were not vigilant…and is now probably rolling in his grave.

*Makes note to write story about Huxley haunting Instagram*

Fahrenheit 451

Was an explication on revisionist history, a culture grounded in fleeting emotion and the superficial. How invaluable books are to the bedrock of a society and how important it is that we FEEL uncomfortable. That being UNCOMFORTABLE is vastly important.

It was a warning, I’m afraid, we’ve failed to heed.

We’re living in a society where we can block, delete and take down content because ‘we find it offensive.’ Speakers are being banned from universities. Or, when they show, they’re met with protests and pepper spray simply because they represent opposition.

In far too many instances (for my tastes at least), any disagreement equals hate speech. Universities label books with trigger warnings or pull them altogether so as not to ‘offend’ anyone.

That, my friends, is exactly what happened in the world of Fahrenheit 451. This goal to make everyone ‘comfortable’ directly led to the implosion of libraries and the university and educational system and the creation of the Firemen who burned all the books (because books made people ‘feel bad’).

I’d suggest reading Fahrenheit 451 with its four walls of television and nonstop entertainment. The seashells plugged into everyone’s ears to pump in more entertainment. I’d suggest it, but…*shivers*

…we might already be living it *looks at Apple air pods*

*sobs*

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 

Was Philip K. Dick’s commentary on artificial intelligence and just because we can play God, should we? What sort of moral implications are involved? These are issues we are now facing for real, that are no longer fiction and we are being tasked with the tough questions.

Is it wise to create and sell sex robots that come with a ‘frigid’ setting? What happens when we extend the logic of this? Blade Runner. We get Blade Runner. Also a bizarre escalation/reinvention of the previously mentioned Stepford Wives.

All these great science breakthroughs that float across our newsfeed are now fertile ground for new and possibly even better stories that prod the science with ethical dilemmas.

We (authors) show the world it’s upside down and maybe even ways to right it.

I believe that the great speculative fiction writers have always been the conscience of culture, the voice that whispers things like, ‘Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.’ Or, ‘This really is a big deal and can go ugly really easily.’

Horror does a lot of that as well. Good horror writers tap into the subconscious angst and give it a face. What happens when society is allowed to continue to devalue human life?

When mobs are handed permission to call the shots? Let’s chat about this after watching The Purge…which ignited enough public frenzy to warrant being made into a USA Network television series.

***Or just hop on TikTok to watch it in real life.

To Make it BIGGER, Make it Smaller

When we care about everything, we care about nothing. Additionally, the human mind can’t truly grasp the loss of a billion lives. It doesn’t resonate because it can’t compute.

Thus the great spec-fic plots make the big small. We tell a small story of one person or a group of people as it plays out on the far larger stage. World War Z anyone?

This is why so many Hollywood movies about asteroids hitting the planet fizzle while The Road simply guts us.

Not All Big Stories are Big

Sometimes speculative fiction isn’t addressing something big, rather it dives into the intimate and deeply personal. Heart-Shaped Box is about a vengeful ghost out to destroy an aging rock star and anyone he loves.

While the supernatural elements are terrifying, what is so beautiful and moving about this story is how the malevolent ghost forces the MCs to face and conquer inner demons they would have been happy to bury…if not running for their lives.

The human story is what elevates this from a forgettable scary book into a work that prods at the deep dark places of the characters (and by extension the reader).

Character & FEAR

Writing speculative fiction is really tough. It has a lot in common with literary fiction. In FACT, spec-fic in general (INCLUDING HORROR) makes up a very large percentage of what’s viewed as ‘great literature.’ Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, everything written by Edgar Allan Poe EVER and I could go on.

But won’t  .

Alas, because speculative fiction shares so much familial DNA with literary fiction, it can suffer from similar degenerative diseases. Speculative fiction can easily turn preachy or rely too much on low-hanging fruit that wrecks great stories.

Horror might swing the literal ax too much, the ‘fear factor’ relying too much on shocking an audience that hasn’t been shocked since middle school.

Dystopian, utopian, science fiction, can become an assembly line of derivative drones. In a similar vein, literary fiction can pummel us with pontification, and sedate us with sophistry. Ah, but so can speculative fiction.

*channels Edie Brickell*

Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep…

World-building is backdrop and can never substitute for story. Yet, too many writers fixate on the element of storytelling at expense of story. Spec-fic is tough. I swear it is the souffle of fiction. If we aren’t careful and look away one second?

Yeah.

Plot of course matters. We need a core story problem to drive the story. Ah, but characters are vastly important and I’d even posit they’re even more important…kind of like literary fiction. 

 #Hmmmm.

We must develop multi-dimensional characters with flaws and problems to set on this adventure because gizmos, gadgets, spaceships, magic, chainsaws, gore and ghosts, big words and deep thoughts alone are not enough.

Don’t make a bigger asteroid…create a better story.

Story is what is going to rattle the reader’s cage, not the two-ton spider or a warrior alien race like the Klingons but NOT because they’re Cling-Ons—a race of genetically engineered clones grown from needy exes imprisoned on a space colony after violating one too many intergalactic restraining orders…

I take that back.

I’d totally read that story.

Where was I? Yeah. So, more blood or teeth or guts won’t scare us, won’t rattle us, and sure as heck won’t change us.

In a world where we are overwhelmed with doom and gloom, where any debate on-line easily devolves into ranting, I think spec-fic is more important than ever in human history. Story is the place where the armor goes off and the heart is exposed and then able to be changed, fixed, remolded, and softened.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Other than my last two posts gave you GREAT material to draw from? Hey, blogging about the things that scare you helps, too. Sunlight is the great disinfectant.

Do you enjoy scary movies? Dystopian? Science fiction? What are your favorites? Am I the only one who positively loves that the latest horror craze is apparently taking out ‘influencers’? Personally, I was noodling a story where no one’s phone works/connects to social media and they find out the reason they have no signal…IS BECAUSE THEY ARE DEAD.

Did I mention horror can also be FUN?

 .

The post FEAR: Why Humans STILL Crave Stories That Scare US appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Human resources. It’s such a ubiquitous term I’d never really thought about it—I mean really thought about it—until recently. As writers, we of all people, understand the power of words. How something noble or kind can be twisted.

Yet, ponder the term for a moment and maybe what it’s come to entail. Human resources. First, what is a resource (at least as I believe we’ve all come to understand it)?

Human resources, then means that humans are useful or a valuable possession. You know, like timber or oil or coal. I’m being facetious, but it does bring me to an issue everyone is facing. In the age of AI, what exactly are human resources? Last time, in my post AI Scammers Are Making Publishing Scams Scarily Convincing we dipped a toe into how technology has shifted not only our vocabulary, but our expectations.

As human beings of inherent worth and value, aren’t we being repeatedly asked to lower those expectations more and more and more?

Writers are the kindest, most loving and generous people I’ve ever known. I consider myself honored to be in such company. But in being kind and beautiful dreamers, you know what else they can be?

Naive.

Hey, I am putting MY hand up. As I mentioned in the post, it genuinely felt good (for that fraction of a second) that someone loved my work. Didn’t like it, loved it. And then that was what sent up more flags than a CCP parade.

When did we become so jaded?

Human Resources and the Internet

As a Gen Xer, I have been the generational bridge between a purely analog world and a digital one. My earliest computer experience involved NOT DYING on the Oregon Trail. I was never successful and somewhere, deep down, I wonder if this wasn’t some strange cosmic foreshadowing.

YOU DIED OF DYSENTERY EXPLOITATION

I wasn’t a fan of email in the beginning, though I did work in tech. I remember screaming to the high heavens that we couldn’t just keep slapping .com on the end of anything and throwing hundreds of millions after it. Welcome to the dot.com bust. Then we saw the rise of NAPSTER, and the tiny hatchlings of on-line gaming, message boards and social media.

Facebook was a BORING place to be in 2006. It was all farmland! Why? Because social media is useless without human resources. NAPSTER would have been a nothing burger if it hadn’t had countless human musicians to steal from. Yet, it set the precedent, didn’t it?

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, are all multi-billion dollar companies because of how expertly they’ve harnessed/extracted from human resources. And I am not here to claim they’re some mustache-twirling villain (mostly), because I’ve made my career teaching others how to navigate these systems. Facebook friends have been there for me when I quite literally had no one else.

When my (then) 2 year old son had his face caved in and I was so distraught I thought I’d go mad, who was there at 2:30 a.m. in the ER? Facebook friends.

Social media has allowed me to meet people all over the world, have friendships that would never before have been possible, writing opportunities and an audience that never otherwise would have been possible (*waves from behind this blog*). And all of this is wonderful…so long as a respectful social contract remains.

Because once we start massaging the meaning of “value” in human resources, what are we giving up in basic human “worth”?

We agreed to participate in online communities. We agreed to share our ideas, art, experiences, and professional accomplishments. We understood that companies would earn money facilitating those interactions.

But did we agree to every subsequent commercial use of our contributions?

Data Strip Mining

I’d like to believe most of us aren’t hopelessly obtuse. We “get” that our information is being collected, used, resold. Hey, when the product/service is free? WE are the product/service.

But when did we ever get the option of NOT having it for free? And I don’t mean charge me extra so I don’t get any ads which then becomes “just fewer ads” unless you want to upgrade AGAIN so you can possibly get through a frigging movie without being stopped every three minutes.

I never minded ads or commercials.

In fact, I rather enjoy learning about new products since tech giants decided we no longer wanted MAGAZINES. Remember those? Every month you could just thumb through at your leisure and learn about the latest in skin care or makeup or cars or whatever.

Nope, now it’s everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I was off Facebook for several months because I couldn’t even see any people. It was a nonstop barrage of ads. So, I gave it some time, got back on, saw my peeps, then…ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME?

I can’t even watch a funny cat video without suddenly realizing OH FFS, IT’S ABOUT CAT FOOD!

*internal screaming*

Because human resources.

Post you gained a few pounds and are back walking? In comes the diet ads, the bootcamps, the pilates ads. Mention you lost a loved one? Funerary care, life insurance and on-line “affordable” therapy INCOMING!

I can no longer just be a person. Everything I type is there to be strip-mined. My joy, my family, my pain, my fear. For those of you inexperienced with coding and what the backside looks like? Here it is:

$$$$$$$!!!!! $$$$$$$!!!!! $$$$$$$$ !!!!!! $u¢Ker $$$$$

I cannot even post a BIRTHDAY without AARP, hearing aid centers, orthotic shoes, and denture services entering the feed.

Hey, there’s another word we haven’t possibly thought much of…FEED.

You are in my feed. I am in their feed. Why is all this garbage in my feed?

LinkedIn Where “Human” Resources Go to Die

As I have mentioned, I took off a year to earn a post grad in AI/Machine Learning. I knew AI couldn’t help but utterly remake the publishing world. I didn’t want to rely on secondary or tertiary resources, so I took the hit. Trust me, being an over fifty writer suddenly deciding to attend an engineering school for a very MATH heavy degree was not my idea of a picnic.

But, I did it.

I do believe I’ve been very upfront with authors since the beginning of this blog twenty years ago *ducks from an affordable cremation ad*.

Writers have rarely been able to make a 100% living off novels…ever. Even before the internet. Is it the dream? Of course. Is it reality? Hardly. For years, many of us taught classes, did editing, developmental editing, line editing. We found work writing articles or as technical writers.

One of my weird superpowers has always been that I spoke fluent “Engineer” and could make a layperson audience not only understand highly technical concepts, but actually LAUGH and LEARN.

Then AI came along and many writers are suffering a personal extinction of sorts. The tech companies clearly thought what humans contributed was valuable enough to train all these new AI models on, but now that these systems are up and going and part of FRIGGING EVERYTHING (who knew my toothbrush needed AI assistance?), we are now somehow flawed.

I scroll LinkedIn and have lost count of the posts lecturing people that they shouldn’t use em dashes in their writing. It’s a dead giveaway it’s AI.

BECAUSE AI APPARENTLY INVENTED THE EM DASH!

Who knew? I’ve been using those since typewriters.

The “experts” all have tips and mini-articles how to fool people into believing the crap someone’s AI is vomiting out actually isn’t AI.

Hint: It is NOT the em dashes.

But someone IS CLEARLY listening or those AI publishing scams wouldn’t suddenly get so much harder to spot. Would they?

LinkedIn and “Pick Mes”

PICK ME! PICK ME! PICK ME!

Go to the LinkedIn “feed” and it’s a fascinating study of the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Death and Dying.

Denial:

These people usually have “founder” “expert” “CEO” or something impressive in their title. Nothing is wrong. AI is the future. Anyone who even dares criticize it are the same people who would still have us all riding on horseback because cars were bad.

Reductive much? Quick Side Bar

Trust me, I never once worried my 1994 Geo Metro was going to steal my identity. I could speak freely in my Geo Metro without any care that it was listening so it could sell my data to another party without my knowledge, consent or permission. Guarantee you I never worried my 1994 Geo Metro wouldn’t TURN ON because my eyes were acting strangely and so I was unfit to drive (proposed eye tracking technology patent).

I’M NOT DRUNK! I AM TRYING TO ESCAPE A TORNADO!

Anger:

This one is pretty self-explanatory. People who’ve cycled through bargaining and depression usually land here. They are just super careful how they say it because you know, employers could be watching.

They aren’t…but totally could be.

These folks are (rightfully) furious that the jobs posted are either old, non-existent, or pretty clearly predatory. But don’t worry! If you BUY LINKEDIN PREMIUM…that’s where the real jobs are. For the people who’ve stopped applying for jobs and now need to apply for food stamps, just HAND US MONEY!

Bargaining:

This is where I have seen myself and so many writers (and other professionals). We feel increasingly exploited. Not only does LinkedIn do practically NO vetting of who’s allowed to even post a job, most of the “jobs” really aren’t jobs at all.

I’ve seen countless professional writers and editors apply for a job on LI (been here, myself). The company claims they need to pass so many tests, interviews, auditions. Um, okay? Twelve interviews and multiple projects later (unpaid of course) the applicant either gets a form rejection letter or is ghosted.

Writers and editors that, before AI could make a living, now are all posting with their brightest face—lest we see they’re really dying inside a little every day. They have positive affirmations, ask thoughtful questions, are still genuinely trying to have someone at Human Resources anywhere see them as just that…human. Useful.

Depression:

These are the brave souls who actually take time to share what they’re going through, how dehumanized and demoralized they are. LinkedIn posts a job and when you apply it’s either juggling like a circus clown for not even peanuts and a “thoughtful” form letter about how much they appreciate your effort OR…you’re directed to a third-party site.

OH, you silly goose!

You genuinely believed you were applying for that Senior Content Writer Position and Fancy Schmancy Company? Nooooo! You are just adorable!

Let’s tell you how this works. You are redirected to another site where you give all your information and email and maybe writing samples, tests, portfolios…and they will list you among THEIR human resources talent.

They’re totally trying to get people work (probably are but starting to think it’s urban legend). Has nothing to do with them selling all that information or…I dunno…getting investors to keep shoveling money their way because they have the metrics.

Look at all the HUMAN RESOURCES we have!

I know! It’s unfair of me. Just seems strange that one can’t simply apply for a job without having a name, password and a verified email. Then strangely and for NO RELATED REASON the email soon is virtually unusable due to spam. Don’t worry! You can pay for AI to make your email usable again!

Acceptance:

You don’t see them on LinkedIn, except maybe posting snarky blogs.

LinkedIn isn’t SOLELY to Blame, INDEED

Because when I look at all these publishing scams that have suddenly hatched, there is something really uncanny in the comments. They know my writing so well! Gee, I wonder how that would have happened?

Of course we have blogs and posts on social media, but it really does beg the question where all those writing/editing/artistic samples actually GO?

Where are our rights to what we create? Clearly we didn’t have any rights when the tech giants used OUR LIFE’S WORK to make trillions? To create technology they can sell back to us after gaslighting us that we are incompetent.

Yes, yes I know they mostly used what they scraped off the internet and what was publicly available…but WE CREATORS STILL OWNED THE COPYRIGHT. Joe Schmoe couldn’t take all my blogs, slap them in a book and profit from it. But Mark Zuck…oh too soon?

We’ve slowly accepted a system that we can’t simply fill out a paper application. We must go through one of the many, many job boards. We are told to play nice, that humans are lazy, we are behind we just don’t want it badly enough. If we even criticize AI, we are immediately a Luddite and anti-technology.

But how many people no longer have jobs? Can no longer even get jobs? If I had a dollar for every Uber driver who once worked as a programmer…

I’d be able to afford a LinkedIn Premium membership.

Human Resources are HUMAN…and We Have NOTHING LEFT

I am not naive and understand there are plenty of companies using AI responsibly, but for how long? Because when the model is extraction extraction extraction, how long until even the good guys have to fudge their morals a bit just to simply survive?

And it’s “wonderful” Ford patented all kinds of surveillance for inside a car no one can afford to sell our information to companies to sell us products we can also no longer afford but what’s the end game? Because as I see it, this is a giant ouroboros.

AI is so wonderful and it’s going to make companies efficient. Products will be cheaper (still waiting). Instead of ten people, a company will only need ONE!

Translation: Nine jobs just went bye-bye and there are only so many Uber Eats deliveries to go around (and those will start going away, too when no one can afford it).

Is this why there are now so many scams? People have lost so much buying power that now they just skip GO and head directly to cleaning out our bank accounts?

Please understand I have learned AI, I have done everything I can think of to be top in my profession…just to be refused a writing job because….

I failed a TURING TEST!

True story.

AI recently passed a Turing Test whereas I (an actual human) FAILED.

*Am I in an episode of Black Mirror?*

My goal here isn’t to depress you, though I am certain I might be guilty. Mea culpa. It really does feel like a lot. But how do we change a system we can’t even question? If we can’t get a job without using a job board/site, but the job board/site is really just using persistent unemployment to “self-power” themselves…what then?

I appreciate your time on this matter, but just got a message. SOYLENT GREEN is hiring and Mr. Morlock wants me to do an AI interview! PICK MEEEE!

What are YOUR thoughts?

Have you noticed a change in how employers treat applicants, particularly since AI became commonplace? Where do you believe the line should be drawn between technological innovation and respecting human dignity? Have you ever been asked to complete extensive unpaid assessments or submit original work during a hiring process?

Most importantly, have you ever watched a super cute puppy video only to be PISSED they’re just trying to sell you something?

Hey, I have priorities.

The post Human Resources: When Did Humans Become Raw Materials? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

AI scammers are getting good. I mean scary good. The only thing that saved my bacon was a heavy dose of pessimism and KNOWING the BUSINESS of the PUBLISHING BUSINESS.

When I say these scams are terrifyingly good? I do not say this lightly. Yes, I’ve been a writer for years, just also a writer who’s spent decades fascinated with emerging technology.

Yes, I own and have read Hacking with Kali Linux: Penetration Testing Hacking Bible multiple times…for fun. There are good reasons I was single until I was 35.

My passion for technology—and how it impacts writers—has always driven everything I do. It’s exactly why I took off over a year from regularly posting on this blog to complete a post graduate in AI and Machine Learning at the University of Austin. I knew AI was in our future. I dug in to learn what exactly went into the sausage LLM.

And I did NOT like what I saw.

It’s taken a lot for me to figure out how to pivot back into writing full time, after so long away. That and I am still trying to find an angle of AI that doesn’t make every single writer collectively walk into the ocean. Good thing is, I didn’t need my prompt.

The AI scammers came to me.

*cracks knuckles*

I get it, this is not new. Thankfully, writers have incredible resources to keep them apprised of anything nefarious. The Author’s Guild did a piece on AI scammers back in April. Writer Beware did another post on just how scary good these AI scammers are becoming and just how quickly they’re mutating.

After so many years writing, working and researching along the leading edge of technical trends, I like to believe I am pretty hard to fool.

But let’s not get cocky.

The AI Scammers Changed Tack

Most of the time, these scams practically have Dear Miss I Want To Steal From You in the subject header. They’re so bad as to be laughable. That said, never underestimate the enemy. Most of the time, what I don’t filter out I just delete without even opening.

Something about this particular email, however, made me pause.

What the hell? *shrugs and opens*

For the record, I never did actually BUY that this was the real deal. Is it because of my tech background or that, as an author, I have a level of pessimism that would make Severus Snape accuse me of being Debbie Downer?

Trust nothing.

Verify everything.

If I didn’t learn that as an author, I definitely learned it in IT.

That’s what made this little specimen so fascinating.

The Author’s Guild article has screenshots of a similar exchange, so I won’t bore anyone with MY screenshots.

Suffice to say, the website was cloned, the email address looked legit, the editor was an actual editor from an actual publishing house that was just the right size to inquire about my work. The message emulated what the publisher was actually in the market for. The name of the editor was correct, the signature at the footer. Really impressive work.

*put a pin in that if you’re laughing*

This was no longer the absurd boilerplate scam messages with all the tells that the sender isn’t even a native English speaker, let alone an editor (or literary agent).

The AI Scammers Had RECEIPTS

Whoever was behind this had done enough scrubbing of the internet for the juicy deets. The email was warm, personal, had just the right details most writers would look for (even seasoned ones). In fact, the odd thing is that—sans AI/ML & CyberSec background—for me it was nothing unusual.

I don’t say this as any sort of a brag, but I have been blogging twenty years and have a lot of books and articles floating about. I could literally have posted blogs of nothing but commas for 20 years and someone would know me.

I’ve also been friends with many writers, agents, editors and publishers for a couple decades. Thus, it would not be completely crazy that some editor from a boutique publisher in NY would reach out.

Had he talked to Troy Lambert? Was Troy at a conference? He DID mention he loved my short stories in WTH Did I Just Read?

So not completely crazy…just mostly crazy.

Hey, hope springs eternal.

That and we writers DO help one another out. We name-drop, recommend, tell agents or editors about people we like (or at least I do). I spent over a year writing feature articles for a major magazine because a fellow writer hooked me up.

Yo…Troy. *taps fist on chest*

So, when this editor “wrote me” a very personalized message, mentioning my previous work and professional details in a personal way? Not that odd. Then made sure to add in, “we will never ask you for money because that is not how publishing works”…y’all KNOW I HAD TO PUSH THE RED REPLY BUTTON.

Because I am me. And also, if they didn’t want any money, what exactly did they want? Maybe it could be legit.

And maybe I was a Chinese jet pilot, but….

Okay, I’ll Bot Bite

Because I am sitting and thinking, why not? See where this goes and what do I have to lose?

***A LOT!!! DO NOT FALL FOR ANY OF THIS!!! These AI scammers are seriously dangerous!!!

Let the “professionals” play with the matches.

I go ahead and write back and ask exactly which particular piece of writing this editor saw that piqued his interest. I figured that would be the end of it, and I’d never hear back. NOPE. Came back with a lovely email that any writer would love to frame (if it were real). Again, just the right details.

Loads of restraint.

I think the restraint is what made me hesitate for that beat. Every exchange was, “I only need this.” “Don’t send that yet.” “Let’s do everything by the book.” “Professional this and that.” Blah blah blah.

Bots are just known to let the greed get to them too quickly. This was a new kind of Phish, indeed. Though I knew strongly suspected I was playing with fire, I had to see where this was heading.

I dug out an old NaNoWriMo novel and, since I am a dweeb, I do synopses for every book I write. Might not STICK TO IT (another post entirely) but I had one handy.

*tosses out phishing fly and dances feathery synopsis across the water* *Here phishy, phishy*

Knowing Our Business is Part of OUR BUSINESS

I have posted plenty on how traditional publishing works. They might have updated some things over the years, but I can tell you pretty confidently what has never changed.

There IS no publishing sugar daddy.

Sucks. I know. Trust me, I have never gotten over the hurt, either.

We ALL want to just write the books. We dream of an agent or editor discovering us so they can navigate the morass that is our business. Every writer dreams of just having time to be creative. It isn’t a sign of weakness, rather a sign you’re human, and a creative one.

Anyway, back to the battle of the bots. I send in a gorgeous synopsis of my book *gets cramp patting self on back*. And, because I can’t resist trolling, I added that my mother loves all of my work. Again, I don’t expect to hear back, but the next morning…WHAT DO I SEE?

See, that restraint thing. That is what messed those greedy bastards up.

Anyone who’s studied publishing for a fraction of a second knows nothing and no one in publishing is fast.

I open the email anyway, because DUH! A NYC PUBLISHER LOVED MY WORK *hair flips*. Obviously, I’d be an exception.

Amazingly, he just loved my sample. He even loved the joke about my mother loving my work.

*brakes screech*

Okay a NYC editor writing me about my work unsolicited was already a white buffalo. A NYC agent getting back to me in the same calendar YEAR? A unicorn. But a NYC editor writing me about my work unsolicited, replying quickly, who ALSO had a sense of humor? Unicorn with wings! And pooping glitter!

But he didn’t want me to send anything else. Did I have an agent?

I don’t technically have one but plenty I can email or call my last one. But, I typed, “Not at the moment.“

*here phishy phishy*

And there it was….

Phase Two of the AI Scammers’ Plan

I knew there had to be a payday in there somewhere and my AI scammer pal didn’t let me down. He told me that was fine, just not to send ANY MORE OF MY WORK until I had an agent. He highly recommended even using my own (NICE).

My work was so good I could probably pitch an agent telling them Mr. BigShot at NYC Boutique Agency was interested (probably could)…buuuut if I wanted to get right to work, he recommended an agent (I KID YOU NOT it was ANOTHER CLONED and TOTALLY LEGIT AGENT) “and here is her email.”

Of course, this agent’s email is embedded/hyperlinked in the body of the email making it tougher to read and someone eager, tired, or less scam savvy would happily click. And there is a lot of drama about crosschecking meta data I am not getting into here. Ironically, AI can help you sniff it out.

*slow claps*

As much as I hate these people with the power of a thousand suns and pray they be smited…smitten…smote (???) with Voodoo crotch fleas, I had to admit I was impressed.

This is where I let the unlit matches lie. I had what I had come for. The compliments were a gas, but that was my stop.

If you’re new to writing/publishing, have slept since you last looked at publishing news, or if you have—I dunno, A LIFE—and don’t have the energy to keep up with every possible way some jackass from across the globe can mind-screw you using your dreams and AI to empty your bank accounts…you are in good company.

The movies lie. Publishing hasn’t paid big advances since shoulder pads were still all the rage. They haven’t paid ANY advances pretty much since Snooki: A Shore Thing.

Yes, Jersey Shores finally broke it for the rest of us.

Now, I don’t know if AI Scammer 1 (Editor) was going to have AI Scammer 2 (Agent) make me a sweet deal on advances? Plausible. But one doesn’t have to be super savvy about publishing to know that advanceds of any kind are definitely suspicious.

Where this gets truly, bone-chillingly terrifying is the handover.

Granted, I have slept since I’ve done my last publishing contract, BUT there are a lot of sensitive details one reasonably expects to share…with one’s agent. Like bank info, tax forms, identity information, contracts, addresses, and possibly copies of IDs, depending on the transaction.

OH MY FRIGGING GOD!

I am a million percent not here to make anyone feel dumb. Do you not believe that, at least for a sliver of a second, I WASN’T hoping this was a real referral? That another fellow writer angel hadn’t helped me out and that SOMEONE LOVED MY WRITING?

I am human.

Mostly.

Pats Down Pockets to Check for Wallet

Though I am sure someone out there has blogged on this exact sort of scam—I linked to a couple above—we are all increasingly overwhelmed. Half the BS on LinkedIn is trying to either SELL AI or train people ways to prompt AI to fool readers that it isn’t AI.

*Kristen shouts expletives at sky*

BLEEEEEP! BLEEEEEP Why do we need to figure out another MOTHE-BLEEEEP BLEEP BLEEP?!?!?!?

So for those of you who wander over to my blog for the writing advice, the jokes, the clever memes—I LOVE YOU—and you lucked out today just in case you’ve missed this latest wave of trickery.

It’s sophisticated, restrained (for a scammer), and the messages are all written in the conversational style that is educated enough to be a native speaker who works in publishing, though not so high-faluting as to wave more red flags than a CCP parade.

Until now.

How to Fight the AI Scammers

Here’s a list of things to do. Many you probably already know, but it never hurts to get a refresher.

• Verify the person outside the email. Go to the publisher’s, agency’s, or company’s official website yourself. Don’t rely on links in the message. Even then, though, as this post I hope has made painfully clear, that is no longer enough.
• Check the domain, not just the name. A real editor’s or agent’s name means nothing if the email comes from Gmail or a lookalike domain.
• Slow down when someone flatters you. The better the compliment feels, the more reason to verify before clicking or replying. We should ALL know this, but we are human. Even I was seriously sad the compliments/opportunities weren’t real.
• Know how your industry actually works. Process knowledge is a security tool. If the workflow feels off, investigate. Read blogs. I have plenty. Follow people who talk about the industry (in all your tremendous amount of free time, I know).
• Never send money because an “agent” or “publisher” says it’s required to move forward. Again, THIS scam was uniquely interesting for the reason it DID NOT immediately start asking for money. They may NEVER have asked for money. Why would they need to when a vulnerable writer could unwittingly hand them the keys to the bank accounts?
• Be especially cautious during handoffs. The fake editor may only exist to introduce you to the fake agent, service, accountant, lawyer, or payment portal. Again, the multi-phase structure of this new scam is what I found uniquely disturbing.
• Treat hyperlinks as suspect. Hover, inspect, or manually type the official site instead.
• Use AI against AI. You can have an AI help inspect suspicious wording, headers, domains, or inconsistencies—but verify whatever it tells you independently.
• Trust the weird feeling. You don’t need courtroom-level proof before deciding not to click

We do not have to be paranoid. We do have to be deliberate–ly paranoid.

Be safe out there. I’d talk about this more, but the Senior Acquisitions Editor from HarperCollins is DYING to hear from me!

What Are Your Thoughts?

I don’t know about you guys, but I am almost to the point of dusting off a type writer. This nonsense makes me want to scream, but it’s a good thing we have each other. Relationships are crucial more now than probably ever before. Actual HUMAN relationships with HUMAN(ish) writers (pro tip: wait until they’ve had coffee/ pro-pro tip: bring them a coffee).

Have you been contacted by an “agent,” “editor,” or publisher recently who seemed just a little too good to be true? What was the tell that finally made you suspicious?

Have you noticed AI making scams harder to spot? What parts of publishing do you think writers most need to understand so they’re harder to manipulate? Have you ever had a legitimate industry contact that looked suspicious at first?

What’s the best scam-spotting resource you’ve found for writers? Are all the new and improved AI scammers exhausting you, too?

The post AI Scammers Are Making Publishing Scams Scarily Convincing appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Everyone loves a prophet…in hindsight. So why do we ignore the people who see it coming? Why is this such a universal human trope? To mock, criticize, abuse, or even annihilate the one person who sees the truth?

Today, I am using the term “prophet” because I want a little more latitude in my examples. This said, this archetype is as old as human history and has taken on a variety of forms.

The Seer, the Cassandra, the Herald, the Doomsayer, the Visionary, the Mad Prophet and yes, even the Fool all describe a very similar function. In varying ways (and degrees) all of these “character types” operate in a similar fashion.

They’re a character that perceives (or flat out KNOWS) a truth or trajectory before everyone else, warns others, gets dismissed or punished, and is later vindicated when consequences arrive. All of us have read books or watched movies that use this archetype, and boy does it make our nerves sizzle.

Exactly how?

Three Ways a Prophet Ratchets Story Tension

We have all watched movies involving time travel. How many times were we practically screaming at the screen for X character to BELIEVE said time traveler? But how many of us, if some lunatic showed up at our front door with “hidden truth about the future” would be as open-minded? Time travel is an easy example of story tension but let’s tease apart at least three others and explore what specific functions the prophet plays in the unfolding drama.

1: Prophets & Misdirection

This one is subtler than time-travel because the audience doesn’t definitively know who to believe. Who should the audience trust? The stable characters or the one who’s presenting as paranoid, eccentric, unstable, comic relief or simply wrong. A great example of this would be Marty Mikalski in The Cabin in the Woods.

Though explicitly framed as The Fool/Jester, Marty acts as the truth-teller pointing out the “obvious” problem no one else wants to see.

He’s the unserious, funny, stoner-bro. Yet, though Marty is completely baked 99% of the movie, he’s oddly the most sober member of the cast. He’s the one pointing out something is wrong, that things aren’t lining up, and that people he’s been friends with for years are suddenly acting utterly out of character.

Not only does the prophet spot incongruity, he refuses to stop asking, “WHY?”

Marty is the guy looking for the two-way mirrors, who questions the smoke and wires, and ultimately keeps poking at what overall agenda this trickery serves (turning him, ironically, into an unlikely hero).

To add another layer of comedy, The Cabin in the Woods literally makes fun of the canonic role (in story) by deliberately placing WHO to stop the Hero’s Journey? A guy throwing around more more red flags than a CCP parade!

On the way to the cabin in the woods, Marty and friends stop for gas and meet—not kidding—The Harbinger. Not only does the gas station looks like it fell off the set of The Hills Have Eyes, but the gas station attendant might as well have stumbled out of “Slasher Central Casting.”

He does everything short of knifing their tires to make the group turn around.

HIS NAME IS “MORDECAI” FOR GOD’S SAKE!

In my opinion, the harbinger is one of the funniest parts of the movie.

But, if you listen to this scene—as funny as it is—take note that The Harbinger acts as almost a nesting doll harbinger. He literally TELLS the guys behind the controls that this time is different and The Fool will be their undoing.

More Misdirection

Another fabulous example would be Cole in The Sixth Sense. Everyone around Cole treats “I see dead people” as pathology, trauma, or a kid’s vivid imagination. In fact, it’s this very mislabeling that generates the entire story. When young Cole draws a man stabbing another man in the neck with a screwdriver, the only logical next step is therapy. Enter in child therapist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe.

Cole isn’t entirely certain of what he’s seeing and, in a desire to fit in, even censors himself.

He’s learned—or rather society has taught him—draw what the people like and you get left alone.

Yet, take a closer look, because this movie was so GENIUS it was a trick M. Night Shyamalan was only able to pull off ONCE. When Cole draws violent pictures instead of clouds, this sets the very reasonable audience expectation.

The kid is crazy.

Yet, it is also a masterful set-up for the final misdirection. Cole isn’t crazy. Oh, and his therapist is dead.

It’s part of the reason millions of viewers were all gobsmacked with the ending. All along Cole keeps repeating, “I see dead people,” yet, because of the lack of trust and the built-in suspicion he’s an unreliable narrator, the audience forgets to look elsewhere.

Like a magician’s sleight-of-hand, Shyamalan hands us the answer in the very beginning. But, the audience is so fixated on Cole possibly being crazy, damaged, haunted, they forget to ask why no one but Cole ever talks directly to Dr. Crowe.

2: Prophets & Dramatic Irony

Here is where time-travel movies can slide right in. In this case, the audience knows the prophet is right before the other characters do.

In Terminator 2, we know that Sarah is telling the truth. This means every time a shrink, doctor, therapist, state employee, prison guard, and even her own son dismisses her, we go nuts. Disbelief amplifies the tension because we possess missing evidence.

We met the Terminator in the first movie. Since we know what is in the future—the more authority figures label Sarah a nutcase and silence/impede her mission—the more agitated we become.

The audience knows John’s true future before he does. We also do NOT see Sarah’s behavior as crazy. With the information we possess, it is perfectly logical to move off the grid, hang out with gun runners, and learn to be a one-person army. Okay a two-person army. Sarah believes she can stop SkyNet before it ever even happens. As a failsafe? Train her son, John, to lead the resistance.

John resents his unconventional childhood and is angry at his mother…until he, too, possesses the key information that pivots his paradigm completely.

Prophets Question Fate Versus Free Will

Prophet archetypes are incredibly useful for making audiences dig into those existential questions. Is the future already determined? Do we still have free will? Or is it some mix of both?

Minority Report uses this “in your face” prophesying as the entire story engine with the pre-cognitives—a.k.a. “pre-cogs”—who can literally witness a murder before it happens. The pre-cogs’ have a genetic mutation that gives them the uncanny ability to foresee enough details of a murder before it happens. This harnessed ability creates the foundation for a new agency known as The Pre-Crime Division.

Why can’t they see rape, assault or suicide? Good thing the story, itself, hands us the answer.

In this world, the pre-cogs serve as biological seismographs to detect the gravest moral catastrophe—murder. Using the three pre-cogs, who float around in a strange gel that enhances their abilities, Pre-Crime has all but eliminated premeditated murder.

The public has gotten the message.

Don’t even THINK about planning a murder or scary guys in tactical gear will come crashing through your skylight and haul you to jail. Crimes of passion? Meh, still working out the gross civil rights violations kinks on that one.

How does it work?

Weaponized Prophets

The pre-cogs are the first layer of obvious prophets and set the premise of the story. They sense a murder, their “visions” set off alerts at HQ, then the Pre-Crime police/detectives sort through all the images and filter out the relevant information to stop the murder before it ever happens.

In the beginning of the movie, we see this in action when an unnamed husband catches his wife in bed with another man. After a tense few minutes trying to locate the correct home/identities, Chief John Anderton races to the rescue at the final moment. With only slices of seconds remaining, our “hero” stops Howard Marks (husband) just before he stabs wife and her lover in bed.

Anderton reads Howard Marks his rights, slaps a halo on his head, and then officers cart Howard off to cold storage in “Future Jail.” No real trial or presumption of innocence. Merely a panel of serious-looking judges handing down a slam dunk sentence over pre-Zoom.

Prophets Say…No More Free Will

But think of it. There are thousands of regular citizens held in a sort of stasis for decades, serving out sentences for crimes they technically never committed. Who can truly answer whether or not they might have stopped themselves at the last moment?

So glad you asked!

How the story uses the fate vs. free will is when the pre-cogs flag Chief John Anderton—head of Pre-Crime and its strongest advocate—for premeditated murder.

According to his own arguments in the beginning, he cannot escape fate. The prophets saw it, therefore you’re guilty. It’s as immutable of a law as gravity.

Okay, but if he really IS drinking the Pre-Cog Punch and believes Pre-Crime is infallible, then he’d simply accept he is going to murder a man he has never met. Right?

But, since that would be a terrible story and very short movie…he obviously questions the prophets and his own destiny.

What I love about this movie, however, is there are layers of prophets in the story. The Fed who claims there are flaws while Anderton insists the pre-cogs are never wrong. The drug dealer who tells John, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Dr. Iris Hineman, who left the very program she helped create because of the abuse she “saw” coming.

Every one of these prophets serves a critical role in how the story unfolds and keep us on the edge of our seats. All of these prophets add to the already overwhelming dramatic irony within the story.

3: Prophets Provide the Stakes/Story Clock

In previous, posts, I offered my formula for an excellent story. In my opinion, if any story on any scale loses one of these components…it’s incomplete.

The formula:

Intriguing protagonist + active verb + core story problem (antagonist/Big Boss Troublemaker) + stakes + ticking clock.

As an editor for over two decades, I’ve read thousands of submissions. One of the biggest oopses many new writers make is they fail to set the stakes/add in a clock. Think about it. If there is nothing big to be won or lost by the end, who cares? Yet, a ticking clock is threaded inextricably with the stakes because the characters shouldn’t have forever to make decisions.

Fiction is therapeutic but it is not therapy.

Tick Tock

Some of you reading this might be old enough to remember seeing Jurassic Park in the movie theaters. Back in 1993, CGI was still in its relative infancy and not widely used. So trust me, the first time we saw FULL SIZE FRIGGIN’ DINOSAURS on screen? We were just as agog as the visitors touring the park. Some of us were just as unsettled/horrified, too.

We weren’t pre-cogs as much as pre-writers.

John Hammond, eccentric billionaire/visionary businessman/showman genuinely believes he’s created something wondrous for the public. However, after a worker dies, the lawyers and investors force Hammond to fly in a little “credibility committee.”

He needs them to sign off on safety before the park can launch.

The visitors, comprised of a number of experts and family, are all wowed after an initial tour. Minds blown! A park containing actual dinosaurs! What could possibly go WRONG?

After the tour, Dr. Ian Malcolm, mathematician/chaos theorist seems to be the only one in the room with perspective. Though the other scientists appear to have some hesitancy, only Malcolm is having NONE OF IT. He has an absolute fit. He alone is bold enough to point out how spectacularly this little amusement park is poised to fail…inevitably. And with DIRE and world-shattering consequences.

Fun guy at a party, I bet.

Prophets Say What Others Don’t Want to Hear

While everyone else in the group is still rosy from the “We just saw living dinosaurs” afterglow, Dr. Ian Malcolm does not waste any time or mince any words.

This is going to fail because you’re pretending a complex adaptive system can be controlled.

He refuses to sugar coat the reality lurking behind Hammond’s dream.

Hmmm, sounds like Dr. Iris Hineman, doesn’t it? Or me earning my degree in AI *coughs*. Moving on!

Prophet Says…Only a Matter of Time

Malcolm is unwilling to budge on his position, but sadly for all of them…too late. No one asked HIS opinion before siphoning dinosaur DNA out of amber-trapped primordial mosquitos. As wowed as the audience is, we know something bad is bound to happen.

Ripley in Aliens is a similar prophet, serving almost the identical function. She desperately tries to call out the company on their hubris. She has told the company exactly what happened on the Nostromo and warns them of what a xenomorph is capable of.

And they totally listen and call it ALL off!

*record screeching*

Yeah, LOL. Um, no.

They treat her like a hysterical, traumatized female who has to be exaggerating and she loses her flight status and credibility. There’s nothing the Space Marines can’t handle.

Sure.

Ripley, as prophet, not only adds stakes and a ticking clock to the one movie, but to the overall trajectory of the company/franchise. As much as she tries to warn them there is literally no way to control xenomorphs and to kill all the creatures and their eggs with fire…she knows (and we know) it’s only a matter of time.

No matter the carnage, damage, or evidence, eventually the company (or a subsidiary or offshoot or competitor) is going to screw around with AI xenomorphs and everyone will die.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Yet, it proves my point.

Everyone LOVES a Prophet…in Hindsight

For the record, a character merely being rejected does not a prophet make. Here are six characteristics this archetype usually exhibits.

Prophets:

• See the pattern early. They recognize the “shape” of a larger picture no one else can see.
• Say what other people don’t want to hear. Their message is usually inconvenient, embarrassing, destabilizing or morally uncomfortable.
• Lack social permission to be believed. Whether they’re a stoner, a nutcase, or a cop accused of murder, something about who they are disrupts the benefit of the doubt society might extend to other people who aren’t “compromised.”
• They warn rather than predict. Prophets usually aren’t there for the ego stroking. They’re not as interested in being told they’re clever or smart as they are in stopping INEVITABLE BAD THING from happening.
• Prophets pay a social cost. They’re often ridiculed, exiled, punished or even killed for refusing to toe the socially acceptable line. It’s easier to attack the messenger than it is to face that the prophet might actually be correct.
• Is vindicated too late. Once the evidence piles up to where everyone can see the CLEAR and OBVIOUS problem, it’s too late. This is why everyone loves a prophet…in hindsight.

Before we close out, I would like to point out something obvious *bada bump snare*. Certain genres are going to be better ecosystems for a full-on “prophet.” Speculative fiction and fantasy are just going to make the woo-woo more plausible.

That said, the prophet function is woven throughout all of fiction.

It just often looks like a disapproving mother, an eccentric aunt, or a visionary teacher who can “see” what others can’t see or refuse to see. Mentors are excellent variations of “the prophet” but so are protagonists who are defying convention. The Wright Brothers looked insane until they actually proved humans could fly.

What Are Your Thoughts on PROPHETS?

Who are some of your favorite prophets in fiction? Have you ever noticed how often the character everyone dismisses as crazy, paranoid, difficult, or ridiculous winds up being the only person asking the right questions?

And as writers, how can we use that character without simply handing them a crystal ball and letting them spoil the ending?

More importantly, when everyone in the story agrees on what is “obviously” true…who is the one character willing to ask, “What if we’re wrong?”

The post Everyone Loves a Prophet…in Hindsight appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Ah, Falkor the Luck Dragon. Entire generations grew up absolutely loving the movie, “The NeverEnding Story” which I find fascinating because, objectively speaking? It is a terribly written movie. Yes, yes I know it was based off a book, but we are specifically referring to the movie today.

Though structurally awful, we love it anyway.

And that contradiction is the whole human problem AI struggles with (and is unlikely to ever solve). Humans are messy and what we like or dislike often makes no rational sense.

Maybe I am feeling a little evil today. Spawn (my teenage son) and I love to watch movies together. Since he’s been a baby, he’s been there while I was writing. Heck, he’s been reading since he was in diapers. Anyway, we talk about story, the structure, what makes a movie good or bad or how it could have been better.

Though my husband has forbidden me talk during movies—he says I ruin them *rolls eyes*—it isn’t uncommon for a 90 minute movie to take Spawn and me three hours to get through because we are discussing every little detail.

Since Spawn is truly gifted when it comes to structure, today I decided to throw him a curve ball.

A luck dragon shaped curve ball at that *evil laugh*.

Luck Dragon 101

Spawn is arguably one of the most astute story critics I know (*gets cramp patting self on back*). Whenever I have time off, usually I choose a movie for him to deconstruct. He still hasn’t forgiven me for “The Usual Suspects” and “Crashed” is among his favorite movies. Nonlinear timelines are particularly fun to get him to try and untangle, but today I did something different.

I didn’t tell him anything about “The NeverEnding Story” beforehand. Knowing the level of story critic he can be, I spent more time watching him/his reaction than I did the movie. I was waiting for him to comment, kept bracing for him to say something, call out the many, many flaws…but he didn’t.

He cried when the horse, Artax, sank into the Swamp of Sadness and was agog at how cool Falkor the Luck Dragon was. His only comment? Falkor looks like Pippa (our dog).

I said nothing.

We get to the end and I asked if he liked the movie. He gave me a resounding, “YES!”

Then I asked him why he would enjoy one of the most objectively BAD stories ever written? He just blinked at me slowly, trying to understand how I was messing with him.

Spawn: Why would you say that? You said you loved the movie.

Me: I do! One of my favorites!

Spawn:

Yes, I let him suffer when Artax sank into the Swamp of Sadness, then ugly cry even more when the Rock Biter essentially commits suicide because he couldn’t save his friends. I let him go through the WTH WHY WHAT HAVE WE ALL BEEN DOING when Fantasia is left blasted into sparkly space nuggets.

Why?

Because I’m a sadist?

YES…and no.

I was making a point.

Real Art IS Imperfect

Now, there are all sorts of philosophical arguments we could have but I am just gonna reach for that low-hanging fruit. While we humans might be enamored with perfection, it simultaneously repels us. My theory is it has to do with that healthy bit of narcissism we all possess. We want to SEE ourselves in art.

Since we can’t relate to perfect, when something is a bit too flawless? It quickly becomes boring. Mostly because the only thing that draws people faster than something perfect is a giant pileup of problems. Don’t believe me?

Think back to your dating years. Enough said.

Not only that, but think of the items we prize the most. People pay EXTRA for that antique dresser that has bumps, scratches and dings. We like “distressed leather,” hold onto that doll from childhood that’s been missing an eye since the cat chewed it off. If humans only loved perfect art, why then do we frame finger paintings from our five-year-olds?

NeverEnding Story Boring

Okay, please trust me for this next part. Why do I keep asserting “The NeverEnding Story” is a terrible story? Because by every plot metric, there was no way anyone should have been able to finish the movie let alone fall in love with it.

Roll with this for a bit.

In the beginning, we learn next to nothing about the protagonist, Sebastian, save for his father who has emotional depth that rivals the Sanka instant coffee conveniently in the shot. Add hot water (mom died) a couple minutes of “dad talk” to steep. Stir in chitchat about “too much daydreaming” and “we gotta keep going even after Mom died” and that’s all.

Oh, and the kid’s being bullied. Huge shocker. His parents named him Sebastian…in the 80s? Who other than Stevie Wonder could have seen THAT coming?

Fast forward and Sebastian steals borrows a special book, then pulls a move out of MY childhood and finds somewhere to hide in school so he can read instead of going to class.

Then the movie opens and we’re introduced to the first of many one-dimensional characters to come and we get the 411 on the core story problem.

Nothing.

Yes, very metaphorical but more on that later.

Fantasia (this magical world of stunning puppetry) is in peril. The Nothing has already destroyed much of the kingdom and the ONLY PERSON WHO CAN SAVE THEM is sick, dying and conveniently off camera. The Empress is somehow tethered to what is happening to Fantasia. As more of the lands are erased, the sicker she becomes.

Okay, cool enough.

That said….

The Nothing is eating away a world we haven’t been in long enough to care and gobbling up critters the viewing audience hasn’t even been introduced to. Total melodrama. And the solution? A boy hero who the viewer doesn’t know from a hole in the ground and who, truthfully, isn’t nearly as likable as his horse that sinks into the Swamp of Sadness.

So High Council instructs unlikable boy hero to leave his weapons for some bizarre reason even though they are sending him on a dangerous mission.

Oh-kay.

With no instructions.

All righty.

After weeks of searching without even knowing what he’s looking for, he finally decides to consult go and talk to Morla the Ancient One.

No idea why he didn’t START there, except it ends up being a giant waste of time anyway. Morla is a giant turtle that is suffering depression, possibly some disassociation, and is apparently off his meds. Morla tells boy hero the answer to their problems rest with the Southern Oracle…but it is ten thousand miles away.

Boy trudges off depressed and defeated and music rises to cue the audience that we are supposed to care.

Unlikable boy hero falls into the swamp…oh but Falcor the Luck Dragon swoops down from the sky and flies him ten thousand miles to the Southern Oracle.

How lucky for the boy hero. Better yet. How convenient for the screenwriters that Falkor was there to bail them out of a massive plot problem.

But It Gets Better…Nope It Doesn’t

Falkor rescues our boy hero from certain death and tends his wounds until he recovers. Oh, well two gnomes treat his wounds, and the husband gnome just happens to be a premiere expert on how to pass through the Southern Oracle without being make into a toaster pastry.

How LUCKY!

In fact, at literally every juncture, Atreyu (who’s supposed to be on a hero’s journey) never really has to make any decisions, let alone hard ones. Neither does Sebastian.

No, I shouldn’t finish that PBJ sandwich. A lot more reading to do.

The entire movie is one bad thing, then another bad thing, then a different maybe worse thing. Atreyu doesn’t exercise agency any more than Sebastian does.

Atreyu is just like wandering along through Fantasia like a Roomba while the story GPS “recalculates” to find him the shortest route with no ferries…and definitely no tolls. Meanwhile, Sebastian spends a lot of time screaming at a book and asking a lot of convenient questions out loud.

***And why does no one care that Sebastian is missing long after he should have been home, and during a storm? We were Gen X and it made sense.

ANYWAY….

Piled on top of the plot is the weird coincidence that there are a LOT of coincidences.

A lot.

And you know what? Despite ALL of this? We loved it anyway.

*hums NeverEnding Story theme song* Ha ha ha, huh huh huh, huh ha huh huh….*

Falkor and the Human Dilemma

Humans don’t experience art as a spreadsheet of objectively optimized components. We have this odd capacity to know that Falkor is a giant sparkly plot convenience, the story escalates oddly, and that the HORSE is more emotionally effective than most of the plot…yet we still feel wonder when that dragon swoops down out of the clouds.

Sometimes, the flaws are what can reach into our own human cracks and crevasses and pry open our hearts until we ugly cry. As a MIDDLE AGED WOMAN who’s taught story structure for almost two decades…I STILL CRIED. I still felt wonder when Sebastian finally realizes he’s actually part of the story.

I didn’t even care about that little Inception bit where the Empress breaks the fourth wall and says there are others watching the Earthling child’s adventure and experiencing the emotions HE is confronting.

Despite all the obvious areas that could have been “improved” would any of us really want that?

New and Improved Luck Dragons

The entire problem with fixing the problems is you’d edit out everything that made this movie unforgettable.

To fix Falkor, you lose Falkor.

Spoiler alert: You can’t have our Falkor.

Without the weird pacing, murky mythology, and a “hero” with zero agency, Falkor is no longer needed. We could make Atreyu more conventionally likable, tone down the melodrama, maybe get the turtle to lighten the hell up, but what happens then?

We’d remove the exact strangeness that made millions of children remember this movie forty years later.

AI probably could have done a “better” job. It could have taken out all the flaws and buffed out all the scratches, but what then? It would be like sewing the missing eye back on that childhood doll. It wouldn’t improve it all! Quite the opposite.

This, in my opinion, is why AI slop is already getting old. Sure, AI can create a commercial of “perfect humans” where no one needs makeup because zits and wrinkles don’t exist in AI land, but it’s BORING! Hop onto LinkedIn and every person who tries to convince you people can’t tell something AI wrote…and OBVIOUSLY wrote that post using AI.

How do we know?

We…just…do.

AI can make art/writing/drawings/video/music/stories/social media posts “better”, but better according to WHO, exactly? A lot of times, we don’t want the technically superior version. We want the giant depressed turtle, the horse scene that lands us in therapy, the sparkly flying glitter dog dragon to just APPEAR and solve all our problems. Yes, I get it, it’s magical thinking *rolls eyes*.

I KNOW! It IS magical thinking and that is precisely why we love stories like these, flaws and all.

What Are Your Thoughts on Luck Dragons?

Other than is would be AWESOME to have one? Do they do laundry? Pay off mortgages? Apologies for roasting a childhood favorite, but I hope it made the larger point.

Do we need to learn story, structure, arc, etc? Yes. Should we as writers want to put out the best work we can? Obviously.

Just remember that sometimes it’s the rough janky edges that make something unforgettable and beloved. Yes, edit and polish but also be aware that we can risk polishing out the magic readers crave now more than EVER in this AI hyper-optimized-perfected world.

What movie, book, story, piece of art do you love even though you KNOW it’s flawed by every standard measure? Have you ever loved something because of the imperfections? And that “fixing” those imperfections would actually ruin it for you? What are your thoughts on AI and creativity? Do you think we artists can get so obsessed with perfection that AI can discourage us?

Did you ever wonder why NO ONE cared Sebastian was hiding in the school attic with matches handy?

Me neither.

Anyway, fire away! I love hearing from y’all.

The post The Luck Dragon Phenomenon & Why AI Will Never Understand Humans appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Humans have always been fascinated with rainbows, yet these days it seems AI rainbows are uniquely alluring. Rainbows lead to that magical pot of gold, right? Even as an adult, I can’t help but see a rainbow and muse over treasure at the end. It is one of those stories that can get so ingrained in a culture, that it almost runs as a subroutine in our brains.

Like when your palm itches and you think about money. Or you hesitate and walk around a ladder instead of under it. The way you might flinch when cracking a mirror. Seven years of bad luck.

While these might be silly superstitions, we’d be naive to believe we’re immune from their influence…or the childlike hope of easy treasure.

We have been down this path before many times with different rainbows: the internet, websites, social media, Facebook fan pages, self-publishing, etc. We’re not immune to the lure of easy treasure…and right now, the shiniest rainbow is labeled “AI”.

The “AI Rainbows” Distraction

Might as well begin with pointing out the ugly truth. To be really excellent at any skill, one has to suffer. We humans, deep down, don’t respect what took nothing to learn, create, or do.

It reminds me of a debate I was having with Spawn (teenage son) about the movie The Matrix. All of us were wowed at the superhuman feats one could “learn” in that movie with just a flash drive plugged into your HEAD. Need to know Kung Fu? Don’t have a couple decades to haul water up the stairs to some monastery while the master hits you with sticks?

No problem. Let’s just give this a download….

I extended the logic with Spawn, though. While this idea of “instant skill” might be novel and exciting initially, what it steals is far more insidious. What if tomorrow, I could download how to play masterful piano? Who really would want to listen to me play? Or come to a concert? Buy my music? Seems to me they’d all be busy pushing their own new and shiny skills in similar fashion.

For a while.

Then it would all feel hollow, empty, cheap, and a lot like…cheating.

How long would I stick to playing piano? What takes nothing to “master” also takes nothing to “dismiss.” How quickly would I grow bored with my new and “perfect” piano skills?

***The same skills everyone else with that “piano mastery brain download” have, too.

It took me years of reading, writing, learning, practicing, sacrificing and showing up day after day even when I didn’t feel like it to hone my skills. Yes, AI can outline faster, organize faster, can even WRITE FOR ME! But why would I do that? Unused muscles either never develop or, if developed, will atrophy from disuse.

The AI rainbow is alluring but so were the sirens’ songs, and where, exactly was that song leading those sailors?

AI Rainbows & Fool’s Gold Fallacy

I have personally witnessed a MASSIVE shift in the quality of writing in the past ten years. With all the digital tools rainbows we have, the easy access to research, spell check, and grammar check, one should expect overall quality to improve. Yet, we are seeing the opposite. Unwatchable movies, unreadable books, soulless art, music without that human spark.

Do we need to mention the McDonald’s Christmas commercial that used ONLY AI? Yes, yes we do.

I’ll admit the Digital Age has been to blame for feeding this monster, especially once social media became such a cornerstone for relevance and market advantage. The relentless demand for more content, fresh content, relevant content to “captivate” audiences has chained many creatives to Hell’s Treadmill.

Companies are falling for this as well, which is why they’re leaning far too heavily on AI. AI can be controlled, monitored and writers become interchangeable pieces on a Monopoly board. Easy to plug in, duplicate and keep on a leash. Same for all creatives. Writers are picky, actors are divas, and artists are moody. Most inconveniently?

They expect to actually be PAID for what they do.

*clutching pearls*

Thus, in another staggering move to “increase profits” and “save money” companies are increasingly outsourcing to AI generated content. Content that is supposed to be bold, edgy, creative, compelling…and just happens to look, sound and feel just as “unique” as all the other “unique” content.

When everyone is special, then no one is, which was the point we explored in the last post, Counterfeit Creativity: The High Cost of Cheap Art.

Writers Who Know How to MINE

Mining is a mixture of skill, courage, tenacity, wisdom, and flat out insanity. It is a lot of tedium, toil, work, and thankless pain. Writing, like mining for anything, requires patience, endurance, innovation, and passion. But, last I checked, those weren’t for SALE.

Yet, what do we know about all “gold rushes”? Who gets rich? The ones wielding shovels or those selling shovels? Prospectors rarely struck it rich. Winners sold to the miners. BIG WINNERS (snakes) sold to those who liked the idea of being rich more than the work involved.

Whether it was reselling spent plots, phony maps, or sure-fire tricks to STRIKE IT RICH, it didn’t matter. There was always a naive/gullible market ready to throw their own gold down to skip the hard parts…and a snake to take their money.

It’s human nature.

Fast-forward to today, and AI companies, prompt gurus, “millionaire author” courses, content mills, “authentic human author” certifications. They’re the shovel-sellers. They profit off the rush without digging themselves.

But here’s where the metaphor flips in our favor. In every gold rush, a few stubborn diggers hit pay dirt. Over time, tests and failures, they eventually became experts at terrain and geology. Skilled prospectors learned invaluable tells that could lead to larger, richer strikes.

They learned to spot “tells” (signs in the geology/terrain like quartz veins, color changes in soil, or river bends that trap gold). Writers—masterful writers—do something similar. We notice the patterns, the trauma, the unevenness and how that all guides the way to the REAL story.

In my opinion, AI’s fixation on “perfect” is one of the biggest flaws in the system. Humans are messy, ugly, irrational, emotional, unpredictable and illogical, which—ironically—are all the ingredients of AMAZING WRITING!

AI is the CZ of our time. Flawless! Perfect! But still just a fancy piece of glass.

All Writers Should Be Wary of AI Rainbows

We have seen this play out time and time again. Whenever we invent a tool to make something better, faster, cheaper, easier, there is always, always a cost. We have film students in COLLEGE who cannot sit through a full-length movie, writers who never read, and Amazon and the internet is drowning us in AI slop.

Why?

Again, humans will always choose novelty and the path of least resistance (at least for a while).

Did spellcheck make a generation of better spellers? Nope. It masked errors so well that many never internalized rules—kids lean on it, brains skip the muscle-building, and we end up with adults who can’t spell.

Did grammar check transform us all into a society that understood the complexities of sentence structure and subject-verb agreement? Hardly. It fixes surface stuff on the fly, but deep grammar knowledge? The knowledge that allows a writer to wield grammar as another tool is something only a LOT of reading, studying and practice can train.

POV is an incredible tool. Why choose first-person, or third or even second? What emotional effect are we going for? In Caroline Kepnes’ You, she selected second-person POV which is almost never used…ever. Yet, when placed in a story told from the stalker’s perspective? Chilling.

T. Jefferson Parker broke with tradition and told the antagonist’s POV through first-person and Charlie Hood’s (the investigator) in third. Why? Because Jeff wanted the reader to bond emotionally with the antagonist to demonstrate the emotional complexity of the topic. There is no clean black and white and good and bad. Just messy, flawed humans doing the best the can when the deck is stacked against them.

That’s the magic AI can’t replicate. It can spit out “correct” prose, but it can’t feel the weight of those choices. It can’t draw from lived chaos to make a story resonate. The cost of chasing “perfect” shortcuts? We lose the very mess that makes writing human—and worth reading.

Keep Those Mining Skills Sharp

Tools in and of themselves can only do so much. Slight tangent but makes my point. I used to LOVE watching home improvement shows that demonstrated ways to decorate for super cheap. Initially, I was mesmerized. They did ALL THAT for under $1000! Then I realized it was a thousand dollars in supplies.

That money didn’t cover the saws, drills, guns, welds OR the SKILL to use any of those. When one hires a contractor, we aren’t hiring the table saw, rather the artisan who can use that saw masterfully. I mean I can use a table saw. Can watch a video. Most have guards that will mostly keep my fingers in tact…but I have zero skills.

I am far more likely to make a mess massacre than a masterpiece.

Same in writing.

While AI rainbows are pretty, what they lead to? Not all that glitters is gold.

Right now? I feel we are living this meme from Fight Club. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. Remember, earlier I stated that humans initially love novelty and convenience? That love wears thin super quick and the shine is already dimming.

There are no shortcuts and we’d all be wise to just leave the AI rainbows where they belong…on Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers.

What are YOUR Thoughts on AI Rainbows?

I know today is St. Patrick’s and we all want a bit of luck, but luck alone has never been enough without the skills to take advantage of opportunity.

How do you feel about what AI is doing to us skill-wise? Are new writers failing to mature and dig deeper because of the quick thrill of “perfectly packaged prose”? If they are “training” on recycled content, how valuable is the training? Are the younger generations of content creators driven by a desire to create meaningful art and expression or the need for a quick dopamine fix?

Is AI unwittingly eroding the very character traits necessary for great artists (Eg. tenacity)?

For writers who have been here more than a minute, are you concerned that your skills will erode? Do you find yourself constantly second-guessing skills you’ve used for years? Or does that compel you to train even harder to stand apart from the crowd?

For a profession that seems to UNIQUELY SUFFER from Imposter Syndrome, do you think AI only makes this feeling worse? It was bad when everyone assumed every published author was self-published, but at least they didn’t think a ROBOT wrote it. How does this make you feel? The shift of bad writing must be human and good writing must be AI.

I’d like your thoughts!

The post Chasing AI Rainbows & Fool’s Gold: Real Writers Know How to DIG appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Counterfeit creativity is robbing our species blind. We are sacrificing our souls on the altar of cheap, fast, free and easy, but at what price?

For most of human history, creativity had a cost. A painting required years of training, mistakes, dedication, practice, and courage. Music required months and years of pain, blisters, practice, rehearsal, performance, and courage. A novel required years of reading, learning, grammar, structure, practice, failure, perseverance and courage.

Even mediocre art took effort.

AI changes the creative math.

Now anyone with an internet connection can generate:

• a novel outline
• a painting
• a marketing campaign
• a song

…in seconds.

Which all raises an interesting question.

If something looks creative but required no creative effort, what exactly are we looking at?

Not fraud.

Not plagiarism (exactly).

Something new.

I’d like to introduce what I call counterfeit creativity.

Counterfeit Creativity

Counterfeit money looks real enough to circulate, and counterfeit creativity works the same way. It mimics the appearance of creative work. It seems to have structure, style, aesthetic cues and emotional beats, but the underlying process is fundamentally different.

Authentic creativity comes from struggle, lived experience, experimentation, and failure. Counterfeit creativity is generated through statistical pattern reconstruction. It produces something that looks like creativity without the creative journey behind it.

For now, it seems there are plenty of people left who can sense the AI Uncanny Valley, but that window is closing, and closing FAST.

Many people can’t immediately tell the difference because humans, historically, have judged creativity by output not process. Thus, if something reads like a novel, looks like a painting, or sounds like music our brains classify it as “creative.” But that assumption was originally wired in a world where output and effort were inseparable.

AI just broke that link.

The “Crapification” of Everything

I would love to say this problem happened just with the advent of AI, but end stage capitalism is merely the sterile syringe that delivered the literary lidocaine inuring us to what CRAP looks and sounds like. We are going to zoom in on the writing world, since that’s the water we swim in.

Early on, when I began this blog, I exclusively geared my content toward authors who wanted to traditionally publish. It wasn’t because I believed the Big Six were that special, but I appreciated WHY we might need a world with gatekeepers.

Additionally, though I could see the many benefits that could come with self-publishing and indie publishing, I saw the inherent dangers. How it would let out a genie we’d never get back in the bottle.

The democratization of publishing happened on other fronts as well, though. Remember Huffington Post? Arianna Huffington IMO single-handedly obliterated the print medium and all the writing jobs that once went with it. The exposure dollar economy was the warning shots.

Show up, write your best for us and you can tell the world we pay you great money let you post on OUR site where we make millions using an unpaid workforce. Tell a bunch of writers this will lead to bigger things, they post their BEST and promote it on all their social networks…and with every click we make ad money.

LOADS OF IT.

Pay the Writer

I know when I drop terms like late or end stage capitalism, I risk the eye rolls, but hear me out.

Creatives have always sought to be paid for their work. Yes, it might be au gauche or tawdry, but we don’t care. We spend years mastering something that others derive joy and value from? We should be compensated just like everyone else.

That and we like to eat and the power company doesn’t accept poetry as payment.

In earlier times, creatives had wealthy sponsors. Later, the markets aligned to give ways creative people could be paid/rewarded meaningfully for our hard work and years dedicated to honing a skill. Newspapers, periodicals, dime novels, copy, marketing, ads were all ways creative professionals could make a living while producing the next great work of art the world enjoyed.

Read Stephen King’s On Writing, Steven Pressfield’s War of Art, Robert McKee’s Dialogue and they all share stories of the paid “crappy” gigs these masters took on while working on the “real art.”

Late-stage capitalism describes the point where market incentives inevitably drive everything toward cheaper, faster, and more scalable versions of itself, even when that process strips away the craftsmanship and meaning that once made the product valuable.

Systems no longer optimize for creating value, but for producing the appearance of value as cheaply and quickly as possible. Pay the writer became…use the writer.

Or the musician, songwriter, painter, illustrator, animator, etc.

Tell them they are special, pay them in attention, then up the operational tempo to such a high level that literally no human artist could keep pace (relevant). Meanwhile use all the real art that creatives built to train the synthetic version that you’ll SELL them later when they are so desperate to remain in the loop they’ll audition for their own extinction.

The Art is Fake but the Rot is REAL

The real danger isn’t that AI can generate content, it is that AI is flooding the world with creative-looking artifacts detached from human meaning.

Imagine a future filled with books no human truly wrote, art no human felt, songs no human performed. You know what? Since we are already here, why do we even bother with museums? Expensive to store, insure, restore, preserve. We could just 3-D print some replicas. I mean is anyone REALLY going to be able to TELL if that’s the ACTUAL Mona Lisa?

Y’all can breathe now. I am being sarcastic. But, hopefully I made my point.

My largest concern with AI “art” hasn’t just been the creative professionals it displaces, but what it’s doing to humanity as a whole.

Never underestimate the unique human capacity to get used to some seriously LOW standards. I learned that lesson my first “hamburger day” in a public school lunchroom. Every kid was excited for a slightly greenish hamburger facsimile (some even bought TWO), while I was clutching my foodie pearls. How could they be excited to eat THAT?

Then I was there long enough to sample what the “normal” food was like and it made more sense.

My biggest concern about AI art has always been the impact on the audiences. Even now. We no longer go to the movies. Most are unwatchable. If we DO go to a movie, you know what is a WIN?

It was…watchable.

I used to think the creators of Idiocracy were onto something. Now? I think they might have had a crystal ball, and they also woefully underestimated just how dumb we humans can be.

The #1 movie in America was called “Ass.” And that’s all it was for 90 minutes. It won eight Oscars that year, including best screenplay.

Narrator of Idiocracy

We aren’t going to need to travel thousands of years in the future to grasp that we are hurtling toward a world where all the top shows are some poor dude getting hit in the ‘nads in clever ways (yes, that is a real thing from Idiocracy).

Dealing with Counterfeits

Since the point of my posts are to educate and empower you, what is the answer? The United States Secret Service oversees most of our money/financial crimes. They also go after counterfeiters. Do you think they train years and years on every fake out there and what to look for?

Nope.

They spend years and years understanding AMERICAN CURRENCY. How do the bills feel? They learn how to tell a real c-note with their eyes closed. Because they know the real thing so intimately, they don’t need to concern themselves with the fakes. The fakes practically pop out.

There is a good reason the best writers are also avid readers. Read the excellent works, train, practice, fail, get up, do better and hone those skills. Write excellent stories. I know we are all under a lot of pressure to be content mills that feed the public’s (supposedly) ravenous appetite.

But why are they so famished?

Years and years of increasingly empty creative calories and artificial art.

Not only is it unsatisfying, but it warps the palate.

Take a person used to drinking cheap sodas and eating junk food then try to give them good food. They won’t like it at first because it will taste strange. Layers of artificial ingredients are masking that what’s being served is inedible, empty and possibly toxic and yet people binge on the stuff.

Same with counterfeit creativity. We have a narrow window where there are enough people around to remember what art used to feel like. With all the AI slop in circulation, get to work. Superlative art will rise. Audiences will find it and stick like glue because it resonates with their souls.

Counterfeits are always costly. Counterfeit money can implode a country just as sure as fake art can bankrupt a culture.

This is why it is critical now, more than ever, to cherish real art before we drift into a world that can no longer even recognize it. If we do get to a point that no one can tell between Monopoly money from the real thing, only then will we be out of a job. Until then, we are still in the game.

But I warn y’all… tempus fugit.

We don’t have forever.

What are YOUR thoughts on Counterfeit Creativity?

Other than it goes with counterfeit cleverness? Personally, I am exhausted with all the AI slop. AI cannot create art. Period. It is a tool. The paintbrush doesn’t make the art, the artist does. The keyboard doesn’t make the story, the writer does. And, for me? There is a certain je ne sais quoi missing from AI “creations.”

That said, do you think we could hit a time that humans won’t really recognize art? Or is it too deeply wired in us? If everything “looks real”, who will remember how to tell the difference?

Do you think that removing the human from art could eventually remove humanity from the human? I know we writers love these existential arguments, but I think this is a good one. If all the art is shallow, derivative and superficial, wouldn’t we eventually see a culture that is shallow, derivative and superfi—–

Houston, we have a problem…

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