The other day I was chatting with my best friend from back home, and the topic of what we like to read came up. We haven’t discussed this in years, I mentioned I like Sci-Fi and Fantasy still. My specific tastes include books with detailed backdrops. Stories where the events don’t happen in a void but happen in a living world. Books like the The Robot Series from Asimov, or the Mars Series from Burroughs, or the Lord of the rings books from Tolkien.

This lead to her bringing up how a lot of Sci-fi is filled with Technobabble used to fill in the gaps. This makes it hard for her to follow. To which I replied that was the reason I still prefer the older Sci-Fi. My Favourite author in the genre is still Issac Asimov. But I agree that if the technobabble is there to give a McGuffin that saves the world or team, and doesn’t feel the need to answer questions about what or why, it feels flat. I love Star Trek because of it’s hopeful view of the future (Old Trek, not so much New Trek due to it’s more down to Earth take), but it is horrible for this.

We talked about how it is harder to feel motivated to write in this world. How too many writing clubs and classes focus only on writing to make money. (I know money is nice, but…) And unfortunately writing to what you think people will read tends to stomp down the feelings and ideas of what you actually want to convey with your writing. Yes, you can learn to love it as Piers Anthony did when he switched from writing Science Fiction to Fantasy because it was more popular at the time. But should you have to learn to love something?

That feels kind of like an arranged marriage.

The conversation wandered on, but this morning I discovered on my news feed an article reminding people about Asimov’s view on the “Cult of Ignorance” as he put it. It was an interesting article, and probably his most controversial. As I read the article that he wrote in 1980, it became apparent that not only is the article still relevant today, but more so.

In the article he talks about how people have become reluctant to read. Not that they can’t, but that they choose not to anymore. He talks about how people read but don’t read. They will read the title, and skim the rest or read the first paragraph and give up thinking they know everything about the article or book.

As an elementary teacher, I run across this all the time. My students often will listen to books while they draw or play games at home, and I know audio books are a thing, but to me this does not replace the fun and enjoyment of reading the words and picturing it in your own mind. I know a lot of people will argue that elementary students should be allowed to do this to help them strengthen their reading. And I cannot stop what happens at their homes. but if you want to read you need to look at the words. At the decoding level (Kindergarten level), sure, look at the letters, hear how it sounds, great. But if you don’t look at the letters, you are not reading.

This short term thinking made me remember a discussion I had earlier in the year with a co-worker when he found out I had published a book. He asked which i work on first, the world or the characters. My response was that it depends on the book or the chapter. Immediately I was disregarded and he said that the correct answer he had read was characters because that’s what the reader sees. They don’t know the world, but they know the characters.

Unfortunately during conversations like this, if I feel that the other has made up their mind, I don’t have the time or energy to try to change their mind. But this morning, I feel I should explain how this all fits together in my mind space.

If you are writing a story that takes place in this world, right now. you don’t need to make a lot of notes about the world. The assumption is that the reader lives in this world, and will understand how things work, the same with the characters. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid making world notes. Because if your character does not affect the world they live in, in any way, it will be a very short story, or uninteresting. And that doesn’t mean the whole world has to be affected, but those nearby, or their neighbourhood, or their region will have to react and be affected by their actions.

That’s why so many people had issues with the “Problem of the week” TV shows from the 1980s and 90s. Every week everything was reset, and nothing the characters did in the past made any difference. They were written this way so that viewers could just jump in and enjoy the show even if they never saw an episode before. (No streaming back then). But I have seen stories that followed the same format. (Comics were bad for this for decades.)

If I only wrote for what the reader sees, the world would feel flat. Before I start writing anything, I plan out details that affect the world and how that would affect the characters. Is there magic? If yes, does the character know there is magic? How would that appear to them? How does that affect the story, or the world? How does the rest of the world understand magic?

Unfortunately, In games like Dungeons and Dragons and many fantasy books like Harry Potter, magic is treated like science. Remember, that if you understand it and can readily use it or manipulate it, it is no longer magic, it is science that the reader doesn’t understand yet. That falls into the Technobabble that is there to fill up space issue that my friend had problems with for Sci-Fi.

Other questions come to mind that I plan out as well. Who else is in this world? Do they interact with the main character? How do they affect the world the character lives in? What happened before the character arrived here? What may happen after they leave? Did the character make any impact at all in the town? Did anyone care that they were there? if not why are we writing it in there?

I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is, if you make this stuff up as the character runs into it, with no background knowledge yourself, it either turns into wonder for the character or background fluff. And background fluff and Wondrous fluff, if not planned out will eventually contradict another background fluff or Wondrous fluff later down the road in the story. (See the mess that is continuity in the Comics worlds, where superman’s power levels fluctuate from being able to pull several planets out of orbit to being knocked out by Batman with a rock. Or where he could shoot miniature versions of himself out of his fingers that could enter your blood and cure cancer. Or where Batman, has been to multiple dimensions, fought gods, and time traveled to fight dinosaurs, but has taken no efforts to upgrade his gadgets and technology to deal with these threats.

But how does one get around this quickly?

You don’t.

Too many people have decided that with writing, and planning, AI is the key to their success. I have been bogged down with ads for all sorts of AI writing tools for a while now. This AI helps take your notes and gives you an outline. This AI takes your notes and writes a book complete with pictures. This AI does it all from conversations with you, so you don’t even have to type. (Yes there are ads out there trying to shame people for typing.)

Even I started to fall into the whole AI makes writing better, chasm. I am of mixed feelings when I admit, that I did run a lot of my 2nd and 3rd books (Unpublished) through AI to help me organize things, and plan out things. And every time I did, it became harder to keep the book mine. AI, Every one I have tried, eventually tries to write the book for me. It may come as suggestions. This phrasing sounds better. or I think you should write it this way for your character. It may come as whole paragraphs to “Plug into the story” or it may come as a complete chapter rewrite to “match your thoughts.”

I find that funny, the whole I think and match my thoughts. Now, I know some of you will feel that I am completely anti-AI. I’m not. It has its uses. But there is a difference between asking AI to locate contradictions and plot holes between chapters, and letting it write the book for you.

For example. In my first book, one of the characters had sky blue eyes. I thought this was a great idea as she had come from a flying city. However in the second book, I kept writing her eyes as copper brown, because she was always working with machines, and I had forgotten about her eyes. AI helped me rediscover this. I then discovered how many times I talked about eyes in the second book as I reread my work to fix this, I mentioned every character’s eye color multiple times, and came up with 45 different instances in one chapter. I realized that my default for describing people and their feelings always started with their eyes. I also then self-reflected, that is how I see people. and that is not how everyone else sees people.

Because of this, I have been going back over all of my writing, my newest Valarian’s Book and the first book in my Gateways Universe (final name Pending) to rewrite whole chunks and to ask myself, did I really let the AI take over control of these chapters? Did I plan this out, or did the AI plan this out. Last year before my father passed, I remember rewriting the plot of 3 chapters because I liked the “Ideas” that the AI had suggested. Where did the AI get those ideas? From other people’s writings.

Anyways, my take away from Asimov and AI is that I need time to think, and plan out before I write or make assertions. I need to think about what is real, and true, and what is not. I need to read more, which I have been doing. (Not just my own writings) I need to analyze, where my ideas come from, and whether or not I truly like those, or if they are just convenient places to snatch ideas from. And I need to make sure that what I produce and put out into the world is really the best that I can produce.