Beautifully stated, Caroline. Authors must respect their Readers, not revile them. Too many publishers despise the EveryMan - the Man who works for Bread, longs for Family, yearns for Romance and fights for Good . Readers know when an Author hates them; Authors who despise men should not expect men to read their works.
It turns out that drag queen story hour doesn't teach young boys tolerance, it just traumatizes them and makes them associate literature with the queasy sensation of being ogled by a cross-dressing pedophile. Result: "boys don't read".
More seriously - though I'm only half joking - there is a close connection between the untruths that "men don't read" and that "the right can't create". The left does not have some lock on literary creativity - HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Robert A Heinlein, Gene Wolfe, Larry Niven, and numerous other genre-defining titans would have been very amused to hear that "the right can't create".
What actually happens is that the left takes over production, distribution, and promotion channels, and then ensures that only their books are published, stocked, marketed, and given awards. There is no creativity whatsoever involved in this strategy. It is simply low animal cunning and venal social power games.
As with every other instance of the left murdering an institution and wearing it as a skinsuit, the result is the precipitous collapse of the ability of that institution to fulfill its social function, followed in short order by the collapse of its prestige as the general public starts tuning the corrupted institution out.
"Men don't read" the insipid sermons the big publishers are selling, and "the right doesn't create" anything the left will consider publishing. Meanwhile there is a quiet literary Renaissance happening in independent publishing, and men are reading it in droves.
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov were rightish. The last ten years of strong female leads has demonstrated nothing so much as women are a little bit dull. There are exceptions. Anthony Trollope, who few read, was excellent at creating interesting female characters.
The novels of Wila Cather, the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop, I believe, didn’t want to be included in an anthology of best women writers, took it as an insult.
Also they isolate anyone smelling of badthink. It's hard to find and participate with and bounce ideas off fellow artists who are not some flavor of prog.
We have some Inklings caliber writers groups: Mad Genius Club. Art, not so much.
Founding and running any business is hard in this economy. We live in a mixed economy, those with the money-printer get to decide who wins and loses in the "public" marketplace.
I'm currently taking classes in the trades division of a Community College. Almost everyone in my class (all male) has a book in their car. Normally its fiction but it's Clancy or Block or older Sci Fi and Fantasy. Or YA. Often again, the older stuff.
Maybe if everything TradPub wasn't dripping PC, filled with unlikeable girlbosses, or grimdark...
I'm a woman and I can't stand to read what most of the female controlled trad pub puts out!
But in truth? I am so very, very tired of female led stories. And this isn't just a trad pub problem, either - I see a huge number of books being written by indies - and men! - that are female led. I was at a conference a few months ago that had several indie authors selling books. Almost all of them had female protagonists. Didn't matter the genre - scifi, fantasy, weird west, supers - most of the books were females leads. One particular author had several books across at least 4 different series as well as a few stand alones, but the only one I bought was the only one that had a male lead.
Don't get me wrong - I don't mind a good female story, when its a good story. But I grew up reading Hardy Boys over Nancy Drew, Robert Lewis Stevenson over Jane Austen, watching A-team (and NOT for Amy Allen who I was glad to see gone!) or Kungfu: the Legend Continues or Zorro, Bonanza, Big Valley (for the brothers, not Audra), John Wayne Movies, Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, Aladdin (for Aladdin, not Jasmine. Oh, and of course, Genie lol), Sleeping Beauty for Prince Philip, Highland the Series. The Magnificent Seven and so on. I wanted and still want stories about masculine men doing manly things, going on adventure, fighting for their dreams, and protecting and defending those they love. And I don't need nor want to see a token female lead to "balance" that in every single story. Sure, a good woman can be a great boost and help to a man, and like I said, once in a while, if the author has written a female well (and not as a girl boss or something filled with feminist drivel) I might even enjoy a book with a female lead, but I don't generally like those sorts of stories.
I want to read about guys and that is sorely lacking in today's market, both trad pub and indie.
" I am so very, very tired of female led stories."
THIS
There was a book I picked up which was a bit slow to start and the setup of which I was dubious would work. Had it opened with a female protag, I would not have given it another go.
Male writers can be just as bad - the white-knighting, the gamma undercutting of other men using snotty feminist tropes, the tiresome WarriorWahmen... Even with a male lead.
But adventure novel with female 1st person POV is an automatic downcheck for me now. Sad.
That said, Mech Bunny was great, and when I have a bit more moolah, I'm getting a hardcopy.
I'm a guy and I find myself reading 2-3 books a month on average. The thing is, almost all of them are from small press or independently published. Not the kind of thing Publisher's Weekly is likely to review.
The ones I seem to be reading most from lately are Tuscany Bay Books and Chris Kennedy Publishing. Also Three Ravens Publishing (in particular Declan Finn's own Love at First Bite series). Also Lydia Sherrer's Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus series by Chenoweth Press, Jeffery H. Haskell's Full Metal Superhero and Superhero By Night series by Molten Press. Terry Mixon's Empire of Bones series by Yowling Cat Press, Jon Del Arroz' For Steam and Country books by Rislandia Books. Then there's Dan Willis' Arcane Casebook series, which seem to be self-published. That's just what I can easily find on my Kindle. There's a lot more. And few, if any, are carried by Baker & Taylor ;)
Baen Books seems to be the largest "mainstream" publisher I read from regularly, and they're mid-sized
Sarah Hoyt is an author with a web-site called AccordingToHoyt that I visit.
Sometime ago, she was commenting on fiction, especially fiction for children/young adults, and she mentioned her son's comment about "wanting to be a girl" because of the fiction he encountered.
So I don't remember which post of hers where she mentioned this.
But she, like many on this site, has made plenty of comments concerning "modern fiction for young people".
There's also the fact that you can only count what you know about.
That "unknown unknowns" business. If you don't know, it doesn't exist, right?
So Bill has been a longtime member of 20booksto50K and yes, it's emphasis has changed dramatically in the last few years. That's not my point. My point is that this large group of indie writers is largely oblivious to what we didn't know about at all and only learned because of our early 20's son.
Dear Son reads. He reads A LOT. But he doesn't read paper books or eBooks. He reads on his phone.
Moreover, he reads at websites like Royal Road and such; websites for indie writers and it's not all fan fiction either. Based on our conversations and my scanty research, Royal Road and similar websites favor "Boys Own Adventures". What's more, those RPG fantasies with a male lead can run into dozens, nay hundreds of chapters!!!!
Dear Son even -- via Patreon -- throws money to favored authors at Royal Road as do other fans. At least one of his favored authors apparently earns a living wage writing on Royal Road because of Patreon.
Yet no one in the traditional industry OR 20booksto50K seems to have heard of this.
It's not known so it's not counted.
How do they succeed? The writers largely write what young males want to read: adventures starring male heroes who save the day, prove themselves, and get the girl.
I can second this comment. I am one of the young men like that--I probably average a couple hours a day reading on RoyalRoad.
One thing that I like about the stories there, even more than any details of men vs. women heros, etc, etc, is that you can really see how much the authors love the stories they are writing. I tried reading more traditional novels, and even from some authors I like it was amazing how they seem lacking in the Joy of story, now that I am used to the authors who post online for the love of writing.
Since they're publishing things that are misanderist, heterophobic, and anti-white, why should anyone expect those groups to read what they offer? They picked their target audience. Therefore the rebuttal, excuse or complaint for why those who they openly hate spurn them like the rabid dogs they are in return is invalid. Men, heterosexuals and the unbigotted have walked away from them and founded new markets they refuse to or cannot track.
It's more disgusting than to just conclude that people are drifting instead to perversion and vice on their phones because apparently that's all teen boys and young men read anymore. Anyone who think this or have studies "proving" this, I believe exposes more about their character via projection than anything else.
Thanks to the hate, publishers has cut their figurative femoral arteries in the tub and are rapidly bleeding out. Don't worry, the industry's salvation is in their replacement by those who will save the companies, buying them out. They'll purge the poison and cut out the cancer that got the industry as sick as it is.
I've written on this subject myself. As long as we're force feeding boys things that bore them they will hate reading. It really is that simple. I have a degree that required an immense amount of reading (History). I have a book review blog with a nine year history. I love reading.
If I had been stuck with only the crap they gave me to read in school there is a good chance that I would be functionally illiterate. There are still many things that I'm supposed to read (The Scarlet Letter comes to mind) that I won't because they just sound horrible to me. And there are things I was subjected to in school that I'll never read again because they did suck. (Steinbeck comes to mind.)
It's time to admit that yes, Virginia, there are differences between the sexes and that both need to be catered to in the classroom.
I guess I'm a different kind of man than the ones used in these surveys as I read hundreds of novels per year, have ever since I first learned to read at the age of 6. I rarely read non fiction as I no longer see the point, feel fiction gives a much better view of society through the stories people create than some credentialed assclown bloviating about his opinions in some self serving auto biography or self help book.
Ruffo is right with this, “conservatives have struggled to create cultural products that engage a general audience. Most of the time, they're terrible: simplistic stories, low-quality production, self-marginalizing in the marketplace.”
As a writer for 50 plus years, commercially published and ‘indie’ published as well, I believe a lot of ‘indie’ stuff is of poor quality. I’m not talking grammar or any of that, I’m talking story. A lot of ‘stuff’ written by newbie male writers, supposedly to combat all the femmi-gurl trash that’s being forced on middle school boys, is amateurish. Again, not talking grammar, but ‘STORY.’ I’ve read some of it and I’m embarrassed for them. But some of these male writers have built publishing tree houses for themselves and their buddies. Tree houses like review sites, writer cliques, even publishing houses. It’s all space marines, ‘dead’ galactic space arcs adrift in the void, with flat characters, lots of bad ass tech, occasionally female lead characters that seem an awful lot like male lead characters, except that they lack a penis… It’s all that and not much STORY.
Sorry. I can hear the clicks as some of the fifty followers I have on the ‘Sub’ start disconnecting from my blog, such as it is. But I have to be honest.
And when an outsider attempts to join the buddysphere, unless he writes the same juvenile stuff, he will not be allowed entry. I believe I’ve seen evidence of it. So, I doubt that the people who will make reading great again for young males will necessarily come from the ‘counter writers of the right.’
Case in point. Rambo, First Blood vs. The Empire of the Sun.
Our side, the writers on the right, seem to be fixated on First Blood. The more blood and guts, the more one-dimensional (or cliched) the hero, the better.
Enough. I’ve said enough.
Yes, the women own publishing now. They call the shots. And boys and young men are paying the price. But I think we have to ‘re-think’ our strategy when it comes to changing that. We have to do better. I don’t think ‘Rambo in Space’ is the answer.
There are plenty of resources and groups out there, but they are all explicitly woke and left wing. Where would a young aspiring right wing writer go to learn to write well, with other right wing writers?
Good question, friend. It's a similar situation to where can a young man or woman go to get a good, centered normal college education. There are not as many choices as the other kind. But there are some out there. And they likely have an English Department, and a writing teacher. A normie young person could go to the ivy league colleges and learn writing, but they would have to be prepared to be treated at best, a dunce, who writes 'triggering' or 'mean-spirited, even hateful, stories.
If either of my offspring wanted to learn to write (they're grown and off doing other things), I would encourage them to self-teach themselves, to read voraciously, but try to make most of that the classics. There are 'The Great Courses.' And there are writers groups out there. You could try and maybe find one that's simpatico to conservative or traditional values. And there are some great books on writing. I would recommend John Gardner's books, The Art of Fiction, and On Moral Fiction. Also, How Fiction Works by James Wood, And a fabulous book for people who write more in the genre vein is James N Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel. I've taken his workshops three or four times. We got to be friends, but I retired far away and don't see him anymore. I see he now has some online videos.
If you read great books and if you study the best teachers of creative writing, you cannot help but absorb some of the skills on a cellular level. Of course, over time, you'll forget some of it, then you can always go back to the book itself. Look at the things you highlighted.
Anyway, I don't mean to come off as the big expert. If popularity = ability, I'm not much of a writer anymore. (or maybe I'm not much of a salesman). At any rate, a serious self-taught person can learn just as much about the world as someone who goes to university.
I can't emphasize enough these three books. For genre writers: James N Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Novel. Literary writers can get much from that as well, but it applies more to genre. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, and How Fiction Works by James Wood.
L. Jagi Lamplighter has a book and video series for the young novice.
Mad Genius club on the web consistently shares information by a wide variety of published writers - including the Galaxy's Edge pulp space marines the gent above denigrates. But he is correct that plotting, oacing, characterization and world-building will help those stories level up. So find the writer whose kind of work you enjoy, and start with their advice.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has solid general business advice for more trad-pubbish authors.
MGC is starting to get into info about Kickstart, patreon and AI.
There are several on Facebook and MeWe - you can also check into LegendFiction and their FB-like site: https://legendfiction.substack.com/. There's the Conservative-Libertarian group on MeWe and a couple more on Facebook, from the Superversive group to those with "conservative" in the title. You might also try looking for faith-based writers' groups, too, as several of those lean away from left wing or woke ideologies for very obvious reasons. Story Embers is not explicitly political but may be worth looking into: https://storyembers.org/
There is a trajectory of competence common to most readers that has been scrambled by schools, publishing houses, YA, social media, literary fiction, video games. If you haven’t learned to read and enjoy Shakespeare by the time you’ve graduated from high school. there’s not much hope for you. You’ll never get what “good” is.
Great article! I disagree with Chris Rufo's comment about Conservatives' inability to create anything worthwhile. I know plenty of talented writers with marketable "universes" who are Conservative. Leftist "gatekeepers" in the publishing industry who care more about politics than good storytelling are part of the problem. As for creativity, the "literary universe" (for lack of a better term) swirling in my head comprises 130 worlds, 26 sophont species, and many great stories. My true "inability" is marketing—and that's a whole other article 😁.
Beautifully stated, Caroline. Authors must respect their Readers, not revile them. Too many publishers despise the EveryMan - the Man who works for Bread, longs for Family, yearns for Romance and fights for Good . Readers know when an Author hates them; Authors who despise men should not expect men to read their works.
Your comment is so true, its strange that this needs to be said at all.
It turns out that drag queen story hour doesn't teach young boys tolerance, it just traumatizes them and makes them associate literature with the queasy sensation of being ogled by a cross-dressing pedophile. Result: "boys don't read".
More seriously - though I'm only half joking - there is a close connection between the untruths that "men don't read" and that "the right can't create". The left does not have some lock on literary creativity - HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Robert A Heinlein, Gene Wolfe, Larry Niven, and numerous other genre-defining titans would have been very amused to hear that "the right can't create".
What actually happens is that the left takes over production, distribution, and promotion channels, and then ensures that only their books are published, stocked, marketed, and given awards. There is no creativity whatsoever involved in this strategy. It is simply low animal cunning and venal social power games.
As with every other instance of the left murdering an institution and wearing it as a skinsuit, the result is the precipitous collapse of the ability of that institution to fulfill its social function, followed in short order by the collapse of its prestige as the general public starts tuning the corrupted institution out.
"Men don't read" the insipid sermons the big publishers are selling, and "the right doesn't create" anything the left will consider publishing. Meanwhile there is a quiet literary Renaissance happening in independent publishing, and men are reading it in droves.
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov were rightish. The last ten years of strong female leads has demonstrated nothing so much as women are a little bit dull. There are exceptions. Anthony Trollope, who few read, was excellent at creating interesting female characters.
I don't want to shit on women writers, because there are many excellent ones. Women writing as women however…
The novels of Wila Cather, the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop, I believe, didn’t want to be included in an anthology of best women writers, took it as an insult.
Also they isolate anyone smelling of badthink. It's hard to find and participate with and bounce ideas off fellow artists who are not some flavor of prog.
We have some Inklings caliber writers groups: Mad Genius Club. Art, not so much.
We need more right-wing publishing companies. Use them.
Founding and then keeping them running is the hard part, particularly in this economy.
Founding and running any business is hard in this economy. We live in a mixed economy, those with the money-printer get to decide who wins and loses in the "public" marketplace.
And Amazon is a bit of a snare. It seems so easy to use, and good value...
I'm currently taking classes in the trades division of a Community College. Almost everyone in my class (all male) has a book in their car. Normally its fiction but it's Clancy or Block or older Sci Fi and Fantasy. Or YA. Often again, the older stuff.
Maybe if everything TradPub wasn't dripping PC, filled with unlikeable girlbosses, or grimdark...
Way to prove my point, complete with the ad hominem attack and made up statements. The Brits have a term...
"Maybe if everything TradPub wasn't dripping PC, filled with unlikeable girlbosses, or grimdark..."
Tell me about it. There's a reason we review indies, to say nothing of going indie ourselves!
I'm a woman and I can't stand to read what most of the female controlled trad pub puts out!
But in truth? I am so very, very tired of female led stories. And this isn't just a trad pub problem, either - I see a huge number of books being written by indies - and men! - that are female led. I was at a conference a few months ago that had several indie authors selling books. Almost all of them had female protagonists. Didn't matter the genre - scifi, fantasy, weird west, supers - most of the books were females leads. One particular author had several books across at least 4 different series as well as a few stand alones, but the only one I bought was the only one that had a male lead.
Don't get me wrong - I don't mind a good female story, when its a good story. But I grew up reading Hardy Boys over Nancy Drew, Robert Lewis Stevenson over Jane Austen, watching A-team (and NOT for Amy Allen who I was glad to see gone!) or Kungfu: the Legend Continues or Zorro, Bonanza, Big Valley (for the brothers, not Audra), John Wayne Movies, Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, Aladdin (for Aladdin, not Jasmine. Oh, and of course, Genie lol), Sleeping Beauty for Prince Philip, Highland the Series. The Magnificent Seven and so on. I wanted and still want stories about masculine men doing manly things, going on adventure, fighting for their dreams, and protecting and defending those they love. And I don't need nor want to see a token female lead to "balance" that in every single story. Sure, a good woman can be a great boost and help to a man, and like I said, once in a while, if the author has written a female well (and not as a girl boss or something filled with feminist drivel) I might even enjoy a book with a female lead, but I don't generally like those sorts of stories.
I want to read about guys and that is sorely lacking in today's market, both trad pub and indie.
"And this isn't just a trad pub problem, either - I see a huge number of books being written by indies - and men!"
Spot-on. And if there is a male protagonist, at least one scene has to show him inferior to a female character.
Shameless self-plug: See if any of my titles interest you: https://amzn.to/4eZb36r
" I am so very, very tired of female led stories."
THIS
There was a book I picked up which was a bit slow to start and the setup of which I was dubious would work. Had it opened with a female protag, I would not have given it another go.
Male writers can be just as bad - the white-knighting, the gamma undercutting of other men using snotty feminist tropes, the tiresome WarriorWahmen... Even with a male lead.
But adventure novel with female 1st person POV is an automatic downcheck for me now. Sad.
That said, Mech Bunny was great, and when I have a bit more moolah, I'm getting a hardcopy.
I'm a guy and I find myself reading 2-3 books a month on average. The thing is, almost all of them are from small press or independently published. Not the kind of thing Publisher's Weekly is likely to review.
Well spill the beans on these publishers brah
The ones I seem to be reading most from lately are Tuscany Bay Books and Chris Kennedy Publishing. Also Three Ravens Publishing (in particular Declan Finn's own Love at First Bite series). Also Lydia Sherrer's Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus series by Chenoweth Press, Jeffery H. Haskell's Full Metal Superhero and Superhero By Night series by Molten Press. Terry Mixon's Empire of Bones series by Yowling Cat Press, Jon Del Arroz' For Steam and Country books by Rislandia Books. Then there's Dan Willis' Arcane Casebook series, which seem to be self-published. That's just what I can easily find on my Kindle. There's a lot more. And few, if any, are carried by Baker & Taylor ;)
Baen Books seems to be the largest "mainstream" publisher I read from regularly, and they're mid-sized
A few years ago, one of Sarah Hoyt's boys said that he wanted to be a girl.
His reason was that girls went on adventures and boys didn't.
IE The books being pushed at him (not by Sarah) focused on girls not on boys.
Of course, Sarah pointed him at older books which showed boys going on adventures.
Can you find the source of this? Kinda want to read about it more.
Sarah Hoyt is an author with a web-site called AccordingToHoyt that I visit.
Sometime ago, she was commenting on fiction, especially fiction for children/young adults, and she mentioned her son's comment about "wanting to be a girl" because of the fiction he encountered.
So I don't remember which post of hers where she mentioned this.
But she, like many on this site, has made plenty of comments concerning "modern fiction for young people".
There's also the fact that you can only count what you know about.
That "unknown unknowns" business. If you don't know, it doesn't exist, right?
So Bill has been a longtime member of 20booksto50K and yes, it's emphasis has changed dramatically in the last few years. That's not my point. My point is that this large group of indie writers is largely oblivious to what we didn't know about at all and only learned because of our early 20's son.
Dear Son reads. He reads A LOT. But he doesn't read paper books or eBooks. He reads on his phone.
Moreover, he reads at websites like Royal Road and such; websites for indie writers and it's not all fan fiction either. Based on our conversations and my scanty research, Royal Road and similar websites favor "Boys Own Adventures". What's more, those RPG fantasies with a male lead can run into dozens, nay hundreds of chapters!!!!
Dear Son even -- via Patreon -- throws money to favored authors at Royal Road as do other fans. At least one of his favored authors apparently earns a living wage writing on Royal Road because of Patreon.
Yet no one in the traditional industry OR 20booksto50K seems to have heard of this.
It's not known so it's not counted.
How do they succeed? The writers largely write what young males want to read: adventures starring male heroes who save the day, prove themselves, and get the girl.
Isn't that amazing!
Thank you for the reccy!
You're welcome!
I can second this comment. I am one of the young men like that--I probably average a couple hours a day reading on RoyalRoad.
One thing that I like about the stories there, even more than any details of men vs. women heros, etc, etc, is that you can really see how much the authors love the stories they are writing. I tried reading more traditional novels, and even from some authors I like it was amazing how they seem lacking in the Joy of story, now that I am used to the authors who post online for the love of writing.
Yep! Just like our son. He reads far more than it looks because he's doing it on his phone.
He wants real stories told by people who love telling stories.
Since they're publishing things that are misanderist, heterophobic, and anti-white, why should anyone expect those groups to read what they offer? They picked their target audience. Therefore the rebuttal, excuse or complaint for why those who they openly hate spurn them like the rabid dogs they are in return is invalid. Men, heterosexuals and the unbigotted have walked away from them and founded new markets they refuse to or cannot track.
It's more disgusting than to just conclude that people are drifting instead to perversion and vice on their phones because apparently that's all teen boys and young men read anymore. Anyone who think this or have studies "proving" this, I believe exposes more about their character via projection than anything else.
Thanks to the hate, publishers has cut their figurative femoral arteries in the tub and are rapidly bleeding out. Don't worry, the industry's salvation is in their replacement by those who will save the companies, buying them out. They'll purge the poison and cut out the cancer that got the industry as sick as it is.
Why don't you ask men themselves? I am not part of a monolith...
I've written on this subject myself. As long as we're force feeding boys things that bore them they will hate reading. It really is that simple. I have a degree that required an immense amount of reading (History). I have a book review blog with a nine year history. I love reading.
If I had been stuck with only the crap they gave me to read in school there is a good chance that I would be functionally illiterate. There are still many things that I'm supposed to read (The Scarlet Letter comes to mind) that I won't because they just sound horrible to me. And there are things I was subjected to in school that I'll never read again because they did suck. (Steinbeck comes to mind.)
It's time to admit that yes, Virginia, there are differences between the sexes and that both need to be catered to in the classroom.
We are doing it. Take your misandry elsewhere
It's amazing how tastes differ. Steinbeck is one of my all time favorite writers.
East of Eden is a true masterpiece along with Tortilla Flats.
I guess I'm a different kind of man than the ones used in these surveys as I read hundreds of novels per year, have ever since I first learned to read at the age of 6. I rarely read non fiction as I no longer see the point, feel fiction gives a much better view of society through the stories people create than some credentialed assclown bloviating about his opinions in some self serving auto biography or self help book.
Ruffo is right with this, “conservatives have struggled to create cultural products that engage a general audience. Most of the time, they're terrible: simplistic stories, low-quality production, self-marginalizing in the marketplace.”
As a writer for 50 plus years, commercially published and ‘indie’ published as well, I believe a lot of ‘indie’ stuff is of poor quality. I’m not talking grammar or any of that, I’m talking story. A lot of ‘stuff’ written by newbie male writers, supposedly to combat all the femmi-gurl trash that’s being forced on middle school boys, is amateurish. Again, not talking grammar, but ‘STORY.’ I’ve read some of it and I’m embarrassed for them. But some of these male writers have built publishing tree houses for themselves and their buddies. Tree houses like review sites, writer cliques, even publishing houses. It’s all space marines, ‘dead’ galactic space arcs adrift in the void, with flat characters, lots of bad ass tech, occasionally female lead characters that seem an awful lot like male lead characters, except that they lack a penis… It’s all that and not much STORY.
Sorry. I can hear the clicks as some of the fifty followers I have on the ‘Sub’ start disconnecting from my blog, such as it is. But I have to be honest.
And when an outsider attempts to join the buddysphere, unless he writes the same juvenile stuff, he will not be allowed entry. I believe I’ve seen evidence of it. So, I doubt that the people who will make reading great again for young males will necessarily come from the ‘counter writers of the right.’
Case in point. Rambo, First Blood vs. The Empire of the Sun.
Our side, the writers on the right, seem to be fixated on First Blood. The more blood and guts, the more one-dimensional (or cliched) the hero, the better.
Enough. I’ve said enough.
Yes, the women own publishing now. They call the shots. And boys and young men are paying the price. But I think we have to ‘re-think’ our strategy when it comes to changing that. We have to do better. I don’t think ‘Rambo in Space’ is the answer.
I’ll let it go at that.
Special effects have also done their part to diminish attention spans and obliterate story line.
There are plenty of resources and groups out there, but they are all explicitly woke and left wing. Where would a young aspiring right wing writer go to learn to write well, with other right wing writers?
Good question, friend. It's a similar situation to where can a young man or woman go to get a good, centered normal college education. There are not as many choices as the other kind. But there are some out there. And they likely have an English Department, and a writing teacher. A normie young person could go to the ivy league colleges and learn writing, but they would have to be prepared to be treated at best, a dunce, who writes 'triggering' or 'mean-spirited, even hateful, stories.
If either of my offspring wanted to learn to write (they're grown and off doing other things), I would encourage them to self-teach themselves, to read voraciously, but try to make most of that the classics. There are 'The Great Courses.' And there are writers groups out there. You could try and maybe find one that's simpatico to conservative or traditional values. And there are some great books on writing. I would recommend John Gardner's books, The Art of Fiction, and On Moral Fiction. Also, How Fiction Works by James Wood, And a fabulous book for people who write more in the genre vein is James N Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel. I've taken his workshops three or four times. We got to be friends, but I retired far away and don't see him anymore. I see he now has some online videos.
If you read great books and if you study the best teachers of creative writing, you cannot help but absorb some of the skills on a cellular level. Of course, over time, you'll forget some of it, then you can always go back to the book itself. Look at the things you highlighted.
Anyway, I don't mean to come off as the big expert. If popularity = ability, I'm not much of a writer anymore. (or maybe I'm not much of a salesman). At any rate, a serious self-taught person can learn just as much about the world as someone who goes to university.
I can't emphasize enough these three books. For genre writers: James N Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Novel. Literary writers can get much from that as well, but it applies more to genre. The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, and How Fiction Works by James Wood.
keep on writin'!
The List Tools of Writing for Non-Fiction.
L. Jagi Lamplighter has a book and video series for the young novice.
Mad Genius club on the web consistently shares information by a wide variety of published writers - including the Galaxy's Edge pulp space marines the gent above denigrates. But he is correct that plotting, oacing, characterization and world-building will help those stories level up. So find the writer whose kind of work you enjoy, and start with their advice.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has solid general business advice for more trad-pubbish authors.
MGC is starting to get into info about Kickstart, patreon and AI.
There are several on Facebook and MeWe - you can also check into LegendFiction and their FB-like site: https://legendfiction.substack.com/. There's the Conservative-Libertarian group on MeWe and a couple more on Facebook, from the Superversive group to those with "conservative" in the title. You might also try looking for faith-based writers' groups, too, as several of those lean away from left wing or woke ideologies for very obvious reasons. Story Embers is not explicitly political but may be worth looking into: https://storyembers.org/
I needed to read this today, more than you folks may know.
You're welcome. Hang in there. :hugs:
There is a trajectory of competence common to most readers that has been scrambled by schools, publishing houses, YA, social media, literary fiction, video games. If you haven’t learned to read and enjoy Shakespeare by the time you’ve graduated from high school. there’s not much hope for you. You’ll never get what “good” is.
Still remember hopping into men complaining about character-driven stories to recommend Hal Clement. His works were a hit.
Great article! I disagree with Chris Rufo's comment about Conservatives' inability to create anything worthwhile. I know plenty of talented writers with marketable "universes" who are Conservative. Leftist "gatekeepers" in the publishing industry who care more about politics than good storytelling are part of the problem. As for creativity, the "literary universe" (for lack of a better term) swirling in my head comprises 130 worlds, 26 sophont species, and many great stories. My true "inability" is marketing—and that's a whole other article 😁.