The Mistake Writers Won't Stop Making

Lies we writers tell ourselves cost more than we realize. Cost cred.

I read a post this week, made me sigh. Shake my head. Because I keep seeing it. Over and over in different flavors. The mistake writers won’t stop making.

A writer said she’s here to write, not chase algorithms. Screw titles, screw tags, she doesn’t care anymore. Because she’s about *writing from the soul.* As if all writers aren’t. And if you know who I’m talking about, no names please. It’s not about who, no one wants to find them-selves sliced and diced in someone’s comments.

I wanted to ask, do you even know what an algorithm is, what an algorithm does? Because I don’t think she does. Nothing like talking out your butt in public.

Let’s say I write a piece on a platform that gets fifty or a hundred million unique views every month, a platform where a million new posts go up every month, quarter million every week, the platform needs a way to figure out who sees which stories. That’s the job of an algorithm. Match-making. This story for that reader.

You want to tell me you’re not here for that? I call bull.

But wait. Let me dig into that. Because I know how that kind of thinking goes. Goes something like this. Like, “real” people are going to read her writing. And “real” people are going to share it. Because she’s writing from the soul, as if maybe all writers aren’t.

And she’s going to grow because of “real” people and f—k the algorithms. Except that’s a big fat uninformed lie.

And the tragedy is that people who don’t know better are going to say hell, yeah. Me, too. But the people who know better? They aren’t saying that.

Because honey, all those “real” people? How do you think they find you if not for an algorithm? Because despite all your protests to the contrary, it’s still an algorithm recognizing engagement and topic matter. Recognizing retention rate and visit duration. Matchmaking. Saying this reader will probably like this piece.

If you have any number of views above zero, it’s because algorithms exist.

When you have millions of people following hundreds of writers (each) and thousands of pieces of writing getting published every day, something needs to sort all that. To decide who sees what. That’s what algorithms do. No exceptions, no exemptions.

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Here’s what I mean by different flavors of the mistake writers won’t stop making.

I don’t care about (insert lie here), I care about the writing.

Insert whatever lie you want.

Money, algorithms, followers, good titles, getting boosted. Whatever lie you tell yourself. Let’s start with the money lie because it’s a big one.

Let’s pretend. Pretend you write something that hits big, make you five or ten grand for one piece. You going to tell them keep that money, just pay the usual forty seven dollars cause you ain’t about the money? Or maybe you get a five figure book offer or someone offers you a grand a piece to write for them. Are you really going to turn that all down and say nah, I’m not about the money. Baloney.

No, what you’ll do is tell yourself another lie.

That this freaky bit of good fortune “happened” because you ain’t about money. Pat yourself on the back for how right you are. Nevermind that it doesn’t happen for a lot of other people who also aren’t about the money. People wearing the same lie.

Apply the same concept whether it’s money, followers, algorithms, whatever.

Know how I know you care?

Because you write online.

I read about this man. I forget his name, so if you know, please refresh my memory. Died too young. Heart attack, I think, though I could be wrong on that, too.

Here’s what stuck in my head about this man’s story. The novels his family found in a drawer when he died. Killer writing. His family will never worry how to pay the bills, never worry if they can afford to retire. That man didn’t give a crap about money, algorithms, followers, any of that. He wrote in notebooks. Put them in a drawer.

You’re writing on the internet, writing on a site that pays writers, don’t lie to me that you don’t care about followers or algorithms or money for that matter. If you didn’t care you’d be writing in a notebook, not on the internet.

Here’s the worst part of the lies writers tell themselves. The way those lies silently and insidiously disparage people who are honest with themselves, admit they do care.

It’s a little like the trope of the starving artist.

The lofty man saying he’ll starve to make his art and looks down his nose on the rest of the artists because omg, they’re all about the money and he’s the “true” artist because he doesn’t care about money.

What a crock. Because we all know if his work took off, he wouldn’t say no thanks I’d rather stay poor. Unless he’s already wealthy, which makes the lie a little worse.

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Don’t put down the shovel just yet, we’re not done digging.

Here’s the thing about writing. There’s two parts to it. The first part is seeing. The second part is putting what you see into words. Because your story and the words you tell it with aren’t the same. But the first part? The seeing? It’s crucial.

If you can’t do the first part, you’re going to suck at the second part.

Failure to see is why purple prose exists. It’s why there are vacuous characters with no personality. It’s why women laugh at how too many men write female characters, it’s why men roll their eyes at how too many women write male characters, and it’s why amateur and struggling writers fail to retain the reader.

Deep down inside, we know when we’re being lied to. Might not admit it for reasons of our own, but we know when we’re being lied to. Screams in our gut.

As a writer, our number one job is to see. Because it doesn’t matter how good your words are if they ring false because you can’t see what’s real and what isn’t.

Seeing requires honesty about what you see.

There’s nothing wrong with saying I don’t understand how algorithms work and I don’t have the time, or interest (or whatever) to learn. That’s not the same as saying I don’t *care* about algorithms because *I* write from the soul.

As if all writers don’t.

Words mean things for a reason.

And also? This is the internet. Nothing wrong with saying I don’t know this stuff and I don’t know who to believe because too many people have a program for sale and I don’t know who’s legit and who’s full of crap and I don’t know enough to even make that judgement call.

That’s honesty. Blunt honesty.

And if you don’t have honesty, what do you have besides ego? And while ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing, seems to me when ego stands in for honesty it becomes the enemy of anything even remotely good or creative.

Here’s what I can promise you. Get brutally honest. You don’t have to share it. But get real honest and I promise you, it will change things in ways you can’t even imagine.

Love to know what you think!

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Do you know how to protect your writing from ChatGPT and other AI bots?
I wrote about that on Medium last week. If you’re a writer, you need to know how to protect your own work. Here’s a free friend link in case you’re not a paid member.

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