Category Archives: Writing Advice

Ten Story Tropes to Avoid

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Here are ten common tropes that have been used so often they’re usually better avoided. Also, I have to admit that most of these are seen more in movies, but I still consider that storytelling so, let’s just go with that and let me get away with it this one time. Thank you.

1. Crawling Through Air Vents

This one shows up constantly in action movies and thrillers. A character escapes or infiltrates a building by climbing into the ventilation system and crawling through ducts like they’re made for human travel.

In reality, most air ducts are thin sheet metal that won’t support a person’s weight. They’re also cramped, and if they are heating ducts would get pretty hot and probably cause you to pass out.

Once you think about how unrealistic this trope is, it becomes hard not to laugh when you see it.

For Fun I found a blog post that lists the top 5 air vent scenes in movies.

2. The “Knock Someone Out for a Few Minutes” Trick

This is where a character knocks the guard unconscious with a punch to the head. The victim wakes up later with nothing worse than disorientation or a milk headache.

In reality, a loss of consciousness lasting more than a few seconds is a serious brain injury. If your character regularly knocks people out this way, they’re probably leaving a trail of permanent neurological damage behind them. I would much rather see some chloroform on a rag get held in front of the guards mouth and nose, or a taser disable them for a moment.

3. The Conveniently Overheard Conversation

Your protagonist just happens to walk past a door just as the villain is revealing his entire plan.

No effort required. No investigation. Just perfect timing. (see also my post on what role luck should play in fiction)

This trope removes agency from the main character and replaces it with coincidence. Information in a story like this should come from effort, not luck.

4. The Villain Explains the Entire Plan

This works for me in the Bond movies because it sort of “is what it is” in those. I feel like those movies define the whole trope and I give them a pass for it. But even then it’s still clear that this kind of exposition exists purely as an information dump. If these were real villains, monologuing their evil plans would be very careless. There is really no advantage to doing that, unless you want to compromise the 4th wall and let the audience (or in our case reader) in on something.

5. The Countdown Clock

A bomb is set to explode in exactly ten minutes. We can tell this from the red LED display conveniently visible to the hero. Being a very technical person, this one has driven me crazy for years.  Bomb timers based on old-style alarm clocks where the alarm goes off and there is a physical contact closure built into the bell mechanism, yeah, that makes practical sense. Spending extra money and design time to put a digital LED read-out into something that will blow up seems like a lot of unnecessary cost and work.  It’s good to have a metaphorical ticking clock that provides pressure for the protagonist but it’s doesn’t have to be a real one and it rarely makes practical sense to have a LED display.

6. The Instantly Hacked Computer

A character types furiously for ten seconds and announces:

“I’m in.”

Complex computer systems do not collapse instantly under a few keystrokes. Real intrusion involves research, social engineering, and patience.

I also see this kind of instant solution when a character in a movie goes to hotwire a car – they put two wires together and have it running in a matter of seconds. I guess we are just supposed to ignore the fact that it would take more wires than that and the fact that the steering wheel is usually locked.

7. Guns That Never Run Out of Ammo

You see this when characters fire dozens of rounds without ever reloading. I have to admit this has gotten better in movies lately but you do still see it. The new foul is that they change magazine so often now you wonder where they were keeping all of that heavy ammo when the chase scene was happening.

In fiction, running out of bullets is often times more interesting than having an infinite supply.

8. The Totally Useless Security Guards

In many stories, guards exist only to be knocked out or distracted.

They rarely communicate with each other, never notice obvious problems, and seem completely unaware of their surroundings.

A competent security system has multiple guards, cameras, procedures and can create much more interesting obstacles for your characters than the cardboard cut-out guards we usually see.

9. The One-Line Medical Miracle

A character receives a serious injury but is fine after a quick bandage and a few minutes of rest.

Broken ribs, stab wounds, and gunshots tend to have a much longer recovery times than a few minutes. Think about the last time you were injured in anything more than an inconvenient way and how much that slowed you down. I literally had my back go out when I was turned wrong and sneezed one time and I was basically disabled for three days, bordering on tears when I went to put my socks on. I have to imagine being shot in the stomach would slow me down quite a bit more than that.

Injuries that actually affect a character’s abilities make stories much more believable and raise the stakes.

10. The “It Was All a Dream” Ending

Few endings frustrate readers faster than discovering that the entire story didn’t really happen. Now, I did just see the Wizard of Oz at the sphere (which I equate to Disneyland in the expense and “gotta see it at least once” factor) and I am giving that movie a pass at this but for every other piece of fiction, you have to realize that dream endings are a cheat. They erase consequences and invalidate the emotional investment the reader made throughout the story.

Unless the dream itself is the point of the story, this trope almost always a bad idea.

The Real Problem with Tropes

The problem comes when tropes becomes so familiar that the stop feeling like a story choice and start feeling like lazy writing.

Readers enjoy stories where events happen for believable reasons, where characters solve problems through effort and skill and where the world behaves in ways that feel authentic.

If you find yourself reaching for one of these tropes, ask a simple question:

“What Could really happen instead?”

The answer is often surprising and far more interesting than the cliché. Spend a bit more time thinking through potential endings and as David Mamet would say, “make them surprising and inevitable.”

-James

Simultaneous Submissions vs. Multiple Submissions: What’s the Difference?

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When I first started learning how to submit fiction, I recall these terms confusing me. For a while I naively thought they were the same thing.

Understanding the difference can save you from annoying an editor or getting your story rejected before it’s even read.

Simultaneous Submissions

A simultaneous submission means sending the same story to more than one market at the same time.

Example: You send your short story The Last Robot at the Party to:

  • Magazine A
  • Magazine B
  • Magazine C

All three markets are considering the same story simultaneously.

This is common and fairly handy because response times can be long for some markets (I just checked Analog on the Submission Grinder and they are averaging 90 days for a rejection and 140 Days for an acceptance).

However, not every market allows this.

Many submission guidelines will say something like:

“Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please notify us immediately if the story is accepted elsewhere.”

If a magazine does not allow simultaneous submissions, it means they expect you to wait for their response before sending the story anywhere else.

Some editors dislike simultaneous submissions because if they spend time reading and deciding on a story, only to find it has already been accepted somewhere else, their effort was wasted. You don’t want to be remembered as the person causing them this kind of grief.

I actually do not submit simultaneously just to make my submission record keeping easier. I tend to have a lot of stories out at one time.

Multiple Submissions

A multiple submission means sending more than one story to the same market at the same time.

Example: You submit three different stories to the same magazine:

  • The Last Robot at the Party
  • My Neighbor’s Wife’s Time Machine
  • How Not to Build a Dragon

That’s a multiple submission.

Some markets allow this. But many, if not most, restrict writers to one story under consideration at a time.

A typical guideline might read: “Wait until you receive a response before sending another.”

Editors often prefer this because it keeps their submission queue manageable. In my experience, I think it is also a tool for keeping overzealous writers at bay, particularly if they are turning out bad fiction in short order.

The lesson here is to always follow the submission guidelines.

Editors include those policies for a reason. Ignoring them signals that the writer may also ignore other instructions and be someone who is hard to work with, which is certainly not the impression you want to make.

Simultaneous = same story, different markets.

Multiple = different stories, same market.

Maintaining that distinction will help you look like a Pro to editors.

-James

Opening Lines: Hook Your Reader from the Start

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Opening lines are first impressions — you only get one chance to get them right.  I see a lot of stories where writers mess up this critical point in their stories. Here are a few of the mistakes I see:

The Warm-Up Paragraph

This is often a general “vibe” type statement that can sometimes be preachy.  These are paragraphs that attempt to set the tone of the story before you are actually into the story. I think these come from the writer not knowing where their story is headed when they start writing. Later on, the story’s form becomes solid but this paragraph tends to stick around when it should have been removed.  A great test to see if you have an opening that is necessary is to ask: Is anything lost if I cut this?  If not, take it out. A general rule I have is that every sentence should serve to develop character or advance the plot.

Starting with Over-Description of Setting

A little of this is good to orient the reader but long passes explaining every little detail of a room or worse yet, the weather, can work against you. If the story is about a weatherman, then yes, that might be necessary but typically starting with the weather does little to add value to the story or pique the reader’s interest.  While the reader is parsing these descriptions, they are asking themselves “Yeah, okay, so what?” in other words: why is this important? Why should I care?  You don’t get much time to answer that before they decide to stop reading.

The Info-Dump

This is where writers try to get out all of the logistical and technical information before getting the reader hooked on the story. Oftentimes this happens because the world is complex and operates differently from ours (frequently the case in Sci-fi stories) so there are a lot of details as to how things work. Just like too much detail on setting, this burdens the reader before getting them hooked.  The way to think of this is that while they may need to know this information, do they necessarily need to know it right away?   Take for example James Bond movies; there is usually a scene where Q explains how all the technical gadgetry works, which is important as you will see Bond use these things later on. We can’t skip the explanation or that would feel like a cheat if you suddenly see advanced technology come out of nowhere and get 007 out of a scrape. But this info-dump often happens in the middle of the movie after we’re already invested. What do we usually see in the beginning of a bond move to hook us? Some action scene where 007 suavely and narrowly escapes. It’s often only tangentially related to the main plot line, but it does a great job establishing the character and setting the hook.

 Structure your stories the same way, offer just enough to hook the reader early on, and sprinkle in the technical exposition along the way. Just make sure these moments feel as organic and natural to the story as possible. The reader can sense when they are being force fed information.

How to do it right:

The goal of the opening lines should be to hook the reader — typically by establishing stakes and introducing the core conflict. We need to know why we should care about what is going on.  Make them want to know what happens next. Action is great way to open stories. By its nature, action implies a character is involved with conflict, either moving toward something they want or away from something they fear. It gets us to stakes and conflict right away.

Start by showing what the protagonist wants and let us know what’s at stake if they don’t get it.  If you can also show why the protagonist can’t have what they want, or what insurmountable barriers stand in their way, it’s even better.

-James

Write on Coffee, Edit on Wine

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I heard this phrase from David Baldacci in his Masterclass. While this may sound like he’s promoting substance use in order to produce a story, I think what he’s actually referring to is the different mindsets needed for each phase of writing.

The Coffee Phase

Coffee refers to the idea that the first draft should be a relatively fast process.

When getting the first draft down, many writers claim you want to focus on getting the idea out and captured and not worry about making it perfect. “Get it down on paper,” was the phrase we used before everyone started doing their writing on computers. Don’t concern yourself with exact wording, sentence structure, or where all those danged commas need to go. Just get that story out of you.

The Wine Phase

Wine refers to the idea that editing should be a slow process.

After the first draft is born, it makes sense to do a few passes to clean up obvious issues but the key is to set that draft aside for at least two weeks before trying to edit it.

When you do sit down to work on your story again, you need to be in a place where you have a different perspective. This time, your efforts need to be slow, deliberate, and discerning. This time, you do need to focus on where the commas go.

I think this is one of those things where there are as many approaches to writing as there are writers. Let me know your process in the comments below.

-James

Celebrating 100 Short Story Submissions: Insights and Tips

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Breaking Into the Craft hit a milestone of receiving it’s 100th short story submission on 12/16/25. Considering I received the very first submission on July 1st, I feel that is a respectable amount of submissions for the period.

I review all submissions on my own and pride myself in providing at least a modicum of feedback to every author. That takes a bit more time but at the current cadence of a little over 16 a month, I can still swing it – for now at least.

I appreciate the comments readers have been providing for the stories that make it onto this site. BITC still has a rather small footprint, so I have a deep gratitude for any comment someone takes the time to post. Thank you sincerely.

I also want to say that if you have submitted and been rejected, please know that deciding what to publish is a challenging endeavor. I try to accept only what I think the audience will enjoy or find value in, but I am also publishing stories that I, myself, really enjoy. 

As the BITC guidelines indicate, I prefer Sci-Fi and I do enjoy humor when it is done well but admittedly lean away from fantasy and horror. With that being said, the main criteria is that it is a good story, something that is enjoyable to read, with engaging and believable characters being true to their own motivations, with an ending that is rewarding, surprising and inevitable.

One final note – If you are considering submitting, it helps me a great deal to specify the word count of the story in the body of the email.  I log the stories before reading them and it really helps me to know how much time I will need to allocate to a read through.

Thank you to all who have submitted over the past six months and thank you to those who have read the stories that made it through to publication.

-James

Profanity in Fiction: When It Helps and When It Hurts

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Profanity is one of those tools writers either lean on too hard or avoid like it’s radioactive. But swear words aren’t automatically “bad writing” or “edgy writing.” They’re just words and like any other words, they need to earn their place on the page.

If you’re deciding whether to drop an f-bomb (or like in some of my stories, fifty), here’s some guidelines I go by:

Every word should serve character or plot

A useful gut-check: what does this profanity do?

  • Does it reveal a character’s temperament, background, stress level, or worldview?
  • Does it intensify a moment that matters to the plot?
  • Does it sharpen the rhythm of dialogue in a way that fits the scene?

If the answer is “it just sounds cool” or “it makes this feel more adult,” it’s probably filler. Profanity is strongest when it functions as characterization.

Try this: Remove the swear word. If the line loses meaning, tone, or character truth, you may need it. If nothing changes, omit it.

Profanity comes with a real risk of offending some readers

I do think this is less of an issue than it was say fifty years ago, but it is something to keep in mind.The key is to choose intentionally and ask yourself:

  • Who is my target audience for this story?
  • What’s the tone I’m going for here (cozy mystery vs. grim thriller, for example)?
  • Am I okay with losing some readers because of this?

One thing profanity is good at is a quick way to signal genre and voice. It can also break immersion for readers who don’t like it.

Profanity should be true to the character, not the author

The best profanity usually feels inevitable. In other words the character couldn’t have said anything else.

A few examples of true to character uses:

  • A character swears when they’re scared, cornered, or losing control.
  • A character uses profanity casually because it’s part of their everyday speech.
  • A character never swears… until the moment it finally slips, and that tells us something about what is going on.

On the flip side, try to avoid:

  • A character who suddenly starts cursing because the author wants the scene to feel “more intense.”
  • Everyone in the cast swears in the same way (same words, same rhythm), which usually makes it feel like it’s the writer’s voice coming out of all of them.

Can you identify who’s speaking if you remove the dialogue tags? If swearing makes the voices blur together, then it’s really not adding anything of value.

Profanity should also be thought of as a natural byproduct of:

  • real emotion
  • real conflict
  • real character choices

If the scene is already powerful, profanity can add some heat, but if the scene isn’t working to begin with, adding profanity won’t fix it.

The one F-word check. I see this in stories a lot more than you would expect; a story has little to no swearing then, out of nowhere, a character drops the F-bomb.

If you use the F word only once in the entire story, ask yourself whether you really need it. There are two reasons I can think of why, as Ralphie would say, the Queen mother of dirty words would only appear once:

  1. It’s true to the situation.
    Maybe it lands at the exact right emotional peak, and the rarity makes it hit harder. Sure go ahead and keep it it in.
  2. Shock value.
    If the profanity exists mainly to jolt the reader, it can feel cheap and manipulative. Readers can can tell when the author is yanking at the steering wheel. It reminds me of a creative writing teacher I had who would always talk about the author “Showing their hand.” His point was that only in rare cases is that a good thing.

Before you submit, ask these questions:

  • Does this word reveal character or move the plot?
  • Would this character really say it, right here, right now?
  • Is it doing more than just trying to sound edgy?
  • Am I okay with the readers I might lose?
  • If this is my only F word, is it really needed?

If you can answer “yes” to those, you’re using language with intent.

The goal is to write in a way that is true to the characters and true to the story. Remember a great way to to test is by taking out the “bad words” to see how it affects the story. If, after that you still can’t decide… well, sometimes you just have to say “Fuck it.”

-James

What Do Readers Want?

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It’s important to think about what a reader is really looking for when they search for a book or look for the next short story to read. Their need is the demand that we are looking to supply. If we can align with that in what we write, our stories will always find a home.

Here are a few things I came up with. See if you agree:

1. Surprise: The Unexpected and the Inevitable

David Mamet, the legendary playwright, once said that a great story is “unexpected and inevitable.” That seeming contradiction captures something essential about storytelling. We want to be surprised but in a way that makes perfect sense once it happens. Not random or gimmicky but with a twist that feels like the only possible outcome.

Think of the best stories you’ve read or watched. There’s a moment when the truth snaps into place like a puzzle piece. You didn’t see it coming but you should have. That’s the sweet spot. The Sixth Sense is one that comes to mind for me that did that very well.

Readers crave that moment, not just for the thrill, but because it affirms meaning. Surprise, when done right, is more than a twist. It’s a revelation.

2. Exploration: The Deep Human Need to Discover

We are all explorers. We read to venture into the unfamiliar: new worlds, new minds, new truths about ourselves. That’s why genres like sci-fi and fantasy endure but also why, to Matt Walter’s point in a previous post, that story is an important in nonfiction as well. All generas and types are vehicles for exploration.

3. It Has to Be Interesting

Years ago, a blogger said something that stuck with me: “The only rule to writing is that it has to be interesting.”  That has stayed with me and always rung true through the years.

You can break every convention, tense, point of view, structure, grammar, and still succeed, if your writing is interesting. But “interesting” doesn’t just mean flashy or weird. It means engaging and alive. It means giving the reader something to care about and to feel.

Always remember the readers don’t owe us their time; we have to earn it, word by word.

If we can give a reader surprise, exploration and something that is interesting, we will earn that time and it will also be something editors will want to publish.

Let me know in the comments below what you think readers want.

-James

Just take the next step

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When I think about the vast landscape of what I haven’t written yet it feels daunting.  There are so many authors out there writing way more than me. I can picture them writing away at this very moment outpacing me word by word.

It takes a lot of stories and a lot of submitting for authors to gain even a small presence. Having had some success, I also know that you have to write a lot of bad stories before you finally unearth the good ones.

It’s a lot like the feeling I get when I have a big TODO list. it’d daunting, I just know I will never get through it all.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

That mindset has helped me, no only with my TODO lists, but with writing as well. There is a power to realizing that I really only need to focus on the very next story. After that, I really only need to focus on submitting it. After that, move onto the next one. We eat the cow one hamburger at a time, as the saying goes.

If you are like me and often feel buried under the weight of what you haven’t written, step back from the overwhelming wide view and narrow it down.

It’s not: look at all I have to do!

But rather

What’s next?

Let me know in the comments below what’s next for you.

-James

Storytelling with Nonfiction, by Matthew Walter

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If you’re a writer of fiction with limited publishing success, consider writing nonfiction. 

Why would you want to do that? Because it will make you a better writer. 

The elements that make good fiction are the same for nonfiction.  You need to tell a story.  If you think about it, most stories are nonfiction.  “Did you hear about what happened to Bill and Susie?”

You also have a better chance of getting published and getting paid. 

There is a continual demand for nonfiction and there is money involved, primarily due to advertising revenue.  If a magazine publishes monthly, with the ads already sold, when the first of the month rolls around you can be damn sure they will be putting out a magazine.  And what do they place around and among all the ads?  Nonfiction writing!  Original words!  Your story!

If you start getting published and receive positive feedback, it will inspire you to continue your writing journey. Writing is difficult and lonely. Making a connection with readers makes it less difficult and lonely.

——————-

Hello Breaking Into The Craft readers. I’m Matthew Walter, friends since first grade with your BITC creator, James Miller. Besides our friendship, we support each other’s writing and discuss the craft.

When James told me his idea for a new direction for BITC, I said, “Go for it!  When you look at the supply and demand of fiction, there has to be tons of good stories that never see the light of day.”  I’m glad to see his weekly posts and read some good fiction.

I love reading fiction and writing fiction. However, I’m primarily a writer of nonfiction. I respect you writers of fiction, because writing fiction is a struggle for me.  But if your goal is to get published, try writing some targeted nonfiction.  

For ideas, turn to your work and interests. If you’ve spent any time in a workplace, I’m sure you’ve been struck with an idea about how to make something better.  See if there is a trade magazine that would publish your ideas.

If you have a hobby, chances are there is a magazine or website looking for content. I’m an avid disc golfer and I published a humorous piece on some of the disc golf forums.  I received overwhelmingly positive responses, with a few negative (You have to take the good with the bad.)

Your local newspaper would almost certainly accept good writing on pertinent topics. Look for a question no one is answering. Do your research and become a reporter.  Even Stephen King started out writing for his school newspaper.  

Get writing and see what you can accomplish. You may surprise yourself. 

I’ve been writing and selling my nonfiction writing for the past fifteen years. I started my blog, Curiousfarmer, in 2009. I had never written much before that. I liked the challenge of crafting an interesting story, and it was a way of capturing my thoughts and questions as I farmed.

Without ever proclaiming myself an expert, my blog quietly proclaimed it for me. It wasn’t long before an editor at Successful Farming found me and asked if I would contribute. I said sure. I was honored, as my family has been reading that magazine forever.

I wrote and sold three articles to Successful Farming.  They pay well.  When an editor suggests changes, I always have the revision back to them within 24 hours.  They pay enough; I’m not about to argue my work is too precious to edit. 

Successful Farming is in the commodity agriculture business and I’m a regenerative farmer, so ultimately we weren’t a good fit. If I could go back in time, with the writing experience I have now, I may try to pitch different ideas to work with them.  But I let it go at the time.

I kept posting to my blog.  I received some positive feedback, but was mostly internally driven, which is a great character trait for a writer.  I had no real writing goals, but I just kept posting, building my body of work.

I partnered with another couple to market our products in Madison, Wisconsin under the brand name Jordandal Farms.  When their marriage ended, the partnership dissolved and I didn’t want to pay what they wanted for their share of our brand name.  

Voila!  I started over as Curiousfarmer, with an online presence dating back nearly ten years and hundreds of posts.  When potential customers wanted to check us out, I could direct them to Curiousfarmer.com.  This thing I had been doing for no compensation other than the joy of doing it, was now valuable to me.

A couple years later, Covid hit, and when our farmer’s market was shut down, I was forced to pivot again.  I had been assembling a small email list.  I sent an email to all our customers asking if they would like to meet in Madison for a contactless meat drop off.  Many of them wanted to!  

If you remember the early months of Covid, there was a scarcity mindset but my business boomed. I added to customers to my email list weekly.

I settled on an every other week delivery schedule. On the Saturday I wasn’t delivering, I sent an email to my customers reminding them I was coming to Madison next week and to place their order if they wanted anything.  I quickly got bored with the typical email, listing what we had in stock, what was good, etc.  I was basically saying, “buy my bratwurst.”

I realized that besides good meat, most of my customers wanted a connection with a farmer, so I reasoned a short story about the farm might be appreciated. It was. I received even more positive feedback about my writing and felt the challenge to come up with a new story every other week. It propelled my writing to another level.  

I started to really enjoy writing and the process of discovery. Not always, but sometimes, it felt like I was uncovering hidden treasure. I got busy after our outdoor farmer’s market opened back up when Covid tailed off. I decided to save my stories for the winter months when I would return to email marketing.

I’m not sure why, but I got the notion to try to sell some articles again. I was subscribing to two regenerative ag magazines, Acres USA and Stockman Grass Farmer.  I submitted an article to Acres USA and was rejected. I submitted to Stockman Grass Farmer and was accepted.  

I decided to concentrate my efforts on Stockman Grass Farmer as that seemed to be a better fit for my expertise.  I asked the editors what they were after and then tried to shape my articles to their specs.  

Its working.  In the last few years I’ve published ten articles in Stockman Grass Farmer. This year is shaping up to be my best year yet, with four articles published already and four months to go.  

I worked really hard last winter in my slower farming time and submitted eleven articles. Stockman Grass Farmer works a bit differently; they don’t tell you if they accepted your article, they either publish it or they don’t. The first time I know an article is accepted is when an issue comes out and I find one of mine in there. I receive a check shortly after. They usually don’t edit my articles, but when they do, they just do it themselves, sometimes in ways I don’t like, but they’re paying, so I never complain.

This is my experience with writing and selling nonfiction. Unless I become way more prolific, I’ll continue to focus on submitting to Stockman Grass Farmer as we seem to be a good fit.  

In the meantime, to challenge myself, I’m working on fiction.  I feel like I have a head start finding my voice because of all the nonfiction stories I’ve written. My wife sees the checks come in, so she never rolls her eyes when I say, “I’m working on my writing.”  

Nonfiction has catapulted me into writing.  It may do the same for you.  Give it a try.

-Matthew

Why Writing with AI Can Undermine Your Creative Growth

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I thought I would take a moment to comment on the use of AI to write fiction. My position on it is that if you are using AI to write fiction, you are cheating yourself.

You also miss out on the opportunity to learn. Like many things, writing is about the journey rather than the destination. *

 There is an in-the-moment cognitive side to writing, but there is also a muscle-memory subconscious side to it as well. As any writer can attest, when you are in the groove, or flow state it is sometimes called, you get to a point of uncertainty as to where the ideas are actually coming from. It can feel like there is place almost outside of yourself that you draw upon like a medium, allowing the words to funnel through you and onto paper. You get to the end of the tale and realize the story took on a life of its own; independent, and separate from your initial intended direction.

I do find AI to be a good educational tool when it comes to writing. For example, I noticed a lot of stories in Analog are in present tense. I don’t write in present tense very often (or very well), so I prompted ChatGPT with “Write a short fiction story in present tense” to see an example:

Title: The Elevator Stops at Floor Six

The elevator jerks to a halt.

I frown at the glowing button panel. No one pressed six. I’m alone, briefcase in hand, already late for the pitch meeting on twenty-one. The doors part with a reluctant sigh.

The hallway beyond is dark.

Not pitch-black, just… dim, like the building forgot to pay full attention here. The lights flicker weakly overhead, casting yellow puddles on the faded green carpet. It smells faintly of dust and something sharper—ozone, maybe. Like after a thunderstorm.

I shouldn’t step out. I don’t want to. But something tugs at me. Curiosity, or maybe the sense that I’ve been here before, in a dream I forgot to remember.

I cross the threshold.

The doors close behind me with a metallic whisper. I turn, startled, but there’s no button, no panel—just blank wall where the elevator once stood.

The hallway stretches in both directions. Silent. Still.

I pick a direction.

The silence isn’t empty. It hums. The way an old CRT TV would hum, just on the edge of hearing. And there’s something else—a soft sound, like paper rustling. I follow it.

At the end of the corridor is a door. Pale wood, unmarked, slightly ajar.

Inside is a room with no windows and a long table surrounded by mismatched chairs. A single incandescent bulb dangles from the ceiling. On the table: a stack of manila folders. Each one has a name written in marker on the front.

Mine is on top.

I don’t want to touch it, but I do. I open it.

Inside are photos—of me. Some are recent. Others are from years ago, moments I barely remember: my eighth birthday, the night I broke my arm in college, the exact second I decided not to call my father back.

I flip deeper.

There are transcripts. Conversations I’ve had, thoughts I haven’t spoken. One page reads: He steps into the hallway, knowing he shouldn’t.

My breath catches.

I look up.

There’s someone in the chair at the far end of the table. I didn’t see him come in. He’s wearing a suit that doesn’t fit quite right and has a face that feels like it’s borrowed—familiar, but wrong. He smiles gently.

“You’re early,” he says.

“For what?”

He opens a folder of his own.

“For your reassignment.”

I stare. “I don’t work here.”

“You didn’t,” he says. “But you came to floor six.”

He gestures around the room. The walls are pulsing slightly, like they’re breathing. The air smells like memory.

“This building is a little miswired,” he continues. “Sometimes people press twenty-one and end up here.”

“What is this place?”

“A sorting room,” he says simply. “Some floors are about destinations. This one’s about decisions.”

I back toward the door. It’s no longer there.

“You can go back,” he says. “But you won’t be the same. That’s the price of seeing this place.”

“What’s the other option?”

He taps my file. “Stay. Help sort.”

I look down at the folder still in my hands. My photo stares up, mid-blink. I can’t tell if it’s asking or warning.

Behind me, the hum grows louder. The lights flicker once, then steady.

I pull out the chair beside him and sit.

Ok, that’s not too shabby. Maybe not the best short fiction I’ve ever read, but it did what I asked and gave a me respectable short fiction story in present tense.

Will I ever be tempted to submit this and feel like I was in any way the one who “created” it, just because I came up with the promp? No. Absolutely not. That is crossing my moral boundary and firmly against the rules of most markets.

(And yes, I do see the irony of publishing it on this blog, even as an example.)

Do I think AI will get even better in the future? Yes, absolutely it will.

AI will be able to emulate other writers and may even come to have a voice of its own (which is a weird and unsettling thought for me) but my voice is unique as well, and it is really up to me to put in the time and effort to build my body of work so I can be heard.

And I also think there is something cathartic about expressing ideas in your own distinct voice.

So until AI pries the keyboard from my cold dead hands, I will continue to write. I do it for the journey, for my own mental health, and just in case someone out there might read it and think, “Hey, I like what this guy has to say.”

-James

* I fully acknowledge this must sound like a bit of double-talk coming from a place with a tag line that reads: “All about getting published,”