The fantasy genre is full of authors trying to do Tolkien but bigger—more complex lore, nuanced morality, bigger cast of characters, etc. etc. They copy the shallow aspects while losing all the vision.

The lesson for authors is you will never beat Tolkien at his own game. /1

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1948436665904623915

The next “Tolkien” will be doing something so radically different than LoTR that the comparison would seem absurd on its face. We’ve already seen the results of trying to have the “biggest” story. It leads nowhere.

Art needs clarity of purpose—which lends itself to brevity. /2

The issue with AI is not that it’s high-quality content. The problem is that it’s mass produced medium-grade content. Assembly line to the hand-craftsman.

In other words, it’s never been more difficult for up and coming indies to win the attention economy. /1 Hypothetically, you’re an average artist wanting to go pro. There used to be a ramp of steady improvement being rewarded with more attention—success. That ramp is now a crater. The hobbyist has to already be pro (or have institutional backing) to not drown in the digital sea. /2

All right, this post has got me worked up. Isaac is going to describe how you take your story from mediocre to good. And then good to great.

First step is not treating your novel as a bunch of individual components like your English teacher described. /1

https://twitter.com/reviewspossum/status/1975722884258537521

First, everyone and their mother has a f****** magic system. I’m so sick of it. No one ever asks *why* they want magic in their settings. They just want the slickest video game mechanics so their characters can be cool. I can’t tell you how many outlines I’ve been sent…
/2

Okay, so as the alien discourse has been flooding for my feed for the past few days, I am going to do what no scientist (or sci-fi author) has been able to do, and prove conclusively that aliens positively exist.

And also why Christians shouldn’t care.

Thread below. /1 BEHOLD, AN ALIEN.

Before you click away, this isn’t bait. The interesting thing about the alien discourse is that it’s taken on a religious dimension, so much so that this question has captured imaginations for centuries.

But why? We’ve known forever that we aren’t alone. /2

40k impressions and 1.1k likes? F*** it. I'll do an analysis of Eragon. One major caveat I want to get out of the way is that I'm aware of Paolini's extraordinarily young age when writing these books, and none of my critique is meant to reflect badly on the artist. /1

https://twitter.com/HariSel57511397/status/1968516698656460931

In fact, I would say assembling a fantasy series of this length and coherency is a downright achievement, regardless of anyone's gripes. Now that that's out of the way, the most interesting thing I find about the Eragon series is how derivative it is. /2

Okay, so what is masculine literature? I bet if I asked the Rightwing, I would receive responses like stories with themes of tradition, honor, courage, etc. etc. These are very superficial and vague answers and overlook a critical divide between masculine and feminine art. /1

https://twitter.com/0xalaric/status/1968051848071524731

We have to get at the fundamental way the sexes think to understand how they relate to art. Women (on average) see art as interior self-expression. Men see art as subcreation. Hence the example why girls want to put Batman in a dress and boys conceptualize Batman as an ideal. /2

Upon request, I'll write this thread. FMA:B isn't a Christian story, but it's something I recommend every Christian artist in the West to take notes from. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is the virtuous pagan stumbling into Christian themes without realizing it. /1 The story follows the brothers Ed and Al. Prodigal scientists (or alchemists in the story's fantasy setting), they set out to resurrect their dead mother. They are struck down for their hubris by the setting's God, and they go on a spiritual journey to redeem themselves. /2

Even though Sci-Fi is the atheist genre, it’s telling that they reinsert God at every opportunity, just with makeup and extra forehead ridges.

The problem with materialist storytelling is that it’s boring. So Sci-Fi authors often sneak the magic in with a new coat of paint. 1/

https://twitter.com/gaulicsmith/status/1963897433282199657

If they were to tell stories like they teach in public schools, the message would be: humanity is an accident, we aren’t going anywhere, if we do it doesn’t matter, and you’re all going to die someday. Also you’re monkey spawn.

That’s not inspiring. /2

Conservatives can complain about wokeness all day long, but even if we snapped our fingers and magically retook the institutions, most stories would still be hot garbage. The reason is most authors fundamentally misunderstand storytelling. 1/ I've found most modern authors are led by tropes rather than using tropes to craft a coherent vision. For example, they dump dragons and elves and even a cool thieves' guild in the setting with really intricate lore without first thinking *why* those things should be there. 2/

I will always point to the X Files as the most important *modern* text for RW writers. It's about the American Empire trying to contain spiritual realities--which is a far stranger, more dangerous world than anyone wants to admit. It's a story set right before the collapse. 1/ The sword hanging over nearly every episode is either our protagonist Mulder breaking the news to the public or the monster getting out. In either case, American normalcy dies. The world of consumerism is traded for a plunge into reality. No one wants this to happen but... /2

This is a worthy critique. Why do I insist on creating my audio dramas, even though I'll never pull the same numbers as Critical Drinker? Why does a RW artist swim against the algo, even though there's no tangible benefit?

Because existing in perpetual reaction is hell. 1/

https://twitter.com/Localist132215/status/1955703063194275872

Last year, the entire Conservative movement was subjected to The Acolyte, an awful show designed to humiliate SW fans and RW'ers.

And every Conservative influencer watched it. They had to, in large part because it was their paycheck. They tortured themselves effectively. /2

Okay, since so many people are having trouble understanding the political landscape of America in 2025, I’ll lay it all out—logic in full. Disaffected liberals, centrists, and moderates of all stripes take note, this is why white America is done with you.

A thread /1

https://twitter.com/tookysmag/status/1918364423309431204

The Post-WW2 consensus, the foundation of all of America’s current political woes, sold white Americans on a narrative that the worst sin was racism and that this country was held back from the secular liberal utopia by the irrational bigotry and hatred of white Americans. /2

I was skimming an indie novel, and I was struck by how scenes with heavy action still bored me to death. Action is good, but action that reveals character is 100x better.

For example, go to Cowboy Bebop. The slippery way Spike fights tells the viewer everything about him. 1/ What separates the amateurs from the masters is to be able to do three or four things at once with the same scene. Action should usually be accompanied by an insight, an idea to underscore, or a new aspect of a character. This is why the fights in FMAB are immaculate. 2/

I believe that the future direction of the book industry is trending towards maximalist, highly detailed book covers. At least, for those indies who wish to remain competitive in an oversaturated market.

Here’s some tips on cover art and how to stand out from AI slop. /1
Here’s a cover I whipped up with AI until I can commission a proper one from an artist. It’s decent and it gets the proper vibe across.

However, there are a few problems. The guy has two hoods. The city has blurry details, and the picture gets worse the longer you squint. /2

Some thoughts on what I think destroys modern writers.

The first and foremost is that writers view their stories as an expression of a product and not vision. This leads writers to treat tropes and the fantastical as commodities at a store rather than artistic intent. 1/ This leads to rampant homogenization where every setting has elves and dwarves and a thousand kinds of dragon, but without anything really being said through the setting. You have authors writing 150 page histories, and it all feels the same. 2/

An interesting trend @KingEmprPenguin noted was the rise of movies and television that were meta-commentaries on other stories. They only made sense when a person was inundated with all the tropes. Now I’m not saying this is bad in practice, in fact, Megamind is an example… 1/ of a story I quite like that falls in this category. But the whole hero stops being a hero and handing the city to the villain only makes sense where tropes exist independently of their bearing in reality. It only makes sense when heroes and villains are morally immaterial. /2

Indiana Jones was a product of its time. His ideals of putting the whole of human history in a museum could only spring up in liberal fantasy.

But history has not ended. The past is still alive, and these symbols move among us just as they did thousands of years ago. The brilliance of Indiana Jones has always been the acknowledgement that the past has real power, and this creates a contradictory tug and pull as Indiana regularly encounters the supernatural, only to see it stuffed away at the final moment.

Modern people have this really naive view of Christ’s Redemption of Mankind. They think it saves you from all earthly consequences, that as soon as you say the magic words, you instantly fix everything you broke in your life. /1 But that’s not how any of this works. You break something when you sin, and just because you “repent”, that doesn’t mean you’ll get it back. A man can’t undo an adultery anymore than a woman can’t reclaim her virginity. Thinking otherwise is pure cope, and frankly, immoral. /2

One of the interesting things about the degeneration of modern culture is that you can trace the progressing dementia with the gradual inability to depict masculine characters.

Take Kirk for instance. In his classic iteration, he’s practically a sci-fi James Bond. 1/ He’s calm, capable, self-assured. He believes in what he’s doing, and he knows exactly what he wants out of life.

He’s a Starship Captain, and he doesn’t doubt himself in the task. It’s practically in his blood, and the adventure is what gives him life. 2/

I’ve been thinking a lot about the vivisection of words and how they relate to the writing. I talked earlier about the dinosaur/dragon distinction, but I’ve also been interested in the evolution of our language.

You see, we don’t invent new words anymore 1/ We invent slang. We create short term words with a rapid half-life. Usually vulgar, these words are exclusively used in lowbrow contexts such as memes or the general online discourse. While they often slip out into conversation, they’re frequently used self ironically. /2

People underestimate how bad this trend is. The mainstream industry has completely locked out young men, meaning any upcoming talent is denied access to the funding and marketing to take their talents to the next level.

You've lost a generation of male authors. 1/

https://twitter.com/J0hnADouglas/status/1856100755280679412

Now I'm usually the first to decry Tradpub and the last to criticize indie, but there is no denying the old power of institutional backing. At the end of the day, culture is mass production, and Tradpub controls many of the levers that make that possible. 2/