What’s New at The Writing King
October 4 to October 10. 73 new pieces this week: 65 articles, 2 episodes, 1 press release, 1 holiday, 2 tributes and 2 abouts.
Articles 65Leaders and Their Stories 2Press Releases 1Holidays and Observances 1Tributes 2Abouts 2
Featured this week
Oct 10 · Fiction, Writing
Reverse Tropes: Six Ways to Turn a Tired Trope Inside Out
This week, Richard breaks reverse tropes into six moves any writer can use to turn a tired trope into a fresh premise.
Oct 10 · Artificial Intelligence, Society
A Hiker Used AI to Find a Waterfall. The Forum Sent Her to Hell.
This week, Richard satirizes the anti-AI pile-on by moving it from a writing group to a hiking forum.
Oct 10 · Writing, Writing Craft
Frankenstein’s Creature Has Worn Many Faces. Only One Is Mary Shelley’s
This week, Richard traces how Frankenstein's creature changed from Mary Shelley's novel to the stage, the 1831 engraving, Karloff and Wrightson.
Articles
Oct 10 · Critical Thinking, Society
Did We Miscount the World’s Population? What the Rural Undercount Means
This week, Richard looks at the study claiming the world undercounts rural people, and what it does and doesn't change about falling birth rates.
Oct 10 · Artificial Intelligence, Critical Thinking
Is Consciousness Quantum? Penrose Is Half Right
This week, Richard weighs the quantum theory of consciousness and explains why he thinks the brain is a radio, not the source of the music.
Oct 10 · Writing, Writing Craft
Petty Motivations Make Characters Human
This week, Richard makes the case for petty character motivations: spite, envy and the urge to prove someone wrong.
Oct 10 · Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity
AI Companies Are Preparing for a Catastrophe. Which One?
This week, Richard asks what AI companies are preparing for when they war-game a catastrophic AI incident.
Oct 10 · Writing, Writing Craft
Anatomy of a Writer: The Parts That Do the Real Work
This week, Richard dissects the anatomy of a writer, from the ink-blot brain to the battle-scarred wallet.
Oct 10 · Writing, Writing Craft
Guillermo del Toro’s Writing Advice: Love Your Monsters
This week, Richard walks through Guillermo del Toro's nine pieces of writing advice and adds his own take on each.
Oct 10 · Book Marketing, Publishing
Free Book Marketing: Seven Ways That Cost Time Instead of Money
This week, Richard ranks seven free ways to market a book by what they really cost: time.
Oct 10 · Artificial Intelligence, Technology
Should Your AI Report You to the Police?
This week, Richard asks where the line is when AI companies start reporting users' private chats to the police.
Oct 9 · Artificial Intelligence, Technology
Anthropic Bans Cruelty Toward Claude: What It Means for Writers
This week, Richard looks at Anthropic's new rule against cruelty toward Claude, why the company made it, and why writers have almost nothing to worry about.
Oct 9 · Business, Publishing
Work-for-Hire Contracts: What the Asimov’s Cover Fight Teaches Freelancers
This week, Richard looks at the Asimov's cover contract fight and explains when a work-for-hire deal is fair and when it's a rights grab.
Oct 9 · Fiction, Writing Craft
Genre Fiction vs Literary Fiction: Don’t Confuse Taste With Skill
This week, Richard takes on the old genre-versus-literary fight and explains why disliking a book isn't the same as proving it's badly written.
Oct 9 · Critical Thinking, Personal Growth
Florida Hurricane Prep Rituals: The Grocery Run, the Water Pallet and the Generator in the Box
This week, Richard pokes fun at Florida's hurricane prep rituals, from the water pallet brawl to the generator nobody ever starts.
More articles this week
- Oct 9The Most Insulting Line of Dialogue Ever Written for the Screen
- Oct 9Loki Through the Ages: From Norse Myth to Marvel, The Mask and Dogma
- Oct 9“You Are Utterly Disgusting”: A Book Festival, an AI Cover Ban and a Pile-On
- Oct 9Who Rewrote the Sligachan Legend: AI or the Tour Buses?
- Oct 9Why I Don’t Like Reedsy for Ghostwriting: The NDA Problem
- Oct 9Layers: How I Ride Out Florida Power Outages in My Apartment
- Oct 9The Enshittification of Amazon
- Oct 9Publishers Cancel Books Over AI While Using It in Secret
- Oct 9I Was Getting 100 Spam Emails a Day. $4.50 a Month Fixed It.
- Oct 8Kessler Syndrome: How Space Debris Could Close Earth’s Orbit
- Oct 8Amazon Is Blocking Real Readers From Book Reviews
- Oct 8Should a Novella Get a Paperback, or Go Ebook Only?
- Oct 8BookFunnel Download Problems: Fixes, Scams and Alternatives
- Oct 7How to Find Plot Holes in Your Novel (Most Are Character Holes)
- Oct 6Reshoring: The Factory Is the Easy Part
- Oct 6Most of the Books I Was Forced to Read in High School Were Crap
- Oct 5Plot Armor: Signs Your Hero Is Too Safe, and How to Fix It
- Oct 5Should You Sell Lifetime Rights to Your Self-Published Book for a Modest Advance?
- Oct 5Shame Doesn’t Stop Artists From Using AI. It Stops Them From Telling You.
- Oct 5AI Labels on TikTok and Meta Are Flagging Human Work
- Oct 5Fan Art Copied by AI: Glass Houses, Copyright and the Pile-On
- Oct 4Real Names in a Book: Who Gets Sued, the Author, the Publisher or the Ghostwriter?
- Oct 4When Characters Take Over the Plot, Let Them
- Oct 4“You’re Not a Real Author”: The Pile-On Over AI-Assisted Books
- Oct 4Does Human Writing Have a Soul?
- Oct 4Does AI Have a Soul? Wrong Question
- Oct 4Humor in Book Marketing: Getting Attention Without Begging
- Oct 4How Long Should a Chapter Be? Manuscript Habits That Save You Later
- Oct 4The Business Novel and the Companion Workbook: Two Formats Business Authors Overlook
- Oct 4The Back of the Book: Index, About the Author, Acknowledgments and Back Cover Copy
- Oct 4I Build My Own Software Tools With Claude, and Some of Them Bit Me
- Oct 4What Years of Buying From IT Vendors Taught Me
- Oct 4Three Management Habits That Waste Good People
- Oct 4I Write Books for a Living. I Barely Read Them Anymore.
- Oct 4The Coach and the Webinar That Sold Me Nothing
- Oct 4The Work I’d Cringe At Now, and Why I’m Glad I Do
- Oct 4Preface, Prologue, Foreword or Introduction: What Goes Where
- Oct 4Who Is Your Book For? Build a Reader Avatar Before Chapter One
- Oct 4Why I Won’t Build a Ghostwriting Business That Scales
- Oct 4How I Hire a Virtual Assistant: Do It, Script It, Hand It Off
- Oct 4The Mail Carrier Who Thought Flipping Houses Was Easy
- Oct 4What Wedding Photography Taught Me About Pricing Creative Work
- Oct 4You Can’t Edit Your Way Onto Wikipedia
- Oct 4Cloudflare’s Free Tier Got My Money, and I’d Pay Again
- Oct 4Bottom-Up, Top-Down: Why I Build Both Ways at Once
- Oct 4Six Months in Las Vegas and I Never Placed a Bet
- Oct 4My Smart Speaker Took Over a Device I Never Connected
- Oct 4The Finished Movies Studios Threw Away for a Tax Write-Off
- Oct 4Reading Josephus: Pick the Right Translation and Watch His Bias
- Oct 4Research Your Amazon Categories Before You Write a Word
Leaders and Their Stories
Oct 8 · Personal Growth, Thought Leadership
Ozana Giusca: Reflecting the Architecture of Identity
Ozana Giusca, an identity architect, finds the invisible internal structures behind the experiences people don't like and recodes them. She and Richard Lowe compare notes on belief, ADHD, tribes and echo chambers, and why AI hands each person back their own reflection.
Oct 7 · Personal Growth, Thought Leadership
Enda Quealy: Getting in Your Own Way and Other Cool Things
Enda Quealy left a career selling studio equipment in Ireland for hypnosis and energetic work aimed at self-sabotage. He and Richard Lowe range from neurodivergence and AI tools to SEO versus AEO, private equity and the World War II books worth reading.
Press Releases
Author Richard Lowe Completes Peacekeeper, a Four-Book Science Fiction Series He Started at Age 14
This week, Peacekeeper: Richard Lowe's four-book science fiction series, started when he was fourteen, is complete.
Holidays and Observances
Oct 9 · Observances, Writing
World Mental Health Day: Nothing Was Wrong With Me
This week, for World Mental Health Day, Richard shares how a late AuDHD diagnosis ended years of searching for what was wrong with him.
Tributes
Oct 8 · People
This week, Richard pays tribute to Sir Sean Connery, from Bond and Henry Jones Sr. to the question his late wife answered without hesitation.
Oct 5 · People
This week, Richard Lowe pays tribute to Sam Neill, star of Reilly, Ace of Spies, Jurassic Park and Event Horizon, who died in July at 78.
Abouts
Oct 10 · Personal Growth
My Sister Built the Family We Never Had
This week, Richard writes a birthday tribute to his sister Belinda and the happy family she built out of a hard childhood.
Oct 4 · Personal Growth
The Two Times the Desert Nearly Kept Me
This week, I tell the two stories of the times the desert nearly kept me, at the Kelso Dunes and in Joshua Tree, and what they taught me about hiking alone.