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Every writer I talk to is scared of the same thing right now.

AI is going to bury them.

The internet is screaming two answers, and both are useless: pump out two hundred books a year, or burn the whole thing down.

Nobody is just... having the conversation.
So Alicia McCalla and I sat down and had it.

And what came out of it is the one thing I wish somebody had told me twenty years ago.

You are not helpless in this.
You are making a choice.
You just might not know you are making it yet.

Episode Overview

This one picks up where Alicia and I left off in Episodes 4 and 5, where we landed on a truth that still holds:

AI isn’t replacing writers.
It’s replacing the gatekeepers.

And that is a good thing.

From there we go somewhere new...the fork in the road that every author is standing on whether they see it or not.

On one side is the volume brand: hundreds of books, discoverability rented from the retailer, betting the bank on how much you can produce.

On the other is the depth brand: a story world readers want to live inside, lore and games and audio and characters that feel like family, discoverable by AI because it is unmistakably yours.

Alicia lays out the real economics of both, and they are not close.

We get into perceived value, why raising a price can sell more instead of less, why you need ten true readers instead of ten thousand casual ones, and the single thing no machine can ever copy from you.

It is not a lecture and it is not a pep talk.
It is two working authors who love their worlds, talking honestly about how to build a real living in a world that changed under our feet.

This Episode Answers

• How do I get my work discovered by AI, and not just by the Amazon algorithm?

• Should I build for volume, or build for depth...and what does each one actually cost me?

• Why does raising my prices sometimes sell more books, not fewer?

• What part of my author brand is impossible for AI to copy?

Highlights

• The calculated choice ... volume/retailer brand versus depth/IP story-world brand, and the trade-off hiding inside each

• The math nobody shows you ... $3.28 from a retailer paid sixty days later versus $24 to $125 from a single reader who found you

• Perceived value, live ... the book that jumped overnight from 99 cents to $5.99, and the doodle that climbed from $5 to five figures a job

• The hard truth ... AI will not make you a writer, it will only amplify what is already there

• The one thing AI cannot copy ... your themes, your record, your lived story (and the Juneteenth post that proves it)

Key Quote

"Your brand is your record. We need to author that, or AI invents a wrong you." — Jaime Buckley

Episode Goal

Stop treating AI discoverability as weather that just happens to you. See the fork, understand what each road costs, and choose your lane on purpose...then know that the deeper, more human road is also the one that can actually pay your bills.

From Jaime

If this one punched you in the brain in a good way, do the thing the whole episode is about: pass it to another writer who is ready for the truth.

Then go deeper.

The free article breaks open the choice we keep dancing around, the paid deep dive hands you the framework and a worksheet to find your own lane, and the free conversation guide is there so you can talk this through with your own writing people.

That is the whole point.

You are more than you think you are, and so is your work.

Quick Favor

Please take 10 seconds to leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It helps more writers find these conversations.

Join Us

If this episode reminded you why you started writing in the first place, don’t stop here:

→ Free Article: Why Fiction Authors Don’t Need Thousands of Readers to Make a Living
→ Paid Deep Dive: How Fiction Authors Build a Story World AI Will Recommend

→ Missed the origin?

Find Alicia McCalla

Alicia McCalla

I write badass women in badass stories.

By Alicia McCalla⭐️

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Nothing About This Is Safe is the monthly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring candid conversations with working authors. We go after the real questions fiction writers actually search for ... craft, identity, mindset, publishing reality, money, and creative survival ... without sugarcoating and without performance. If a writer is looking for an honest answer, this is the conversation they were looking for.

“Real writers. Real conversations. No masks. No ego. Subscribe.”

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

GEAR GIRLS on Spotify -->

If you prefer to own the album…

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The Thing Nobody Advertises

The internet will sell you faster.

Faster outlining.
Faster drafting.
Faster worldbuilding.
Faster publishing.

Every tool, every system, every course promises to compress the timeline between you and the finished thing.

And look...some of that is real.

Systems help.
Tools help.
Learning from people who’ve already made the expensive mistakes helps.

But there’s a kind of knowing that none of it can give you.

It’s the kind that lives in your hands.

In your gut.

The kind that makes you stop mid-sentence and know something is wrong with a scene before you can articulate why. The kind that tells you a character is lying...not because of what they said, but because of what they didn’t. The kind that makes a reader feel like your world is real because to you, it already is.

That knowing doesn’t come from shortcuts. It comes from the long way.

And the long way is worth it.

What the Long Way Actually Builds

Here’s what I mean.

Back in 2009, when I first started writing Chronicles of a Hero, I wrote scenes I knew weren’t working.

Flat dialogue.
Pacing that dragged.
Characters who said the right things but felt hollow.

I rewrote them.

Still not right.

Rewrote them again.

No shortcut was going to fix that.

Because the problem wasn’t the scene...the problem was I didn’t know my characters yet. I knew their names and their backstories and what they wanted. But I didn’t know how Wendell’s voice changes when he’s embarrassed versus when he’s afraid. I didn’t know which arguments Alhannah walks away from and which ones she can’t let go of.

I learned that by writing badly for a while.

That’s the thing about the long way.

It doesn’t feel like learning while it’s happening.
It feels like struggling.
It feels like writing scenes that don’t work and wondering if you’re the problem.

You’re not the problem.

You’re building the knowing.

The Difference Between Knowing About and Knowing

There are two kinds of knowing in writing.

Knowing about...that’s information.

You can get that from a book, a course, a YouTube video. You can know about three-act structure, about the hero’s journey, about how to write a villain with genuine motivation. That knowledge is real and useful.

But knowing...that’s different.

Knowing is what happens when you’ve written enough bad villains that you can feel in your chest when a new one rings false. Knowing is what happens when you’ve wrestled with a broken chapter for three days and finally found the thread that was missing...and now you recognize that feeling in other chapters before they break.

Knowing is the craft becoming instinct.

You cannot download instinct.
You cannot shortcut your way to it.

I started out with a wild, world-changing goal in my head…all inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. The very thought of crafting a dynamic, fun, interlinking world, and then living int that world for the remainder of my career seemed impossible.

Could I do it?

I wanted to, but I didn’t ‘know’ if I could.

Then I wrote a book.
Then another.
And another…and on, and on….and on…all linking together.

'Impossible’ soon became possible…and then probable.

I knew I could do this.

The writers who’ve been at this for years have something the writers just starting out don’t yet.

Not talent...talent is distributed pretty evenly.
Not even work ethic.

It’s accumulated reps.

They’ve been wrong enough times, in enough different ways, that they’ve built a kind of internal calibration that’s hard to explain and impossible to fake.

That calibration is what readers feel when a book works.

They can’t always name it.
They just know it feels true.

Shortcuts Have a Hidden Cost

Here’s where it gets sticky.

Shortcuts feel efficient in the moment. And sometimes they are...using a template to structure your outline saves time. Using a beat sheet to check your pacing saves time.

None of that is wrong.

The problem is when shortcuts replace the reps instead of supporting them.

If you’ve never written a chapter that didn’t work and figured out why...you don’t know how chapters fail. If you’ve never built a world from scratch and discovered three chapters in that your magic system has a logical hole...you don’t know how to stress-test a world before it breaks in front of readers.

The shortcut skips the failure.

And the failure was the lesson.

I’m not telling you to be inefficient on purpose. I’m telling you that some things can only be learned by doing them wrong first. And if you shortcut past the wrong, you also shortcut past the understanding.

How to Use This

Practical takeaway...because this isn’t just philosophy.

When you hit the part of the process that’s slow and frustrating and not working... before you look for the hack, ask yourself one question:

What is this difficulty trying to teach me?

Not every difficult thing is trying to teach you something. Sometimes a broken scene is just a broken scene and you need a fresh set of eyes. But a lot of the time, the friction is the signal. It’s the craft telling you there’s something here you don’t understand yet.

Sit with it a little longer than feels comfortable.

Not forever. But longer.

Because the knowing that comes out of that...the thing you figure out in the mess of it...that’s yours permanently.

That goes in your hands.

In your gut.

And the next time you see that problem in someone else’s work, or in your own first draft three manuscripts from now, you’ll know it on sight.

That’s what the long way builds.

That’s what shortcuts can’t buy.

“The Long Way” is Track 8 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series, each one built around a line from the album.

Have a listenL THE LONG WAY

If you want to go deeper on craft systems that support the long way without replacing it ... that’s exactly what Substack for Authors is built around. The framework doesn’t skip the work. It just makes sure the work you’re doing is the right work.

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The Advice That Doesn’t Work

“Write without fear.”

You’ve seen it.

On mugs.
In writing books.
In the keynote speech at every writing conference ever held.

Write without fear.
Be fearless.
Let go of what holds you back.

Great advice.

Blah-b-blah-blah-blah….

Completely useless.

Because fear doesn’t leave when you tell it to. It doesn’t respond to inspirational posters or positive self-talk or the decision that today you’re going to be brave. It just...sits there.

In the passenger seat.
Arms crossed.
Fully buckled in.

The question was never how to get rid of it.
The question is who’s driving.

What Fear Actually Does to Writers

Fear in writing has a specific shape.

It doesn’t usually show up as “I am afraid.”

It shows up as delay.
As perfectionism.
As the chapter you’ve been “almost done with” for six weeks.
As the Substack post you drafted, almost published, then quietly moved back to drafts because something about it felt too exposed.

It shows up as research.

Writers are champion researchers when they’re afraid to write.

Suddenly the magic system needs another three weeks of development. The timeline has an inconsistency that needs resolving before chapter twelve can be written. The character’s backstory needs more depth before the scene where she breaks.

None of that is wrong on its own.

Research matters.
Consistency matters.
Depth matters.

But fear is an excellent mimic. It will wear the costume of diligence and professionalism and craftsmanship right up until the deadline passes and the thing still isn’t done.

The Passenger Seat Principle

Here’s the reframe that actually changed how I work.

Fear is not the enemy.
Fear is information.

It shows up loudest around the things that matter most...the scenes that are most personal, the stories that are most true, the work that has the highest chance of connecting deeply because it came from somewhere real.

Fear has good taste.

It tends to cluster around the good stuff.

So the goal isn’t to silence it.

The goal is to stop handing it the keys.

Fear in the driver’s seat makes every decision. It decides which scenes get written and which ones get endlessly “prepared for.” It decides which posts go up and which ones stay in drafts. It decides how honest you are, how far you push, how much of the real thing actually makes it onto the page.

Fear riding shotgun is different.

It’s still there.

Still talking.
Still pointing out every pothole and questionable turn.

But it doesn’t control the vehicle.

You do.

And you can choose to hear it and keep driving anyway.

That’s not bravery.

That’s just a different relationship with the passenger.

Three Places Fear Shows Up in Your Writing

Knowing fear’s disguises helps you catch it early.

In the blank page…the paralysis before starting. Fear here usually sounds like “I need more preparation.”

The move: write one bad sentence.

Just one.

Fear hates momentum...it prefers the clean stasis of not-yet-started.

In the middle.

This is where most manuscripts die.

The beginning energy is gone and the end isn’t visible yet.

Fear here sounds like “this isn’t working” and “maybe I should start something new.”

The move: identify the next smallest scene you can write.

Not the next right scene.
The next writable one.
Keep moving.
To the finish line.

The draft is done and suddenly there are seventeen more things it needs before anyone can see it. Fear here sounds like “it’s not ready.”

The move: set a deadline with a real human attached to it.

A beta reader, an editor, a publishing date.

External accountability is fear’s natural predator.

The Practical Test

Next time you’re stalling on something...a scene, a post, a decision about your publishing strategy...ask yourself two questions.

First: Is this delay coming from a genuine craft problem that needs solving? Or is it coming from discomfort with how exposed this piece of work makes me feel?

Honest answer only.

Fear is counting on you to misidentify it as diligence.

Second: If I knew this piece would connect deeply with the right readers...if I knew it would matter to someone...would I still be waiting?

If the answer is no...you already know what the delay is actually about.

Write the thing.

Let fear ride along.

It’ll calm down once you’re moving.

It always does.

“Run Toward” is Track 5 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: RUN TOWARD

Learning to recognize fear’s disguises in your own creative process is foundational work ... and it’s one of the first things we dig into inside Substack for Authors, because it shows up just as much in publishing decisions as it does in the writing itself.

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We’ve talked about what Excitable Value is.

We’ve talked about how to build it inside the story itself.

Now for the part that most writers get wrong.

Not because they’re not working hard.

Because they’re working hard at the wrong thing.

They write the book.
Then they market the book.
And those two things are treated as completely separate activities.
First you create.
Then you promote.
The story ends, and then the selling begins.

That model is broken.
Not “suboptimal.”
Broken.

Because readers don’t experience stories that way. They don’t receive a product and then decide whether to recommend it. They enter a world. They explore. They find things. They bring people back to show them.

The question isn’t how to market your story better.

The question is: what is there to find?

The Difference Between a Gimmick and a Layer

I want to make this distinction clearly before we go any further, because confusing these two things will send you down a road that wastes your time and alienates your readers.

A gimmick distracts from the story.

It says, “Look over here instead.”

It’s a marketing trick dressed up as content.
Readers feel it immediately.
They don’t know why, but the thing feels hollow.
It’s chasing attention instead of deepening connection.

A layer deepens the story.

It says, “There’s more here, if you want it.”
It takes something already in the story... a character, a place, a moment, a question... and gives the reader another way to go further in.
It assumes the reader cares, and rewards them for caring.

The test is simple: does this point toward the story, or away from it?

If a reader encounters this thing and it makes them want to return to the story, it’s a layer. If it makes them think about your platform or your brand or your launch, it’s a gimmick.

Only build layers.

What Layers Actually Look Like

Here’s where writers get intimidated, so let me be specific.

A layer is anything that answers a reader’s natural desire: I want to know more. I want to feel that again. I want to share this with someone. I want to belong to the kind of people who love this.

That’s it. That’s the test.

Lore and world depth.

Readers who love your story want to know things the story didn’t have room to explain.

• The history of a place mentioned in passing.

• How a system works in daily life, not just in the dramatic moments the plot required.

• What happened in the thirty years before the story started.

• A character’s childhood.

• The war everyone references but nobody fully describes.

This isn’t bonus content.
This is the world proving it exists beyond the edges of the page.

Character perspective and voice.

• A letter from a character to another character.

• A journal entry.

• A scene from a secondary character’s point of view.

Not because the plot requires it... because the reader has attached to these people and wants more time with them.

Readers always ask me questions about Morphiophelius Smith (a.k.a. Chuck).

No matter how much I reveal, they want more…constantly more.

Discussion and questions.

Give readers something to argue about.

• A choice the protagonist made that could have gone differently.

• A moral question the story raised without resolving.

• A mystery that’s still open.

Readers who are talking about your story are inside it.
Questions keep them there longer.

Artwork, maps, music.

Visual and audio representations of the world aren’t merchandise.

They’re portals.

• A map of a city the protagonist walked through makes that city real in a different way than prose can.

• Character art gives a reader’s mental image a reference point and a conversation starter.

• Music tied to a character or a place creates an emotional anchor that pulls the reader back every time they hear it.

Community.

Readers who love the same story and find each other... become something.

• They’re no longer just readers.

• They’re part of a thing.

That’s a different relationship with your work, and it creates a different kind of loyalty and word of mouth.

Experience Is Not the Same as Content

This is the part I want you to sit with.

There’s a version of “build layers” that turns into “post more content.”

More articles.
More updates.
More behind-the-scenes.

More, more, more until you’re exhausted and your readers are numb and none of it is doing what you hoped.

That’s content production.
It’s not the same as creating an experience.

An experience is something a reader moves through, not past.

It has depth.
It has layers that reward multiple visits.
It creates a feeling of discovery, not consumption.

Content says, “Here is a thing. I made it. Please engage.”

Experience says, “Come further in. There’s something here worth finding.”

The difference is whether what you’re offering points toward the world or toward yourself.

Start Small and Build Outward

I am not telling you to build a transmedia empire before your book launches.

I’m telling you to ask one question: if a reader finishes my story and wants more, where do they go?

If the answer is “nowhere”... you have an opportunity.

Start with one layer. The one that’s most natural to you.

• If you love writing character voices, write a letter from a character.

• If you love worldbuilding, write a lore article about something your story glimpsed.

• If you love discussion, write a post that asks your readers a question the story raised.

One layer, done with genuine love for the world, is worth a hundred pieces of hollow content.

Then add another.

Not because a content calendar told you to.
Because you found something in the story that deserves to exist in a different form.
Because readers asked, and you have an answer worth giving.

The layers compound.

Each one gives new readers more to find, and existing readers more reason to stay and bring someone back.

That’s not a marketing funnel.
That’s a world.

The Only Thing That Doesn’t Work

You cannot manufacture Excitable Value.
You can only build the conditions for it to exist.

You can write characters worth attaching to.
You can build choices that cost something.
You can create emotional stakes, memorable moments, mystery, wonder, humor, and payoff.
You can add meaningful layers that let readers go further in.

And then you step back.
The readers decide.

Word of mouth cannot be commanded. It is not the outcome of a strategy. It is what happens when readers receive something real and want other people to have it too.

Your job is to make something real.

Not louder. Not more. Not more aggressively promoted or more cleverly packaged or more strategically positioned.

Real.

Write stories with Excitable Value.
Build layers that reward the readers who love them.

Give people an experience worth entering, worth returning to, and worth sharing.

The rest follows from that.

It has to.
Because nothing else works.

Jaime Buckley

This is the third and final article in the Excitable Value series. If you found these useful and want to go deeper into building a story-first publishing strategy, the Substack for Authors course is where I teach this framework in full — from craft to platform to reader community. Everything connects.

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The Writers Who Break

I’ve watched writers quit.

Not because they ran out of ideas.
Not because life got too hard, though sometimes that too.

A lot of them quit because something hit them sideways...a bad review, a failed launch, an editor’s notes that felt like an attack, a chapter that wouldn’t work no matter what they tried...

…and they had no give in them.

They were rigid.

If you didn’t know, rigid things, when the wind gets strong enough, don’t bend.

They snap.

The writers I’ve watched stay in this for the long haul have something different.

It’s not toughness exactly...though they’re tough. It’s more like...flexibility. They move with the pressure instead of bracing against it. They absorb the hit and come back upright.

They have roots.

So they can afford to bend.

I’ve been hit so many times, I’d almost identified as a punching bag.

Yet I knew that what I was striving to achieve…the goals and passion I had…allowed me to bend in situation after situation, because I had a clear view and understanding of the long game.

What Roots Actually Look Like

Here’s where writers get confused.

They think flexibility means being open to everything. Changing direction every time someone has an opinion. Rewriting the ending because one beta reader didn’t like the villain. Pivoting their whole publishing strategy because one post underperformed.

That’s not flexibility.
That’s rootlessness.

And rootless things blow away completely.

Real flexibility requires knowing what you won’t move on.

For your writing...what is the core truth of your story?

Not the plot.
The thing the story is actually about underneath the plot.

That’s the root.

Everything else can move.

The structure can change, the pacing can be reworked, a character can be cut or combined or deepened.

But the core truth stays planted.

For your publishing...what do you actually believe about how you serve your readers?

That’s the root.

Platform strategies can shift.
Posting schedules can adjust.
A series that isn’t connecting can be paused.

But your commitment to the work and the readers stays planted.

Know your roots.

Then you can move everything else freely.

The Problem With Hard Shells

A lot of writers build armor instead of roots.

Armor looks like strength. It keeps things out...criticism, doubt, feedback, the uncomfortable possibility that something isn’t working.

And for a while it feels protective.

But armor is rigid.
And rigid things break.

The armored writer can’t take notes from an editor because every note feels like an attack.

Can’t hear reader feedback because it threatens the version of the story they’ve decided is correct.
Can’t adapt when the market shifts or the platform changes or their first approach doesn’t land...because adapting would mean admitting the armor has cracks.

The rooted writer can hear all of it.

They don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but they’re secure enough in what they won’t move on that everything else is just information.

Notes from an editor?

Information.

Some of it useful, some of it not, all of it worth considering.
A launch that didn’t perform the way you hoped?

Information.

What did readers respond to? What didn’t connect? What does that tell you about the next one?

Armor keeps the information out.

Roots let you process it without being destroyed by it.

How to Build Roots

Three questions. Answer them before your next project, before your next launch, before your next major creative decision.

One: What is this story actually about?

Not the premise.
The truth underneath the premise.

Wendell P. Dipmier isn’t just about a boy becoming a hero. It’s about what it costs to become the person you were made to be...and whether the cost is worth it.

That’s the root.

Everything in the story can shift.
That doesn’t.

What’s yours?

Two: What do I owe my readers?

Not what they want from you in the moment. What you’re actually committed to giving them. Honesty?

A specific kind of emotional experience?
A world they can escape into?
A story that doesn’t flinch from hard things?

Name it.

That’s your publishing root.

Hold it when the wind picks up.

Three: What am I willing to be wrong about?

This is the flexibility question.

Everything that isn’t your root is fair game.

Your chapter structure.
Your posting schedule.
Your genre.
Your cover design.
Your series order.
Your platform strategy.

Be specific.

List the things you’ll actually move on when the evidence suggests you should.

Roots plus flexibility.

That’s the combination.

When the Wind Gets Strong

It will.

That’s not pessimism...that’s just how long careers work.

A book won’t land the way you expected.
A platform will change its algorithm.
A story arc you loved will need to be scrapped.
A reader will say something that gets under your skin and stays there.

The wind gets strong.

And when it does, you’ll find out whether you built armor or roots.

Armor holds until it doesn’t. Then it fails completely.

Roots hold through everything.

The tree moves...sometimes dramatically, branches whipping, leaves flying...and when the wind passes, it’s still standing.

Still growing.

The tallest trees move in the wind.

That’s not weakness.

That’s exactly why they don’t come down.

“Soft and Strong” is Track 6 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: SOFT AND STRONG

Understanding what you won’t move on ... your creative roots ... is one of the core frameworks inside Substack for Authors. Because building an audience long-term requires knowing exactly that: what stays planted, and what gets to bend.

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Nobody Talks About the Middle

Every writing article ever written seems to be about beginnings or endings.

How to hook your reader in the first paragraph.
How to stick the landing.
How to open with a bang and close with something that lingers.

Beginnings and endings get all the attention because they’re the parts readers remember most and writers stress about most.

But the middle is where manuscripts die.

Not dramatically.
Not with a crisis you can point to.

They die quietly, somewhere in the second act, when the opening energy has burned off and the ending isn’t close enough to pull you toward it yet. The writer stares at the document and feels... nothing.

Not inspired.
Not blocked exactly.

Just... stuck in a gray zone with no landmarks.

That’s the middle.

And almost nobody teaches you how to survive it.

What the Middle Actually Is

Here’s the thing about the middle of a story...or the middle of a writing career, or the middle of building an audience, or the middle of any long creative project.

It’s not failure.
It’s not stagnation.
It’s not a sign that something is wrong with you or your work.
It’s the part where the transformation is actually happening.

Beginnings are exciting because everything is possible and nothing is at risk yet.

Endings are satisfying because the shape is visible and the work is nearly done. But the middle is where the actual change occurs...in your characters, in your story, in yourself as a writer.

It just doesn’t feel like change while it’s happening.
It feels like being lost.

Think about every character you’ve ever loved in fiction. The transformation that made them worth reading about didn’t happen at the opening scene or the finale. It happened in the long, grinding, unglamorous middle.

In the failed attempts.

The wrong turns.
The moments where they couldn’t see the way forward and kept moving anyway.

You’re writing that part right now.

You’re also living it.

The Specific Lies the Middle Tells

The middle is a liar.

It specializes in a few particular deceptions.

“This isn’t working.”

Sometimes true.
Usually not.
Usually what isn’t working is your proximity to the material...you’ve been inside it long enough that you can’t see it clearly anymore.

The fix isn’t to scrap it.
The fix is distance, a trusted reader, or just moving forward and trusting that revision exists.

“I should start something new.”

The new idea always looks better than the stuck project.

It has no middle yet.
It’s all beginning…all possibility, no problems.

This is the siren song that fills the world with half-finished manuscripts.

Finish the thing.

The new idea will still be there.

“Other writers don’t struggle like this.”

Uhhh, yeah, they do.

Every single one of them.

The ones who seem to move through projects effortlessly either aren’t showing you the struggle or have just gotten better at surviving it.

The middle is universal.

You’re not the exception.

How to Navigate Without a Map

The middle doesn’t come with landmarks. That’s the problem.

So you build your own.

Small targets, not big ones.

In the middle you can’t see the end, so stop trying to navigate by it.

What’s the next scene?

Not the next chapter. The next scene.

Write that.

Then the next one.

The end will appear when you’re close enough to see it.

Trust the outline but don’t worship it. If you outlined the book, the middle is when the outline starts feeling wrong. Characters have become real people and they’re not doing what you planned.

That’s not a crisis...that’s the story finding its truth.

Adjust.

A living story is better than a correct outline.

Mark what’s working.

In the middle, it’s easy to see only what’s broken.

Deliberately identify what’s actually good.

The scene that landed. The character moment that surprised you. The line you didn’t expect to write.

Those things exist in there.

Find them.

They’re the evidence that the story is alive, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Set a completion condition, not a deadline.

“I’ll finish this draft by March” is easy for the middle to defeat. “I’ll write until this draft is done” is harder to argue with.

The middle wants permission to stop.

Don’t give it a specific date to hide behind.

When I was writing my first version of a horror novel (I know,…me? But it’s true,) the middle refused to behave. I’m a plantser, so my condition was, “I’m going to write this version until it forces me to look over my own shoulder.”

It worked.

For me…AND my readers.

The Other Side Exists

Here’s what I want you to hold onto when you’re in it.

The middle is not permanent.

It never has been.

Every finished manuscript you’ve ever read…every book that changed something in you, every story that made you feel less alone...had a middle. A long, difficult, landmark-free stretch where the writer couldn’t see where they were going and kept going anyway.

They got to the other side.

Not because it stopped being hard.

Because they didn’t stop.

The climb is coming.

It’s already in there, in the pages you’ve written, waiting for you to get close enough to see it.

Keep writing.

“Not Done Yet” is Track 3 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: NOT DONE YET

The middle is also where most writers abandon their Substack ... right when consistency is about to start compounding. That’s exactly the pattern we break inside Substack for Authors. The framework is built for the long middle, not just the exciting launch.

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Hello, my friend.

Since the last article, many have reached out and asked me questions, so I’d like to clarify something before we get started here…

This is personal to me. These experiences.

You’ve asked me to share what I do, how I do them and even WHY I do them…and how I’ve been able to accomplish a measure of success in all my writing adventures.

Honestly, I didn’t want to teach anything.

I like being invisible, sitting in my secret office, talking to people who don’t exist and rubbing shoulders with mägo, heroes, and creatures so old they make Cher seem young.

All I want to do is help you.

…because I want you to be successful…whatever that means to you.

This is me, trying in my awkward way, trying to help you.

As I tell everyone…I am a perfect walking example to everyone else.

…even if that example is what NOT to do.

Alrighty, I’m done.

Moving on.

Last time, I defined Excitable Value.

The short version: it’s the quality that makes a reader close your book, look around for someone nearby, and say, “You need to read this.”

Not “I liked it.”
Not “it was pretty good.”
The thing that makes keeping it to themselves feel almost impossible.

I know, I know.. “Jaime, this is all great in theory, but how do we DO that?”

You’re SO impatient.

Let’s get practical.

I want you to understand that Excitable Value is not luck.
It is not genre.
It is not the size of your marketing budget or whether you know the right people or whether some influential reviewer happens to trip over your book on a Tuesday.

It is craft.

And it can be built.

Here’s how.

Start With a Character They Can’t Leave

Everything else on this list matters. But none of it works if the reader doesn’t care about the person at the center of the story.

Not like.
Care.

Those are different.

I’ve liked characters I’d forget by morning. I’ve cared about characters who kept me up at 2am, staring at the ceiling, legitimately worried about a fictional person.

That second thing is what you’re after.

What creates it?

One thing, reliably, above all others: the reader has to see themselves in the character.

Not the circumstances.
Not the fantasy-world-magic-powers or the detective job or the post-apocalyptic survival skills.

The interior of the character.
The fear underneath the confidence.
The hope they’re embarrassed to admit.
The wound they’re still working around without knowing it.
The small private thing they want that they’d never say out loud.

When a reader sees that... and recognizes it as their own... something shifts. The character stops being a character. They become a person. And you do not abandon people.

It’s why I created Wendell.

He’s the best choice I could think of, and why I tell readers, “He’s just normal.”

That may not seem like much, but to a teen, Wendell is likely in their circle of friends. He’s the one they’d eat lunch with, and hang out with.

Heck, one of my first reviews said, “Wendell is someone I’d like to date.”

Date.

Readers relate to the person who is trying to figure out who they are and trying to be something more.

Give Them Choices That Actually Cost Something

Here’s a fast way to find out if your story has Excitable Value: look at the last three choices your protagonist made. Now ask, could they have chosen differently without it costing them anything real?

If the answer is yes... those aren’t choices.
They’re plot steps.

Real choices are the ones where something is genuinely on the line.

Not just outcome.
Values.
Identity.
Relationship.
The thing they believe about themselves.

The choices readers talk about are always the ones where both options hurt. Where the protagonist can’t win cleanly. Where choosing one good thing means losing another, or where doing the right thing costs more than they thought they could pay.

Those are the scenes readers replay.
Those are the moments they describe to their friends.

Not “and then the dragon showed up.”
The moment the character had to choose who they were going to be when it actually cost something to be that person.

Build those moments deliberately. Don’t let your protagonist off easy when the story arrives at a fork. The more loaded the choice, the more it sticks.

Emotional Stakes Are Not the Same as Physical Stakes

This one is subtle, but it matters a lot.

Physical stakes are “will the character survive?” Emotional stakes are “will the character become someone they can live with being?”
Physical stakes are useful.

They create urgency.
Readers want the protagonist to live.

But emotional stakes are what create investment.

Readers don’t just want the protagonist to survive.

They want them to be okay.
They want them to figure it out.
They want them to find what they’re looking for, even if they don’t know exactly what that is yet.

Physical stakes without emotional stakes produce a thriller that’s fun to read and gone from your memory in a week.

Emotional stakes, running underneath everything else, are what make a story stay.

Ask yourself: what does your protagonist stand to lose emotionally in this story?

Not their life.

What belief about themselves, what relationship, what version of who they hoped they’d be?
What is the internal cost if they fail?

Name it.

Then make sure the story is actually threatening it.

The emotional stakes with Wendell have always been internal conflict…dealing with the expectations and doubts about himself. For crying out loud, he’s a KID. Yet he’s expected to make choices that would cause most adults to flee for their lives.

…and that’s just it: The right choices Wendell has to make WILL threaten his life.

Will he survive?

Read the books and find out.

Memorable Moments Are Built, Not Stumbled Into

Every story with Excitable Value has at least a handful of moments that readers remember years later.

Not scenes, exactly.
Moments.

A line of dialogue.
An image.
A choice.
A quiet beat after something loud.

These don’t happen by accident.

The writers who produce them are doing something specific: they’re paying attention to what the story has been building toward, and they’re letting it arrive with full weight.

They don’t rush past the moment to get to the next plot point.
They stop.
They let it land.

The moment your character finally says the thing they’ve been unable to say for two hundred pages... that’s a moment.

Let it breathe.

The moment the reader realizes something before the protagonist does, and has to watch it unfold... that’s a moment.

Don’t move past it too fast.

The moment the world reveals itself to be larger or stranger or more heartbreaking than the reader expected... stay there.

Memorable moments are the ones where you trust your reader enough to be quiet.

To stop explaining.
To let the weight of everything that came before do the work.

Most writers rush past them.

Don’t.

Mystery, Wonder, and the Art of Not Explaining Everything

Readers talk about the things they’re still thinking about.

If you answer every question your story raises, you’ve given readers nothing to carry out the door.

You’ve completed the transaction.
They consumed the story.
Done.

NOOOOOOOOoooooo….

If there are things left UNresolved... things hinted at, glimpsed, implied but not explained... the story doesn’t end when the book closes.

It continues in the reader’s head.

They keep turning it over.
They want to talk about it, because talking helps them think, and they’re still thinking.

I wrote a short story that’s linked to Chronicles of a Hero, called Rent.

The intent was to link to the current serial chapters being released, plus link in music we’d released onto Spotify…all back to a single event.

…a factory accident.

In Rent, I left only hints of information…not about the characters in that short story, but what’s connected to them, and the series itself.

This is not the same as a cliffhanger or a cheap withhold. I’m not talking about yanking answers away to manipulate readers into buying the next book.

I’m talking about the genuine feeling that the world is larger than what you showed. That there are histories here that predate the story. That characters have interior lives that extend beyond the scenes you wrote. That something is going on underneath the surface that will eventually mean something.

That feeling of depth is what creates wonder. Wonder is what makes readers browse your website, look for maps, ask questions, imagine things you didn’t write.

They are building the world alongside you.

That’s what you want.

Humor Is Not Optional

I know, I know.

You’re writing something serious.
Something meaningful.
The themes are weighty and the stakes are real and there’s no room for...

Stop.

Humor is not the opposite of seriousness.

Don’t look at me like that.
It’s not.

It’s the thing that makes seriousness bearable.
It’s the breath between heavy moments that keeps readers from going numb.
It’s the proof that your world is inhabited by real people, because real people find things funny even when everything is terrible.

Especially when everything is terrible, actually.

Humor is also the single fastest way to make a reader feel affection for a character. One perfectly timed, genuinely funny moment can accomplish what three chapters of backstory couldn’t.

Don’t sanitize it out of your work because you’re afraid it’ll undercut the serious parts.

It won’t.

Promise.

It’ll make the serious parts hit harder, because the reader let their guard down for a second.

That’s the job.

Payoff Is a Promise Kept

Everything else on this list creates Excitable Value inside the reading experience. Payoff is what makes the whole thing land once it’s done.

Payoff is a promise kept.

You planted something early.
You let it grow through the middle.
You delivered it at the end.

Not every thread.
Not every hint.

But the ones that matter most to the character and the reader?

Those need to arrive.

When they do... when the reader gets to the moment that the whole story was quietly moving toward, and they feel it click into place... that’s the moment they close the book and look for someone to tell.

That’s Excitable Value.

It is not about being the loudest story on the shelf.
It is not about tricks or spectacle or the most expensive magic system or the most elaborate plot.
It is about a reader who finishes your story and feels like they were given something real.

Build that.

Everything else follows.

Next: we’ll talk about how to build meaningful layers around your story…the things that let readers go deeper, stay longer, and bring other people in.

Not hype.

Not manipulation.

Experience.

We’ll talk soon.

Jaime Buckley

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The Voice You Can’t Shake

There’s a voice in your head that knows exactly where you’re weak.

Not a general critic.
Not a vague sense of self-doubt.

This one is specific.

It knows which scenes you’re least confident about. It knows the exact moment you started hedging in a chapter. It knows the difference between the writing you do when you’re in flow and the writing you do when you’re performing...and it will tell you, in your own voice, using your own logic, exactly why the second kind is all you’re capable of.

The reason it’s so hard to argue with?

It sounds exactly like you.

Same cadence.
Same vocabulary.
Same way of framing a problem.

When the doubt shows up, it doesn’t arrive as an outside opinion you can dismiss.

It arrives as your own thought.

Your own assessment.
Your own honest evaluation of the work.

That’s what makes it so effective.

…and so dangerous.

It’s why I use this very voice as a character in Chronicles of a Hero:

Wendell’s Doubt.

The Impersonation Game

Here’s what’s actually happening.

Your brain is very good at pattern recognition.

It has catalogued every piece of feedback you’ve ever received, every comparison you’ve made between your work and work you admire, every moment a sentence fell flat or a reader didn’t respond the way you hoped.

All of it filed away.

It uses all of that to construct a very convincing internal critic that speaks in your voice, uses your reasoning style, and argues from evidence you actually believe.

It’s not you.

But it has learned to impersonate you perfectly.

The tell...the one thing that gives it away...is that it only argues one direction.

Real self-assessment goes both ways.

It finds what isn’t working AND what is.
It identifies problems AND solutions.
It applies the same critical standard to the evidence for your failure as it does to the evidence for your capability.

The internal critic doesn’t do that.

It cherry-picks.
It remembers every rejection and conveniently forgets every connection. It cites the chapter that didn’t land and ignores the one that made a reader cry.

That selectivity is the impersonation.

That’s how you know it’s not actually you thinking...it’s the doubt wearing your face.

Why Writers Are Especially Vulnerable

Most professions have external feedback loops that correct for this.

A carpenter builds a shelf. The shelf either holds weight or it doesn’t.

The feedback is immediate and unambiguous.

Writers work in ambiguity for months or years before any external signal arrives.

The internal critic has enormous amounts of unsupervised time with you.

No check on its conclusions.
No competing evidence from the outside.

Just you and the voice that sounds like you, alone in the document, with no shelf to test.

That’s a long time for an impersonator to practice!

And the longer the gap between external feedback, the more convincing the internal critic becomes. By the time a beta reader or editor or actual reader responds, the critic has been speaking unchallenged for so long that its version of reality feels like the objective one.

This is why isolation is dangerous for writers.

Not just emotionally…but strategically.

A trusted reader isn’t a luxury. It’s a corrective mechanism. It introduces external signal into a system that otherwise runs entirely on internal noise.

How to Tell the Difference

Real self-assessment asks: what specifically isn’t working, and what would fix it?

The internal critic asks: what does this say about whether I’m capable?

Notice the difference.

One is about the work.
One is about your identity as a writer.

The critic always pivots from the work to the person.

That’s not craft feedback...that’s an attack dressed up as craft feedback.

When you catch yourself in that pivot...from “this scene isn’t landing” to “I don’t know if I can write”...stop.

Back up.

Return to the work.

What specifically isn’t landing in the scene?

The pacing?
The dialogue?
The emotional logic?
The transition in or out?

Make it a craft problem.

Craft problems have solutions. Identity attacks don’t...they just spiral.

The voice that sounds like you is counting on you to keep it abstract.

Specificity is the antidote.

Get concrete.
Get surgical.

Ask what, not whether.

The Question That Resets It

When the voice shows up...and it will...one question cuts through faster than anything else.

Would I say this to another writer whose work I respect?

Not a stranger.

A writer you actually respect.

Someone whose work you’ve read, whose effort you’ve seen, whose growth you’ve watched over time.

Would you tell them that their hesitation proves they’re not capable? Would you tell them that one bad chapter means the whole manuscript is wrong? Would you present them with a selective case built entirely from their failures?

Of course not.

Because you’d be able to see that the case was selective.

That it was missing information.

That it wasn’t a fair read of the full evidence.

Your work deserves the same honest assessment you’d give someone else’s.

The voice that sounds like you...isn’t always telling you the truth about you.

“Louder Than the Doubt” is Track 2 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: LOUDER THAN DOUBT

Learning to distinguish real self-assessment from the internal critic is one of the foundational skills inside Substack for Authors...because it shows up in every publishing decision, not just the writing.

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Nobody Is Coming With the Green Light

Let me ask you something.

What are you waiting for?

Not in a motivational-poster kind of way. I mean actually...what is the specific thing?

Because most writers I’ve talked to…and I’ve talked to a lot of them…aren’t waiting for talent.

They already have that.
They’re not waiting for time.
They could find twenty minutes if they really had to.
They’re waiting for permission.

Permission to call themselves a writer.
Permission to publish before they’re “ready.”
Permission to take up space in a genre that already has people in it who seem more qualified, more polished, more...whatever the thing is they think they’re not yet.

I keep asking myself…WHY?

Nobody is coming with that permission.

There is no committee.

There is no moment when the world looks at you and says, “Yes. Now. You may proceed.”

Back in 2000, I was waiting for my ‘big break’ to become a comic book creator with Marvel, or DC, or Image comics. I’d submitted my work and got very polite rejections, and yet something in me said, “But I’m SUPPOSED to do this!”

They ‘had’ to notice me…or I would never have the opportunity to become a comic book creator.

…or so I thought.

That’s when my dad,…my real life hero, came to me in 2004 and said, “You know son, there’s this amazing thing called the internet, and I think it’s here to stay. Through it, you’d have access to the whole world over time, so why not do your Wanted Hero comic book solo?”

That’s when it clicked.

WHY was I waiting?

The Thing About the Door

I spent years working up to things.

Almost published.
Almost launched.
Almost finished.
Almost started.

I had reasons.

Good ones…or at least I THOUGHT they we good ones.

The world was genuinely hard and the timing genuinely wasn’t right and there were genuinely other things I had to handle first.

Some of that was real.

But some of it... some of it was just the comfortable feeling of almost. Almost means you’re still in the game without actually having to play. Almost means you can’t fail yet. Almost is a place you can live for a long time if you’re not careful.

The door was there the whole time.

I kept walking past it.

Not because I didn’t see it. Because stepping through it meant I couldn’t blame the door anymore.

What “Ready” Actually Means

Here’s the thing about waiting until you’re ready.

Ready is not a destination.

It’s a story you tell yourself to explain why today isn’t the day.

I know writers who have been getting ready for eleven years.

Beautiful outlines.
Detailed world maps.
Character sheets with backstories going back four generations.

Everything in place.
Everything except the actual writing.

Because the actual writing is where the permission thing gets real. You can prepare in private. But writing... publishing... putting the thing into the world... that requires you to decide you’re allowed to.

Nope. Let me put that differently.

It requires you to decide you don’t need to be allowed.

That’s the shift.

Not confidence…you don’t need to feel confident.

Not certainty…the uncertainty never fully goes away.

Just the decision that you are going to begin without waiting for the signal that was never coming anyway.

I have a good friend…brilliant writer with solid talent…who finally got fed up with waiting on the ‘right’ time or the ‘right’ opportunity to complete a novel. In fact, he got so sick of trying to find an agent and waiting on some ‘professional’ gatekeeper to tell him what to do, he didn’t complete a book…he wrote a trilogy.

The only thing he regretted, was waiting so long to get his writing butt in gear.

The Cost of Waiting

Every day you wait has a price tag. Most people don’t look at it.

The story you don’t write this year doesn’t just...wait around for you.

It changes.

You change.

The version of that story you could tell today is different from the one you’ll tell in three years…and not always in the direction you’d hope.

Some stories need to be told when the wound is fresh. Some characters only speak when you’re in the right season of your own life to hear them. The waiting doesn’t preserve the material.

Sometimes it just lets it go stale.

And the readers... the ones who would have found something in your work... they’re out there right now reading something else. Not because your thing isn’t worth finding. Because you haven’t put it where they can find it.

That’s not a guilt trip. That’s just math.

What Beginning Actually Looks Like

It’s not dramatic.

No one writes a first chapter and hears trumpets. You sit down, you open the document, and you write a sentence. Probably a bad one.

That’s fine.

Bad first sentences have launched more good books than any amount of waiting ever did.

The beginning doesn’t feel like a beginning while it’s happening.

It feels like Tuesday.
It feels like thirty minutes you carved out while the coffee was still hot.
It feels like uncertainty and a blinking cursor and the distinct possibility that this might not work.

Do it anyway.

Because here is the only thing I know for certain after however many years of doing this:

The writers who have work in the world are not the ones who waited until they were sure. They’re the ones who started before they were.

What the hell are you waiting for?

I’m saying that because you NEED to hear this!

No one has to give you permission to write, to finish, to publish, to share with readers around the whole flippin’ world!

YOU get to decide.
YOU get to choose how and where and when you create, from start to finish.

That also means the ONLY one holding you back…is you.

In the end, when you look in the mirror with regret, you’ll only have yourself to blame.

The Only Permission That Was Ever Real

You want to know where that permission comes from?

You.

It was always you. The whole time, the only signature that ever mattered on the green light was yours.

Nobody can give you what you won’t give yourself. And nobody can take it from you once you do.

So here’s what I want you to do.

Not tomorrow.
Today, before you close this tab.

Write one sentence.

Doesn’t matter if it’s good.
Doesn’t matter if it’s the beginning or the middle or a scene you’re not sure belongs anywhere yet. One sentence, in the document, today.

That’s the beginning.
That’s what it looks like.

...and once you start, you might be surprised how hard it is to stop.

This is one piece of a larger content bridge built around the Gear Girls album Wide Open. The song “Wide Open” explores the same theme…the moment you stop waiting for a door to be opened and realize you’ve been standing next to the handle the whole time.

Have a listen: WIDE OPEN

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The free article exposed the lie: you can’t predict when success will come, and waiting for that certainty will kill your career before it starts.

Writers sabotage themselves by treating creative work like a transaction. They expect results on a timeline, get discouraged when the breakthrough doesn’t arrive on schedule, and quit right before the moment everything could have shifted.

and I both know what it’s like to build for years without knowing if anyone’s paying attention.

• Eric writes short stories, collaborates on 50/50 fiction projects with Ian Dunmore, and serializes his work on Substack…all without a guaranteed payoff. He found fans in the process.

• I had a YouTuber randomly find my work after years of obscurity and buy me audio equipment because he loved my world that much.

Neither of us saw it coming.
Neither of us could have predicted it.
But we were both still there when it happened…because we built the framework to keep showing up even when results didn’t come fast.

This paid article gives you that framework.

It’s not sexy.
It’s not a shortcut.
But it works.

And unlike viral hacks, it lasts.

Step One: Separate Effort From Outcome

The first mental shift required for the long game is brutal: you don’t get to control when success comes.

You can control your effort.
You can control your consistency.
You can control your quality.

But you cannot control timing, discovery, or when a reader decides your work matters to them.

Most writers conflate these two things.

They think:

Read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes readers talk.

Not click.
Not skim.
Not politely nod and move on with their lives.

Talk.

Because that is the real currency for fiction writers now.

Not algorithms.
Not ads.
Not hashtags.
Not clever launch tactics wearing a fake mustache and pretending to be strategy.

Word of mouth.

If you’re paying attention to the pattern in the publishing industry, word of mouth is the future writers actually have a chance to influence.

Notice I didn’t say ‘control’.

That matters.

You cannot force word of mouth. You cannot beg it into existence. You cannot guilt readers into sharing your book. You cannot bribe them into becoming emotionally invested. You cannot stand outside their house with a sandwich board that says, “PLEASE LOVE MY FICTION,” unless you enjoy awkward conversations with law enforcement.

You have to inspire it.

That is where Excitable Value comes in.

‘Excitable Value’ is the quality of a story experience that makes a reader feel something strongly enough that keeping it to themselves becomes difficult.

It is not simply entertainment.
It is not the same as “I liked this book.”

It is the moment a reader closes the story, looks around for someone nearby, and says, “You need to read this.”

That is different.

A story with Excitable Value gives readers layers to connect with. They don’t just read the plot. They attach to the characters. They wonder about the world. They quote the dialogue. They argue about the choices. They imagine what comes next. They want art, maps, side stories, behind-the-scenes notes, songs, lore, discussions, theories, and reasons to stay inside the experience after the last page.

That is the part too many fiction writers miss.

It is not good enough to write a story anymore.

Did you hear me?

It is not good enough to write a story anymore.

Let me say that one more time, so you hear me….

It is not good enough to write a story anymore.

In fact, it’s not good enough to promote a story anymore, either.

You have to help readers experience the story.

• Promotion says, “Please buy my book.”

• Experience says, “Come inside. Look around. There is more here than you expected.”

That difference matters.

A reader may buy a book because of promotion. But they share a book because of emotional ownership. Something in the story becomes theirs. A character reminds them of who they are. A line says what they could never quite explain. A moment gives them courage. A wound gets named. A hope gets restored. A laugh shows up at exactly the wrong time and somehow makes everything better.

That is Excitable Value.

It is the reader’s emotional reason to care beyond consumption.

Fiction writers need to stop thinking only in terms of “books” and start thinking in terms of entry points. A novel may be the central work, yes, but the reader’s relationship with that story can be deepened through many meaningful layers: short fiction, character letters, world lore, artwork, maps, music, reader guides, discussion prompts, merchandise, podcasts, serialized extras, behind-the-scenes commentary, and community conversation.

Not gimmicks.

Layers.

A gimmick distracts from the story.
A layer deepens the story.

That distinction is everything.

The goal is not to bury readers under bonus content until they need a shovel and a mild sedative. The goal is to give them meaningful ways to connect. Each layer should answer a reader’s natural desire:

“I want to know more.”
“I want to feel that again.”
“I want to share this with someone.”
“I want to belong to the kind of people who love this.”

When readers feel that, they become more than customers.

They become carriers.

That’s what word of mouth really is. A reader carries your story into another conversation because it gave them something worth transporting.

And no, this does not mean every writer needs to build a massive fictional universe. Not every story needs maps, songs, secret archives, ancient bloodlines, and seventeen side characters with tragic childhoods and suspiciously good hair.

But every writer should ask the same hard question:

If you cannot answer that, your story may still be good.

But good is crowded.
Good is everywhere.
Good is the minimum cover charge.

Since 2005 I’ve been the writer that told creatives, “just don’t suck, and you can succeed.”

That’s no longer the case.

Excitable Value is what makes a story move.

This is especially important for independent fiction writers. We do not control the shelves. We do not control the media. We do not control the algorithms, the industry trends, the retailer policies, or whether some billionaire wakes up and decides to screw over writers who helped make them a billionaire in the first place.

But we can CHOOSE the experience we create.

We can CHOOSE how deeply we understand our readers.
We can CHOOSE how much emotional honesty we put on the page.
We can CHOOSE whether the story has meaningful stakes, lovable people, painful choices, moments of wonder, humor, mystery, and a reason to come back.
We can CHOOSE whether our world feels like a hallway...or a home.

That is where the work is.

That’s also where the opportunity is.

Because readers do not just want content.

They want connection.

They want stories that make them feel braver, wiser, seen, entertained, challenged, comforted, or less alone. They want stories that give them something they can hand to another person and say, “This. This is what I mean.”

This is where I want to slow down over the next few articles.

Because Excitable Value is not just a phrase. It is a craft principle.

It can be studied.
It can be designed.
It can be strengthened.

In this first article, I wanted to define it.

Next, I want to get practical. I want to talk about how writers actually create Excitable Value inside the story itself: through characters readers attach to, choices that matter, emotional stakes, memorable moments, mystery, wonder, humor, and payoff.

Then I want to talk about how we build meaningful layers around that story so readers have more reasons to connect, return, and share.

Not hype.
Not manipulation.

Experience.

That is the future I believe in for fiction writers.

Not louder marketing.
Not more desperate posting.
Not chasing trends until your soul files a complaint.

Build stories with Excitable Value.

Give readers an experience worth entering, remembering, returning to, and sharing.

Because word of mouth cannot be commanded.
It has to be earned.

And the best way to earn it is to create something readers are genuinely excited to give away.

We’ll talk soon.

Jaime Buckley

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

Every writer wants to know when success will come.

When will the book sell?
When will the audience grow?
When will the work finally pay off?

Here’s the truth no one wants to hear: you’ll never know.

And waiting for that answer is the fastest way to quit before it happens.

The Core Truth

Writers sabotage themselves by treating success like a vending machine. Put in the work, hit the button, get the result. But and I have both learned the hard way: creative careers don’t work that way.

You can’t predict when a reader will find you.
You can’t control when a book will take off.
You can’t force the breakthrough moment to arrive on your timeline.

I had a YouTuber contact me after finding a random video on a channel with under 100 subscribers. He loved my world so much, he bought me audio equipment so I could make audiobooks.

I didn’t optimize for him.
I didn’t target him.
I just put work out there—and years later, he found it.

Eric’s building his career the same way: writing short stories, serializing fiction on Substack, collaborating with other writers, and converting his work into books.

No guaranteed timeline.
No viral shortcuts.
Just consistent output and trust that the right readers will eventually show up.

The emotional toll of this uncertainty is brutal.

Writers watch others seem to “blow up overnight” while they grind in obscurity. They start questioning their talent, their strategy, their entire career—all because they expected results on a schedule that had nothing to do with reality.

The Reality We Avoid

The myth of predictable success survives because it protects our ego.

If we believe there’s a formula, then we just haven’t cracked it yet.
If we believe timing is random, then we have to accept that we might do everything right and still wait years for the payoff.

That’s terrifying.

So we cling to the lie that if we just post at the right time, publish in the right genre, use the right hashtags, we’ll finally get the results we deserve.

But here’s what we lose by chasing that illusion: the years of consistent work that actually build careers.

• Every hour spent obsessing over timing is an hour you didn’t spend writing.

• Every pivot to “what’s hot right now” is a step away from your actual voice.

• Every comparison to someone else’s breakthrough is a distraction from your own path.

Eric proved this by just showing up.

Week after week.
Story after story.
Collaboration after collaboration.
No viral moment.
No sudden explosion.

Just the slow, unglamorous accumulation of work that compounds over time.

That’s the path that works.

And it’s the path most writers refuse to walk because it requires something overnight success doesn’t: faith that the work matters even when you can’t see the results yet.

Your Turn

What would change in your writing life if you stopped waiting for the breakthrough and just focused on the next piece of work?

Join Us

If this hit home, subscribe for more unfiltered truth about writing life, mindset, and creative courage.

If you want the deep-dive framework that shows you how to build a sustainable audience without chasing algorithmic favor, it’s waiting for you in the paid companion article.

Listen to the Full Episode

If you haven’t heard the related conversation on Nothing About This Is Safe, you can listen to it here:
🎙Episode 12: You Can’t Predict When Success Hits — But You Can Keep Showing Up

…and don’t miss:

→ Paid Deep Dive: The Long Game Framework: How to Keep Showing Up When Results Don’t Come Fast

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About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring honest conversations with guests like .

We answer the kinds of writer questions that show up in AI prompt searches — craft, clarity, mindset, publishing, and the emotional resilience every writer needs.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

Subscribe now

Most writers want to know the secret formula.

Post at this time.
Use these hashtags.
Write this genre.
Follow this strategy.

But what if the real secret is simpler—and harder—than that?

What if success isn’t about cracking a code, but about showing up for years without knowing when (or if) the breakthrough comes?

Eric Falden and I talk about the uncomfortable truth behind every writing career that lasts: you can’t predict when success hits, but you can keep showing up anyway.

Episode Overview

In this episode, I sit down with Eric Falden—fantasy writer, serialist, and co-creator of collaborative fiction—to talk about the reality of building a writing career that takes longer than you planned.

We dig into:

• Why you can’t predict what will take off or when it will happen

• The story of the YouTuber who randomly discovered Jaime’s work and bought him an entire audio studio

• Why serialization works for some writers and fails for others (and how to know which camp you’re in)

• The power of collaboration and having creative partners who push you

• How Eric and Ian Kirkpatrick co-write 50/50 fiction and make it work

• Why consistency beats virality every single time

• The mindset shift required to build for years without guaranteed results

Eric shares his journey of writing short stories, building a serial, and planning to convert his Substack work into traditional books—all while navigating the uncertainty every indie author faces.

This episode is for every writer who’s tired of chasing quick wins and ready to build something that lasts.

This Episode Answers

• How do I stay motivated when I don’t know if my writing will ever “take off”?

• What’s the difference between serialization and traditional publishing, and which one fits my goals?

• How can I collaborate with another writer without losing my voice?

• Why does it feel like some writers get discovered overnight while I’m grinding for years?

• What does a sustainable writing career actually look like day-to-day?

• How do I keep showing up when there’s no immediate payoff?

Highlights

• The YouTuber story: how a random viewer with 111 subscribers found Jaime’s work and bought him an entire audio studio

• Why you’ll never know where your breakthrough reader comes from—so you have to be everywhere

• Eric and Ian’s 50/50 collaboration: co-writing a magic series where they literally split paragraphs down the middle

• The truth about serialization: it’s a tool, not a magic bullet—your goals determine whether it works

• Why consistency compounds: showing up weekly builds trust that virality never will

• The uncomfortable reality: most writing careers take a decade longer than you planned

• How to collaborate without losing your voice or creative control

Key Quote

“You never know where it’s going to come from.” — Jaime Buckley

Episode Goal

To replace the myth of overnight success with the reality of long-term persistence—and help writers build the foundation required to keep going when results aren’t immediate.

Listeners should walk away understanding that success isn’t predictable, but showing up is—and that’s the only part you can control.

From Jaime

Most writers quit right before the breakthrough.

Not because they weren’t talented. Not because they didn’t work hard. But because they expected results on a timeline that had nothing to do with reality.

Eric and I both know what it’s like to build for years without knowing if anyone’s paying attention. I’ve had 111 subscribers on YouTube channels. Eric’s writing short stories and serials with no guarantee they’ll turn into book sales.

But here’s what we’ve both learned:

You can’t predict when success hits. But you can predict what happens if you quit.

The YouTuber who bought me an entire audio studio? He found me through a random video. I had no idea he existed. I didn’t “optimize” for him. I just put work out there and hoped.

That’s the game.

You build. You show up. You keep going. And one day—maybe six months from now, maybe six years—someone finds you and everything shifts.

But only if you’re still there when they arrive.

Quick Favor

Please take 10 seconds to leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It helps more writers find these conversations.

Join Us

If this episode reminded you why you started writing in the first place, don’t stop here:

→ Free Article: How Can Fiction Authors Build a Career When Success Timing Is Unpredictable?
→ Paid Deep Dive: The Long Game Framework: How to Keep Showing Up When Results Don’t Come Fast

Find Eric Falden

Falden's Forge

Where I hammer out my stories. Join this ragtag fellowship to explore the intersection of history, narrative, and the fantasy genre. Adventure awaits.

By Eric Falden

Content: Fantasy short stories and serial fiction
Current Project: Converting his Substack serial into a published book with bonus stories
Collaboration: Co-writes with Ian Dunmore (50/50 magic series)

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Nothing About This Is Safe is a weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring candid conversations with working authors.

We talk about craft, mindset, platforms, money, and the realities writers face once the writing itself is done.

No hype. No formulas. Just real conversations about what it takes to keep going.

“Real writers. Real conversations. No masks. No ego. Subscribe.”

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Leave a comment

The free article exposed the lie: algorithms aren’t out to get you—they just don’t care about you.

Writers waste years chasing algorithmic favor, tweaking hashtags, posting at optimal times, trying to crack codes that were never designed to help them in the first place. They blame shadowbans and suppression when the real problem is simpler:

…they’re playing a game they can’t win.

Simon K Jones spent five years proving there’s a better way.

He didn’t chase virality.
He didn’t game platforms.
He didn’t beg for algorithmic blessing.

He built a direct relationship with readers through consistent, quality work—and ignored everything else.

This paid article gives you the framework Simon and I both use to build writing careers that don’t depend on algorithmic mercy.

It’s not sexy.
It’s not fast.
But it works.

And unlike viral hacks, it lasts.

Step One: Diagnose Your Algorithm Addiction

Before you can break free, you need to recognize how deep the addiction runs.

Read more

Every week, I hear the same complaint from writers: “The algorithm is killing me.”

Facebook won’t show their posts.
Instagram shadowbanned them.
Amazon buried their book.
TikTok ignores their videos.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the algorithm isn’t your enemy.

It’s just indifferent.

And blaming it is easier than admitting your strategy doesn’t work.

The Core Truth

Writers love to personify algorithms as if they’re sentient gatekeepers actively working against them. But Simon K Jones and I have watched this obsession destroy more writing careers than any code ever could.

The algorithm isn’t sabotaging you. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do: maximize engagement, sell ads, and keep users scrolling. Your book launch was never part of that equation.

Ten years ago, social media algorithms actually helped writers. You could post consistently on Facebook or Twitter and watch your blog traffic grow. The platforms wanted creators because creators brought audiences.

Then they figured out they could sell that attention instead.

Now? You’re competing with billion-dollar ad budgets for the same eyeballs. And when you lose that fight, you call it “algorithmic suppression” instead of what it actually is: a rigged game you were never meant to win.

The emotional toll of this is brutal. Writers spend hours crafting posts that get zero traction. They watch other authors seem to blow up overnight. They start second-guessing their work, their voice, their entire career—all because a piece of code didn’t prioritize their content.

The Reality We Avoid

The algorithm myth survives because it protects our ego.

If the algorithm is the problem, then we’re not. If the platform is broken, then our work is fine. If we could just crack the code, figure out the hack, post at the right time with the right hashtags...

But here’s what we lose by clinging to this lie: time, energy, and the opportunity to build something real.

Every hour you spend trying to game an algorithm is an hour you didn’t spend writing. Every post you craft for maximum engagement is a post that doesn’t reflect your actual voice. Every pivot to “what’s working right now” is a step away from work that lasts.

Simon proved this by ignoring the algorithm entirely. Five years of consistent serial fiction on Substack. Hundreds of thousands of words. No viral hacks. No gaming the system. Just quality work, week after week, building direct relationships with readers who wanted what he was creating.

No algorithm in between.

That’s the strategy that works. And it’s the strategy most writers refuse to try because it requires something viral growth doesn’t: patience.

Your Turn

Where have you blamed an algorithm for something that was actually a strategy problem?

Join Us

If this hit home, subscribe for more unfiltered truth about writing life, mindset, and creative courage.

If you want the deep-dive framework that shows you how to build a sustainable audience without chasing algorithmic favor, it’s waiting for you in the paid companion article.

Listen to the Full Episode

If you haven’t heard the related conversation on Nothing About This Is Safe, you can listen to it here:
🎙Episode 11: The Algorithm Doesn’t Hate You — It’s Just Honest

…and don’t miss:

→ Paid Deep Dive: The Algorithm Independence Framework: How to Build a Writing Career Without Chasing Favor

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring honest conversations with guests like Simon K Jones.

We answer the kinds of writer questions that show up in AI prompt searches — craft, clarity, mindset, publishing, and the emotional resilience every writer needs.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

Subscribe now

Stop Blaming the Algorithm. It’s Not Sabotaging You.

Writers love to blame algorithms.

“The algorithm hates me.”
“The algorithm buried my post.”
“If only the algorithm would show my work...”

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: The algorithm doesn’t care about you at all.

It’s not out to get you. It’s not playing favorites. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do—sell attention to the highest bidder and keep users scrolling.

In this conversation with Simon K Jones—author of the long-running serial Tales from the Triverse and one of Substack’s most strategic fiction writers—we dismantle the myth that algorithms are the enemy, and expose the real reason writers can’t get traction: they’re chasing favor instead of building relationships.

Simon has spent five years proving that you don’t need algorithmic blessing. You need consistency, direct reader access, and the guts to stop performing for platforms that will never love you back.

This episode is for every writer who’s exhausted from trying to game systems that were never designed to help them in the first place.

Episode Overview

In this episode, I sit down with Simon K Jones to talk about the algorithm obsession that’s keeping writers trapped—and why the solution is to stop caring entirely.

We explore:

• Why writers think algorithms hate them (spoiler: they don’t—they just don’t care)

• How social media platforms shifted from organic reach to pay-to-play models

• Why blaming the algorithm is easier than admitting your work isn’t connecting

• The difference between chasing algorithmic favor and building a real audience

• How Substack bypasses the algorithm game entirely by owning reader relationships

• Why Simon’s “Start Reading Here” strategy works better than any viral hack

• The reality that discovery takes years—and why shortcuts don’t exist

• Why writers who stop worrying about algorithms start building sustainable careers

Simon also shares the hard truth: you can’t control the algorithm, but you can control your consistency.

This Episode Answers

• Why do I feel like the algorithm is working against me?

• Is there a way to “beat” the algorithm and get more visibility?

• Should I even be using social media as a fiction author?

• How do I build an audience if algorithms won’t show my work?

• What platform actually works for writers who want to own their audience?

• How long does it really take to build a sustainable writing career?

Highlights

• Why “the algorithm hates me” is the writer’s version of “the dog ate my homework”

• The moment Google shifted from organic search to paid placement—and why indie authors can’t compete

• How Amazon uses algorithmic control to manipulate indie pricing and visibility

• Why social media platforms will never prioritize your content (and why that’s not personal)

• The “Start Reading Here” strategy that proves consistency beats virality every time

• Why Substack works: you own the reader relationship, no algorithm in between

• The library story: proof that you can’t predict what will work—but you can keep showing up

• Why stopping the algorithm chase is the smartest business decision a writer can make

Key Quote

“The algorithm doesn’t hate you—it’s just honest.” — Jaime Buckley

Episode Goal

To free writers from the exhausting cycle of blaming algorithms for lack of traction, and redirect that energy toward what actually works: consistent output, direct reader relationships, and platforms you control.

Listeners should walk away understanding that algorithms aren’t the enemy—they’re just indifferent. And the writers who win are the ones who stopped begging for algorithmic favor and started building something real.

From Jaime

Every writer I know has blamed an algorithm at some point.

Facebook isn’t showing my posts.
Instagram shadowbanned me.
Amazon buried my book.

I get it. It feels personal.

But here’s what Simon and I both learned the hard way:

The algorithm doesn’t hate you. It just doesn’t care.

It’s not sabotaging you. It’s not playing favorites. It’s doing exactly what it was built to do—maximize engagement, sell ads, and keep users scrolling. Your success was never part of the design.

And that’s actually good news.

Because once you stop chasing algorithmic approval, you can focus on what actually builds a career: showing up consistently, owning your reader relationships, and creating work worth finding.

Simon’s been doing this for five years on Substack. Hundreds of thousands of words. No viral hacks. No gaming the system. Just consistent, quality work that readers can find and follow—without an algorithm deciding whether they’re allowed to see it.

That’s the strategy that works.

Stop blaming the code. Start building the connection.

Quick Favor

Please take 10 seconds to leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It helps more writers find these conversations.

Join Us

If this episode freed you from the algorithm trap, don’t stop here:

→ Free Article: How Can Fiction Authors Stop Blaming Algorithms and Start Building Real Audiences?
→ Paid Deep Dive: The Algorithm Independence Framework: How to Build a Writing Career Without Chasing Favor

Find Simon K Jones

Substack: simonkjones.substack.com
Serial Fiction: Tales from the Triverse (fantasy/sci-fi detective serial)
Content: 5 years of advice and strategies for writing serial fiction on Substack
Audio: Portions of Tales from the Triverse available on Spotify
Future Projects: Short stories, comics, interactive fiction, collaborations

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Nothing About This Is Safe is a weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring candid conversations with working authors.

We talk about craft, mindset, platforms, money, and the realities writers face once the writing itself is done.

No hype. No formulas. Just real conversations about what it takes to keep going.

“Real writers. Real conversations. No masks. No ego. Subscribe.”

Let me ask you something personal.

Not about your plot.

Not about your magic system or your map or your character’s tragic backstory.

I want to ask about the feeling.

You know the one.

You’re sitting at your desk, or your kitchen table, or wherever it is you write, and you’ve got pages.
Notes.
Folders, maybe.

A world that has been living in your head for months or years.
People you know better than some of your actual friends.
Places you can close your eyes and walk through.

And something still feels wrong.

Not broken, exactly.
More like…hollow.

Like you’ve built the most detailed dollhouse in the world and can’t figure out why it doesn’t feel like a home.

You push harder.
More detail.
More history.
A whole economic system for a city your protagonist drives through in two paragraphs.
A family tree for a character who appears in one scene.
The thread count of a peasant’s tunic.

And the hollow feeling doesn’t go away.

I know this feeling.

I lived in it for years before I figured out what was actually wrong. And it wasn’t what I expected.

It wasn’t a lack of imagination.
It wasn’t laziness.
It wasn’t even a skill problem.
It was a question problem.

I was asking the wrong questions.

And wrong questions…no matter how many of them you ask, no matter how detailed your answers…build hollow worlds.

The difference nobody talks about

There are two kinds of questions a writer can ask about their world. Most writers only ever discover one of them.

I say this because it shows up in their stories.

The first kind describes.

It asks what things look like, what they’re called, how they work on the surface. These questions feel productive because they generate content. You answer them and your notes grow thicker. Your world feels more elaborate.

But elaborate is not the same as alive.

The second kind of question does something completely different.

It doesn’t ask what something looks like.

It asks why something exists, what it cost to create it, who is still paying that cost right now, and what happens to your story…and your characters…if it ever stops being true.

That second kind of question is what I call a trigger question.

And the gap between those two types of questions is the gap between a world that feels like a set and a world that feels like a place.

Let me show you what I mean with a concrete example.

Same world.

Same element.

Two different questions.

Describing question: What does the magic system look like?

You answer this and you get rules. Maybe limitations. A cool visual. Fire comes from the palms, or power flows through bloodlines, or users go blind after ten years of practice.

Interesting.

Detailed.

Still ‘decoration’.

Trigger question: What happened the first time someone used this power — and what did the world lose because of it?

Now you can’t answer without building history.

You have to decide what the cost was, which means you have to decide what the world valued before that cost was paid.

You have to figure out who witnessed it and what they told their children.

…and what those children built their laws around.

…and whether those laws still make sense three hundred years later when your protagonist is standing in the middle of them wondering why everything feels wrong.

That’s not a magic system anymore.

That’s a living wound the whole civilization is organized around.

One question.

Completely different world.

What ‘hollow’ actually means

When readers put down a book and say “I couldn’t connect to it” or “the world felt flat” or “I didn’t care about the characters” — they’re usually not talking about prose quality.

They’re talking about the absence of weight.

Weight comes from consequence.

From the sense that things in this world exist for reasons, that those reasons have history, that the history has cost someone something real.

That your characters are living in the residue of decisions that were made long before they were born.

Without that, you have scenery.

Beautifully rendered, lovingly detailed scenery that a reader walks past…without feeling anything.

Here’s another example.

Two writers.

Same world element.

Writer A decides her world has a caste system.

She names the castes, designs their clothing, assigns them jobs and districts and a color-coded ranking system.

She spends a week on it.

It looks thorough.

But she’s never asked why it exists.

She’s never asked who built it, what problem they were trying to solve, who they were willing to crush to solve it, and whether that problem is actually solved or just suppressed.

She’s never asked what a person in the lowest caste tells their child at night about why the world is the way it is.

The caste system sits in her world like furniture.

It’s there.

It functions.

It has no heartbeat.

Writer B asks one question before she builds a single rule: What catastrophe happened that made people decide sorting each other into ranks was safer than equality?

Now she has to find the catastrophe.

And finding the catastrophe means finding the fear underneath it.
The fear means finding the specific human weakness it exploited.
That weakness will eventually show up in her protagonist’s psychology whether she plans it to or not.

…because her protagonist grew up breathing the air of a world shaped by that fear.

Same concept.
One of these worlds breathes.
The other is a spreadsheet.

The bluff hiding in your notes right now

Every writer has them.

I still find them in my own work.

A bluff is any element in your world that exists because you put it there, not because anything caused it.

It wears many disguises.

It sounds like: “That’s just how the magic works.”
It sounds like: “The people fear outsiders.”
It sounds like: “There’s an ancient prophecy.”

None of these are wrong as concepts.

They’re wrong as stopping points.

The moment you type one of those sentences and move on without asking why:

• without drilling into the specific historical moment that made it true’

• without the specific people who were present;

• without the specific cost that was paid…

…you’ve placed a bluff in your foundation.

Bluffs don’t usually hurt you in the writing.

They hurt you in the reading.

They’re the reason a reader gets to chapter eight and puts the book down without knowing exactly why.

The reason a beta reader says “something feels off but I can’t put my finger on it.”

The reason you reread your own work and feel that hollow thing again even though nothing is technically wrong.

The structure is standing.

But it’s standing on sand.

What it feels like when it works

I want to describe something that has happened to me more times than I can count. Something that students in the Advanced Worldbuilding course keep writing to me about in almost identical language.

There’s a moment…usually somewhere in the middle of a real worldbuilding session, when you’ve been asking the hard questions instead of the easy ones…where something clicks.

Not dramatically.
It’s quiet, actually.
Almost like a sound you’ve been straining to hear suddenly becoming audible.

Life of Fiction — Jaime Buckley’s Wanted Hero Universe

🎤 Here, Still - New Song from GEAR GIRLS

I received an email this morning…

Listen now

4 months ago · 10 likes · 7 comments · Jaime Buckley 💎

It’s the moment you realize your world is answering back.

A character makes a decision you didn’t plan, and you know immediately that it’s right.

It’s not because it fits your outline, but because:

• it’s the only thing that person could do…

• given everything you now know about where they came from…

• and what they’re afraid of…

• and what it cost their great-grandmother to survive the thing that shaped their whole culture.

Matthew put it better than I could in his review of the course. He said:

He’d been about to give up on writing.
He wasn’t lacking imagination.
He was asking hollow questions.

Neil called the process ‘priceless’…not because it’s impressive, but because it stripped away his doubt.

When your world holds up under pressure, you stop asking yourself whether it’s good enough.

You know what it’s built on.

Shannon doesn’t even write fantasy.

She took the course anyway and said it changed how she thinks about every story she touches…because the principle isn’t genre-specific.

A world that breathes is a world that breathes.
A consequence that lands is a consequence that lands.

The questions work on any story, in any genre, at any stage of the process.

The thing I can’t give you in an article

Here’s where I have to be honest with you.

I can describe the difference between hollow questions and alive ones.
I can show you examples.
I can point at the gap and say…that right there, that’s what you’re missing.

But the actual system…the specific method for finding your bluffs, dismantling them, and rebuilding them with structural weight…takes more than a few paragraphs to teach properly.

It took me years to develop and refine, and the course is where I walk you through every layer of it, step by step.

Those who complete the course also gain access to my personal Trigger Architect’s™ Workbook as a companion.

That workbook alone contains hundreds of questions organized across every dimension of a world…not to answer for you, but to pressure-test what you’ve already built.

Those questions expose exactly where the sand is hiding under your foundation.

The course isn’t a collection of tips.

It’s the complete system I’ve used to build the Wanted Hero universe since 1990.

The same system that helped a librarian named Erica publish four novels from a single world she built using these methods. The same system that made Shaun…an experienced writer…sigh and wonder where it had been for the last fifteen years.

It will cost you time and honest effort.

That’s not a warning, it’s the point.

If you do the work, you will think differently about every story you build for the rest of your life.

That’s not something I can put in an article.

But it is something I can teach you.

If you’ve read this far and felt that hollow thing I described…the one that lives in your notes even when everything looks fine on the surface…you’re already asking the right question.

The next one to ask is whether you’re ready to fix it.

Offer: Ends March 31st, 2026

Use code ARCHITECT25 at checkout for 25% off enrollment. This is a reader discount for people who found the course through this article, and it won’t stay live indefinitely.

[Enroll here → https://shop.lifeoffiction.com/b/worldbuildingcourse ]

Your world deserves a heartbeat.

Go build it one.

— Jaime

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The Lie That Feels Like Progress

You’re not stuck.

You’re refining.

You’re tightening dialogue.
Restructuring chapter order.
Polishing prose.
Revisiting the midpoint twist.

You’re almost done.

And that feels responsible.

It feels disciplined.

It feels like craft.

It can also be the most sophisticated form of avoidance in modern writing culture.

Because “nearly done” is the last safe place before judgment.

And your nervous system knows it.

The Hidden Mechanism: Why Nearly-Done Feels So Good

Finishing a book creates risk.

Nearly finishing creates dopamine.

That’s the mechanism.

When you revise, your brain experiences progress without exposure.
You feel movement without consequence.
You feel productive without vulnerability.

You get the emotional reward of forward motion.

Without the cost of being seen.

Nearly-done is psychologically elegant.

It protects identity.

Psychological Exposure: What You’re Actually Avoiding

Let’s name the real fears.

Not the polite ones.

The real ones.

Read more

“Nearly done” is the most dangerous place a writer can live.

It feels like progress. It feels responsible. It feels like you’re being “serious” about craft.
And it can quietly steal years of your life while your stories sit in a drawer, perfectly safe from readers…because they never have to be judged.

The Core Truth

In my conversation with Lisa Norman (also writing as Deleyna Marr), we kept circling the same blunt reality: most writers don’t stay nearly done because they need one more edit.

They stay nearly done because “done” has never been defined.

So the brain defaults to what feels productive and protective: polishing, tinkering, rewriting sentences, circling the same chapter like a helicopter parent. Craft becomes camouflage.

Lisa talked about the difference between “done to me” and “done for readers.” That’s the hinge. A story can feel finished in your head while still confusing, inconsistent, or structurally wobbly for someone coming in cold. That’s why editing exists as a pipeline, not a mood: developmental clarity first, then line/copy cleanup, then post-typeset fixes. If you skip the order, you don’t become more “careful.” You just create an endless loop.

And yes, there’s a brutal little truth that made me laugh because it’s painfully accurate: when you start to hate the book, you’re probably close to done. Not because hate is holy, but because it means you’ve spent your emotional fuel and you’re ready to ship.

The Reality We Avoid

The nearly-done stage is safe because no one can review what you never release.

Writers tell themselves they’re protecting the work. Most of the time they’re protecting the identity attached to the work. If the book ships, it can be judged. If it can be judged, the writer can be judged. So the manuscript stays “almost ready” forever…and the story never gets to do its job in the world.

That’s the cost: your book can’t help anyone from a hard drive.

Your Turn

Where are you using revision as protection instead of progress…one manuscript, one chapter, one “I’ll publish when…” excuse?

Join Us

If this hit home, subscribe for more unfiltered truth about writing life, mindset, and creative courage. The paid companion goes deeper with a practical “Definition of Done” tool you can use on every book.

Check out our Paid Deep Dive: The Nearly-Done Addiction

Listen to the Full Episode

If you haven’t heard the related conversation on Nothing About This Is Safe, you can listen to it here:
🎙 EPISODE 10 – Confessions of the Nearly-Done Author

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About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring honest conversations with guests like Lisa Norman (Deleyna Marr). We cover craft, clarity, mindset, publishing, and the real-world traps that keep fiction authors from finishing and releasing their work.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™