Three Examples Of Thinking Outside The “Writer” Box
Every so often I’ll be browsing around the internet and come across something genuinely novel or interesting.
A lot of the time, just by browsing random sites and clicking though Wikipedia articles, you’ll find cool ideas that you wouldn’t have thought about. If you’re a writer, online business guy or generally entrepreneurial minded, you’ll have loads of ideas that you’ll never have time to see come to life.
Sometimes, you’ll see glimpses of the future and stuff so out-there that you do a double-take or go down a rabbit hole.
Writing Isn’t Just About Books
A lot of would-be writers that I’ve spoken to are stuck in a pretty rigid mindset. They want to write books – usually a single genre of books – to the detriment of themselves and their writing. A lot of writers won’t touch copywriting. A lot of writers wouldn’t consider writing stuff in a genre that sells for the sake of making money – I’ve even spoken to writers who won’t add affiliate links on their author websites because it’s “dirty money.”
You can make money from websites and books. Nobody will mind. Nobody even has to know about your various projects. The other day, I had to renew a domain name for a project I’d completely forgotten about, and it occurred to me that if I don’t know what projects I have going on, then nobody else is going to.
Frontiers
Some of you will be aware of this already, but for those who aren’t, there’s a guy on Reddit who seems to be writing a piece of fiction in the comments of random threads. You can read them in order by going here.
It seems to be a weird mix of Lovecraft/Conspiracy horror. I found it the other day on a random jaunt through the internet, and I’ve kept up with it because I like that genre of fiction.
However, I don’t know where it’s going. It reminds me of the good-old-days of the internet where everything was a bit more anonymous and the internet seemed to be a deep dark pit of hidden knowledge and weird half-truths.
It could be some kind of viral marketing. It could be a novelist trying to get some press for his book. It could be a bored creative or a weird conspiracy-type. I don’t know, but I’m along for the ride.
The reason I’m writing about it today is because it’s one of those things where I can’t fathom how out-of-the-box the thinking behind it is. The writer is gripping me simply by using a different medium.
It’s amazing.
Another Example
Another guy who I stumbled upon writes little RPG games. They look like Zelda, and they’re downloadable for free. At first you’d think it was a little hobby – he writes cute storylines (Go save the princess, Mario!) and makes the artwork himself. He has his one thousand “true fans” and not many others.
I browse the website… It says, “Click here to support me on Patreon.”
I click through.
$3492 a month.
This guy is making tiny little games that are basically visual novels, giving them away absolutely free and making more than the UK average wage from a hobby. What’s more, the people who are into the game love him and want him to continue.
If he’d have written the same story as is in his game in book form, he might have sold ten copies.
Example Three
Just an hour ago, I got randomly detoured and ended up reading a Wikipedia article about alternate reality games.
An alternate reality game is – from what I understand – a game that occurs without being in a game.
For instance, I was reading about a game called The Black Watchmen. In the “actual game” i.e. the game interface i.e. the window on your computer screen, you’re given instructions and you leave the game to go and do research on the real internet and use the real Google Maps to find information. You then interact with other players and solve puzzles which make up missions. (In the game you work for a black-ops spy agency hunting down occult stuff.)
Again, I have only discovered this and haven’t played it, but if you’re a writer, you can immediately see where your skills can be useful and you could break down and replicate something like this. Essentially, the above oculd be done with the following:
- An email autoresponder
- Research
- A short story to provide context
- A private forum
None of those things take a long time to set up or are particularly technical. The story can be as complicated or simple as you make it. In the case of the RPG guy above, the stories are basically as complicated as an old Gameboy game; Go save the princess, battle the monsters on the way. In an alternative reality game, you could literally span hundreds of years and the whole globe.
Final Thoughts
I don’t really know what this article is. The examples of things I’ve seen in the past few days show that you can make incredible pieces of writing that are so outside of what a writer usually does that they wouldn’t even be considered writing per se.
They’re great examples of something that could (or could not) be a future direction for publishing and entertainment as a whole.
At the very least, seeking out novel things like the above opens up opportunities for avenues that most people won’t consider (I had no idea about this sort of thing before finding it – maybe I’m just a sheltered idiot!)