It feels like ages since we last talked. Empires are crumbling. Conflicts have erupted. The cultural shift that I—and many others—dreamed of is happening. I’ve been following, but silent on commentary since you only get so much time and energy and I’ve been using mine on my latest manuscripts. So, in line with the topic of writing, I wanted to discuss the decline of “soft modern” storytelling for harsher, wilder, less idealistic tales. The first time I came across the term “soft modern” was in one of Bellular’s videos, I think, and it was clear in the implication that fiction has become both soft and modern. Yet after decades of cultural oppression, people crave classic, well-written and character driven fiction. We have become stuffed and sickened by political and ideological purity tests. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t write a story that tackles what we would consider contemporary issues. So, let’s chat about how that’s done, how I did it in my work, and how you can do it in yours, too.
Lila and Erik from Feast of Fates.
Rule #1: never self insert
Let's start by explaining what I call one of the two main problems that lead to self-insertion: ideological gatekeeping. This is when some people try to control who gets to do or say what based on how much they agree with their own ideas or beliefs. This can happen in different areas, like politics, media, academia, and social movements, where some people or groups might want to keep out or push away those who have different views or values. There have always been people who decide what's cool and what's not in human culture, but in the last century they became more politically aligned, with publishers mostly hiring people who lean Left, often from rich or academic backgrounds. People naturally like and support the things they like and dislike or suppress the things they don't.
Also, a study in the journal Sociology showed that creative workers are less likely to come from working-class backgrounds than before. Specifically, 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had working-class origins, but that dropped to just 7.9% for those born four decades later (source: The Guardian). So not only has the range of acceptable opinions been divided, but it's also been shrinking too.
Combine the intellectual stagnation caused by social media's psychological impacts—our blissfully ignorant, carefully curated lives and the tribalism we've sunk into—and you've got the perfect recipe for a deluge of self-insertion. Publishers, armed with their laptops and silver spoons, cherry-pick creators from similar upper-middle-class backgrounds. These creators sermonize about wealth, gender, and racial inequality as if they've personally experienced the effects of socioeconomic or class stratification (most have not). The outcome? Entirely unauthentic worlds, characters, and plots. Stories that fail to do the one thing a good story should: suspend disbelief. Because readers are being coerced into believing that all worlds—even the most fantastical—are mere carbon copies of Earth, complete with its politics, classes, and perceived social injustices. These handpicked creators have missed the mark in crafting a compelling tale and are instead penning activist fan-fiction. But don't let my critique deter you from writing your masterpiece about Sherry Potter, the disabled, black, transgender hero, and his fight against Voldeterf. The market always has the final say, and it seems to be yearning for something different than woke fiction. Sherry Potter would fare as well in this climate as the tone-deaf and embarrassing: Society of Magical Negroes.
No one will stop you from writing something terrible, but you.
Rule #2: characterization above all
What makes a good story with powerful themes? In writing we have two camps: pantsers and plotters. Pantsers (or discovery writers) start with a vague idea or concept and then write as they go, letting the story surprise them as they write. This can lead to some fun twists and turns, but also some gaps or contradictions.
Plotters, on the other hand, plan ahead, map out the main plot points and character arcs before they start writing. This can lead to a more solid and coherent story, but also a less creative and flexible one.
Similarly, when you create the building blocks of your story—the scenes, events and characters that fill your world—you can begin with either the setting or the people: the places, systems and rules of your world, or, the beings and creatures that live in them. You are either going to tell a story about what happens, or who it happens to. You can do both, though I find it easier to write and move on in a manuscript by choosing one over the other. Because it's more likely to have a simple storyline that's carried by interesting, engaging, funny or realistic characters than to have a complex plot with bland faces. The reader simply won't stick with you till the end, which is what we see happening in so many stories, movies and shows ruined by self-insertion and soft modernism.
In a book by Tom Clancy—a plotter and plot-driven author—there's a notorious line on the culmination of the male and female leads' simmering tension (or lack thereof) that goes: "within ten minutes they were lovers." You'd have to blink twice to realize that the deed was done, and in the next moment, our Ken and Barbie spy dolls are back to thwarting a genuinely thrilling terror plot. The plot is so riveting that the characters are become secondary to the entertainment. So, this isn't to say plot-heavy stories can't work, only that they're a tougher nut to crack. And modern narratives are often riddled with ham-fisted messaging that overburdens and snaps an already delicate spider-web of circumstances.
The recent failures in popular media are so glaring it's hard to pick just one, though the screen adaptations of impeccable mythic stories show the worst faults in this regard. Take Galadriel, the stoic girlboss in Amazon's Rings of Power, for instance. She embodies the dreary, indulgent perspective of 4th wave feminism on what makes women strong: power, lots of it, and zero accountability. Women can do everything a man can do and the waters of sexual distinction have now been so diluted that certain, predatory men have learned they can do everything women can do, too. Notwithstanding that cultural mess, if you're going to take creative liberties with established material, take a real risk. Go dark, go visceral.
Amazon’s fumbles are good lessons in what not to do
Imagine that instead of Galadriel getting angry and going girlboss, she went truly, raving mad after her brother's death. At this point in the lore—however much we're intent on keeping, Amazon—death is an alien concept to the elves. Galadriel wouldn't even comprehend what had happened to her brother. But as the realization that she would never see, touch, or hear him again in her endless years set in, so too would the sorrow and insanity. Transform the radiant elven maiden into a hideous, deranged hag—humanise her. Then, kick off the series with a fresh cast of heroes who need track down Galadriel, now a recluse in the wilds of might would become Mordor or another important set piece, for her knowledge to face a new and rising threat. Maybe that monologue her dead brother gave her about ships and shadows wasn’t incoherent, and was instead a secret, coded message for his sister regarding the big bad.
With an interesting cast of characters, you can easily introduce environments where slavery, oppression and class divides are shown; not told, unless done in a broad, historical sense—Usula K. Leguin was the master of this type of narration. If the technique is properly executed, the reader will experience a harmonic resonance, not cognitive dissonance, with the material. However, you have to build that characterization loop first, and the perfection of these elements should remain your focus—as a reader or writer—above any moralizing anecdotes in the manuscript.
Rule #3: archetypes, not stereotypes
“Strong female character” is a stereotype. Whereas “hero with humble upbringing” who happens to be female is an archetype. Captain Marvel, Rey from Star Wars and She Hulk are all carbon copies of each other with different hair dye. They are glib, offer meaningless platitudes, don’t seem to care who gets in the way of their flavour of justice. They whinge about the gross inequality of the world while, unsurprisingly, achieving everything they want with minimal effort. They are characters written by and for the self-insertionists, narcissists and male-feminists. Mark my words, these characters will have zero lasting appeal in ten, twenty or thirty years other than being used in cautionary tales like this one on how to not write literature.
Think about how boring and bland those so-called heroic journeys are, where the hero has no flaws or struggles. Now contrast that with a lowly maid who toils in misery and longs for something more. You could even use this character arc to expose how unjust her situation is. That's what I did with Morigan in Fates. It's not hard to write characters who suffer, unless you think suffering is when your latte is not made right. "I asked for skim milk!" Anyway, maybe your protagonist is a secret princess, naturally noble, and you show this through her elegant actions and speech even though she's dumping chamber pots. Let her actions and her hidden traits reveal themselves through the story and then spice it up with whatever politics and worldbuilding you want to add to her journey.
I’ll stress this again: build fleshed out, interesting characters, with backstories, secrets and quirks. Construct them from the inside out and have their hidden characteristics manifest in their speech, actions and even physicality. After all, a person becomes more of less attractive, more or less compelling, the instant they open their mouth.
On that note, I’m going to wrap up my thoughts. To recap: avoid self-insertion, characterization is paramount and stick to archetypes, not stereotypes. I’ll add a bonus rule: don’t be afraid to kill portions, themes or even characters who are bogging down your manuscript. For example, toward the climax of a story, I tend to flag at least one character for death in my second draft if someone important and endearing missed the executioner’s axe thusfar. Not because I’m morbid, but because I write about apocalyptic wars and Lovecraftian forces. People are bound to die in such scenarios. Heroism is meaningless without sacrifice.
If you’re a writer, good luck in your writing journey. If you’re a reader, know you’ll soon have better stories to enjoy. Because people are craving mythic, archetypal stories—they’re done with soft modernity and politicized dogma poorly passing for fiction. They’re tired of their superheroes being fat, ugly or just not very super at all.
The “New Warriors” from Marvel, which ended up right in the dustbin where it belongs.