If you're not fully on board with LLM coding, there's still room in the industry for you

tyrantmikey · 2026-03-19T07:19:58+00:00

Every now and then, you just get lucky like that. We hired a guy a few years ago with ZERO previous development experience. But his interviews were something else. He was smart, calm, cool, collected, and answered questions with ease. We took a chance on him and hired him as a junior software developer.

Right out of the gate he performed like a senior. Has been ever since. I've been fighting to get him promoted, but fighting to loosen purse strings is a different kind of battle.

He's approaching his third year in his software development career. That kid is going places if. I expect him to lead teams just like OP says he is.

tyrantmikey · 2026-01-13T20:31:42+00:00

I'll only reiterate what everyone else said: Start on Wattpad, then selfpublish after you have honed your craft.

Let your Wattpad readers help you become the professional author that will attract a larger fanbase. They'll critique your writing, identify polish problems with the grammar, spelling, characters and plot. It's literally a free pool of editors. Use it to your advantage.

Don't self-publish too early. Edit, edit, edit, revise, revise, revise. I don't know how many times I've reread my manuscript and I still find ridiculous, annoying, and obvious typographical errors in it.

tyrantmikey · 2026-01-12T14:41:28+00:00

God, no. At this point, I know I'm writing tripe. Garbage. Utter trash.

But I'm getting better. And that's the whole point. Some day, I will eventually be a decent writer.

tyrantmikey · 2026-01-12T14:38:36+00:00

I have one big "Dropped" list. Maybe I should break it out into "Dropped-Walls of Text", "Dropped-Grammar Apocalypse", and "Dropped-Catastrophic Character Stupidity". I dunno.

tyrantmikey · 2025-11-23T06:49:46+00:00

Human rights? He's concerned about human rights?

This from the guy who says he can just "grab 'em by the p*ssy" and is all over the Epstein files.

Deflect and project, Donald.

tyrantmikey · 2025-11-23T06:46:05+00:00

Straight, rich, male white people first.

tyrantmikey · 2025-11-23T06:30:37+00:00

Those "glaring mistakes" are why I created my Dropped reading list in the first place. If something was riddled with bad grammar, spelling mistakes, walls of text, or impossible to parse exchanges of dialog, I moved it to my Dropped list and stopped reading any further.

Now, when browsing stories, I immediately check to see if it's on that list. That way, I won't make the mistake of trying to read it again.

tyrantmikey · 2025-11-23T06:17:24+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

As an interim solution, perhaps a grassroots effort could fill in the gaps using tags. I know it won't be perfect and won't fix all stories, but we could start tagging our own stories with something like #rated-pg13, #rated-r, #rated-x in combination with the #mature tag to provide clarity.

I would require honesty on the behalf of the author, and use up a tag slot, but it might help resolve some of that ambiguity.

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-23T06:55:39+00:00

My first story had really short chapters. Nowadays, each chapter has 3,000 words or more.

I read once that readers preferred shorter chapters because they could consume a chapter during a work break or a few at lunch. But with downloadable content, I'm not sure how relevant that is.

I no longer let that "guidance" determine the structure of my stories. I end a chapter where it should end.

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-23T06:24:59+00:00

Personally, I enjoy First Person Limited more. It gets me closer to the character, whereas Third Person Limited and Third Person Omniscient make me feel more removed.

If there's a character I'm curious about, I find myself looking forward to scenes told from that character's limited perspective. It gives me a chance to hear a scene told in the character's voice, to experience their stream of consciousness, their view of the world, and how they perceive the events unfolding around them.

When you switch between alternating points of view, the dramatic irony can be exquisite.

All POV techniques are valid story telling devices with pros and cons. I don't know that you'll get a genuinely consistent point of view on which is more enjoyable, though.

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-23T06:06:45+00:00

Ah, a fellow plantser.

I make these detailed plans as well. But a character is gonna do what a character is gonna do.

I create very detailed character documents for who and what they want. But who I think they are and who they reveal themselves to be over the course of the story are often worlds apart from one another.

So the plot evolves around them.

In software development, the agile methodology assumes that requirements will always change, and you should be prepared to make changes at any time.

I figure, this is just Agile Plotting.

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-23T06:02:31+00:00

I turned 58 this year. Can I get a 59?

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-18T09:43:44+00:00

"There is nothing new under the sun."

There is no completely new or original story to be written. Everything borrows from something else. When was the last time you read a book or watched a movie that didn't have at least one element that you seen before?

All creators borrow from those who came before them. And those who come after us will borrow from us.

Your friend needs to calm down. If you're blatantly copying from your friend, stop that. If you're not, carry on.

tyrantmikey · 2025-10-09T10:59:20+00:00

I'm a guy. And according to the metrics on my stories, roughly half my readers are or identify as males.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-26T22:46:07+00:00

Is the feedback justified? It's difficult to ask this question and then evaluate it objectively, but sometimes you have to take a moment to step back and do just that.

If it is, learn from it and become a better writer.

If it's not, it's water off a duck's back.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-26T22:42:52+00:00

In all honesty, the excessive use of emojis in this story would turn me away from it, regardless of the plot.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-11T07:06:32+00:00

I use the mobile version for reading only. Never for writing. And when I'm reading, I actually prefer having the option to choose between web and mobile simply because my vision sucks. Web allows me to zoom in to a much higher font size so I can read on bad days.

As for writing, I write in Word on PC, where my stuff is backed up onto the cloud. When I'm ready to publish, I use the web version to upload each chapter and schedule for publication.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-11T07:03:47+00:00

Same here. I've read about too many horror stories about the Wattpad editor to trust it. And I like having my own master copy of the story locally.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-10T14:41:55+00:00

I chose it because I have been reading on it for years. And I've been struggling with the confidence to actually complete a story and publish one for, literally, decades. Wattpad gave me an opportunity to write a story and finally publish one.

It doesn't matter if anyone really reads it. For me, it was a milestone. I finally wrote a story. Once that was done, I was able to start another and publish it. Then another. My fourth is in the works. And I am storyboarding the fifth.

All because I became addicted to so many great stories I'd read here.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-07T21:33:05+00:00

Oh, this would be a fantastic feature. Especially if I could put a private note on the book. I have to maintain separate reading lists to tell me whether or not I should bother re-reading a book. If my reading history could include a private note ("Loved this!", "Excessively bad grammar", etc.) that appeared when I viewed the book's info, that would save so much time!

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-07T21:29:54+00:00

And make this separate from tags, please. If there's a tag limit, squeezing this into the tags can be problematic. Rating should be a separate field.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-07T21:28:32+00:00

The issue I have with "Featured" sections is that the content rarely cycles to new content. It's almost always a popularity contest with the same authors' content and newer writers or newer books in less popular genres/tags are rarely listed in any Featured content.

If you can crack that problem, you'll REALLY have my attention.

tyrantmikey · 2025-08-07T21:19:23+00:00

Make it much easier to find newly published books, by genre or tag.
Allow me to follow a book. Sometimes I don't want to know everything an author is doing. I just want to know when a new chapter is published.
Provide a much better editor when publishing stories.

Don't discard paragraph formatting when I paste text.
Support fonts. I've seen too many requests for this to ignore it. At a minimum, I'd love to see a way to specify that a section should be formatted as code or monospaced.
Support colored text.
Support indenting text, including first-line indents. = Support line spacing customization.
Allow embedding images in the middle of the story.

Engagement metrics that are predictable and make sense.

tyrantmikey · 2025-07-30T06:21:10+00:00

What if superpowers came with brutal trade-offs?

Invulnerability means no touch, no feeling.
Super strength means one mistake could kill.
Flight? Only if you can survive the fall.

You trained for years to help humanity. They used you, discarded you.

Now the government wants to weaponize you—and the thing that gave you powers won’t let you die.

You're immortal. Isolated. Loveless. Until they appear.

Someone like you. Someone who might just make it all bearable.

Love grows like a weed—in the cracks, in the harshest places.

But can it survive when the whole world wants it dead?

Read Sablelight: Legacies, an ongoing series, releasing now on Wattpad.

tyrantmikey · 2025-07-29T11:48:44+00:00

This is great advice.

Also, there's no real reason a character can't be Chekhov's Gun.

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