Ryan Williamson On Writing

Don’t Use AI for Developmental Editing (Even If It Sounds Smart)

My professional editor called The Stygian Blades my best dialogue work across six novels and praised its personality. He identified specific scaffolding needs—sociopolitical context, scene motivations, plot setup—and told me explicitly NOT to rewrite the book. Then I fed the same manuscript to two AI systems to test them. Grok called it pulp and suggested I self-publish “if polished.” Claude identified my comp authors correctly, engaged at what felt like a professional level, then invented problems that would require substantial rewriting while missing every actual issue my editor found. Pattern-matching that sounds sophisticated is more dangerous than obviously bad advice because you might actually follow it. Yet people are already relying on AIs and rewriting books based on algorithmic feedback that fundamentally misreads their work.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ryan Williamson Commentary

What’s the Exchange Rate on Genocide When Extinction Is the Alternative?

James Cameron’s Avatar franchise has already made several billion dollars across three films, built stunning worlds at unprecedented scale, and delivered emotionally resonant stories about family, loss, and cultural identity. The character work—Neytiri’s feral grief, Varang’s traumatic rejection of spiritual dogma, Jake navigating life as a cultural traitor—demonstrates genuine moral complexity. Meanwhile, the meta-conflict underpinning the entire franchise remains stubbornly, frustratingly shallow. Three films deep, Cameron still isn’t asking the hard question his own setup demands.

Ryan Williamson Entertainment

Aliens is Absolutely a Christmas Movie

Every December like clockwork, some genius on the internet gets on Reddit to argue that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, as if they’re the first person to ever think of that. It’s such a tedious argument. Die Hard takes place at Christmas for crying out loud—the film explicitly features Christmas parties, Christmas music, and family reunification as its emotional core. Arguing that Die Hard belongs in the Christmas canon requires exactly zero imagination. And no serious person is debating it doesn’t anyway. Aliens, on the other hand, is notably overlooked. There’s no snow, no carols, no presents, no mistletoe. The film is set on a xenomorph-infested colony moon called LV-426, where the concept of seasonal holidays is meaningless and everyone is trying very hard not to get facehugged. And yet James Cameron’s 1986 masterpiece belongs in the Christmas canon more legitimately than half the Hallmark movies clogging your streaming queue.

Ryan Williamson Commentary

X Premium Support is a Gaslighting Kafkaesque Parody of Itself

I have a magical rented blue checkmark that’s advertised to grant “enhanced visibility.” In mid-October, my reach on Twitter dropped 75% overnight and never recovered. My engagement rate? Running an order of magnitude over platform average—exceptional by any measure. When I contacted Premium support with comprehensive data, charts, and systematic elimination of alternative explanations, they ignored everything I’d said and replied with a list of canned social media network tips. When pressed, they regretted to inform me users just don’t find my demonstrably engaging content all that “interesting.” Then deflected to completely unrelated revenue sharing calculations I’d never asked for. Then closed my ticket and handed me off to Grok, who helpfully suggested I use more hashtags. Someday I’ll look back on this and have a good laugh.

Ryan Williamson Commentary

Could Amazon Use Your Books to Train AI?

Traditional publishers are negotiating AI training deals worth hundreds of millions and establishing consent-based licensing standards. Meanwhile, Amazon has made no public statement about whether it can—or will—use the millions of books on Kindle Direct Publishing for the same purpose. The silence matters because every indie author using KDP has granted Amazon irrevocable rights under terms that predate AI technology. Unlike traditionally published authors who can negotiate or decline licensing deals, indie authors have already agreed to terms they can’t modify, can’t escape, and which Amazon has never clarified regarding AI training.​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ryan Williamson Marketing

Will AI Marketing Materials Kill Your Sales?

Stanford tracked 3.2 million images across a major marketplace and found sales increased 39% after AI art was introduced—consumers actively chose AI-generated images. Christie’s AI art auction exceeded estimates by $128,000 despite 6,500 petition signatures opposing it. Consumer detection accuracy has collapsed to 52%—essentially coin-flip territory. Every backlash case that makes headlines represents PR retreat in response to vocal criticism, not consumer boycotts. Not one shows measurable sales decline. Sentiment plummets in social listening reports while quarterly revenue remains unaffected. 91% of U.S. advertising agencies use or explore AI despite the discourse. Meta reported over 1 million advertisers creating 15 million AI-generated ads in August 2024. Major publishers license their catalogs for AI training while issuing statements opposing it. The gap between what consumers say in surveys and what they actually buy is massive. For indie authors making practical marketing decisions, here’s what the data shows.

Ryan Williamson On Writing

Can Readers be Trusted with Moral Complexity?

“If everyone in your book is morally gray, no one is.” That was the opening salvo I referred to as “utter nonsense” in a debate about moral complexity in fiction that quickly revealed how prescriptive craft advice collapses under scrutiny. What started as a categorical claim about necessary structure ended with a confession about personal preference—but the retreat exposes a deeper question. Where does moral judgment actually live in sophisticated fiction? In the author’s didactic guidance? In textual scaffolding that measures characters against virtue baselines? Or in readers’ direct engagement with the specific consequences of impossible choices? The answer matters more than craft theory. It’s about whether we trust readers with moral agency—or infantilize them with predetermined conclusions.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ryan Williamson Commentary

SFWA’s AI Ban: Technical Illiteracy Meets Moral Panic

On Friday, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association announced new Nebula Awards rules allowing some AI-assisted works to compete. By evening—after member outrage and two emergency board votes—they’d reversed course entirely, banning any LLM use whatsoever. The result? Policy written by people who think large language models are “assemblers of stolen work,” creating bright-line rules where boundaries fundamentally don’t exist, protecting the genre’s most prestigious award from a threat that doesn’t actually exist. This is what happens when technical illiteracy meets moral panic.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ryan Williamson Marketing

Algorithmic Skullduggery on X: An Update

I published an article earlier today arguing that X tanked my reach because I removed over a hundred fake accounts. The timing was perfect, the correlation was clean, and I was confident in my analysis. Then I discovered that X rolled out a completely new AI-powered algorithm the very next day—a change significant enough that Elon Musk publicly apologized five days later. Now I have two correlations and no way to prove causation. Here’s what I got wrong, what I might have gotten right, and why at the end of the day the distinction doesn’t really matter.

Ryan Williamson Marketing

I Optimized My Audience for Quality, and X Screwed Me for It

I did everything the social media marketing guides tell you to do. Cleaned my X follower base. Removed 137 bot and suspicious accounts degrading my audience quality. Optimized for authentic engagement. My impressions dropped 75% overnight and never recovered. Two months later, I’m still shadowbanned—not for violating any policy, but for following the platform’s own stated values. The algorithm can’t tell the difference between your audience abandoning you and you curating your audience. Or it won’t. Either way, you eat the penalty. Here’s what I learned about why you can’t trust platforms like X with your audience.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​