Play Stupid Games, Don’t Win Stupid Prizes
My house was constructed in 2007 on a small plot of land surrounded by other houses. The advantage of building on a small parcel is reduced price, but I lack room to play with big toys. Such as? Dump trucks, tractors, excavators, bulldozers, cranes, forklifts, pumps, generators, and graders. I love them all! However, the most significant piece of equipment I ever owned was a lawn mower, and I had to sell it because it took up too much space. Tractor? Ha! I could not even fit a tractor tire in my crowded garage.
The closest I get to owning big equipment is watching YouTube videos. These content creators buy, restore, fix, modify, and use their equipment for fun activities. I devote at least an hour daily to seeing what they are doing.
One of my favorite YouTube channels is Ants Pants. Andris lives in Estonia and works on all kinds of fun projects. I have determined that the attraction to reality shows involves the host’s personality. Some viewers are looking for drama, mystery, and macho goodness. I prefer down-to-earth people with watchable interests, and his channel fits my bill.
https://www.youtube.com/@Ants_Pants
You are probably thinking, “Hey, you normally write about books and stuff. What does a YouTube guy playing with tractors have to do with that?” I am glad you asked. Andris said something the other day that has been rattling around in my bonkers mind. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
I participated in my fair share of stupid activities as a kid. I rode my dirt bike without a helmet and used scraps of wood to jump over shopping carts. And my bike? It was so bad that I could still see the labels from the recycled beer cans it was made out of.
Fast forward to today. We know so much about safety, medicine, health, and physics. Plus, there are endless videos about poor decisions. Spoiler alert! Concussions have lifelong impacts. (That was a pun.) As a result, we instituted laws, quality controls, government department, rules, and lawyers to enhance safety. Yet, it seems now more than ever that people are doing stupid things. Why? To be famous, do something extraordinary, or relieve boredom.
I recall the precise moment when I became aware of this trend. Around 1995, I was watching an obituary on the local news. They had been following the antics of a local teenager who had become a minor celebrity. It started five years prior when his friend borrowed his father’s video camera to record a stunt.
The kid rode his dirt bike as fast as he could down the walkway of a three-story apartment building, jumped off the top-floor steps, and did a twist with the idea of sticking the landing on the railing of the second-floor steps. He came within inches of success and crashed hard on the cement below.
The friend submitted the video to the local news, and they interviewed the kid in the hospital bed. He confidently proclaimed something like, “I am a true champion! When I heal, I’m going to stick that landing!” A year later, history repeated with another spectacular video of him crashing and an interview. The following year, the kid crashed again. I was unaware of the first three crashes, but the news only showed the kid speeding toward the top steps on the fourth. They stopped the video because the resulting crash was fatal. I thought, “Man, that kid was an idiot. Why on earth was he so dedicated to doing something that dangerous?”
Today, the internet is full of videos where people intentionally do stupid things, but what does this have to do with writing? Pondering Andris’s statement made me realize that the main characters should never win stupid prizes. Let’s jump (another pun) in with an example.
It’s a teenage romance with a hard-core punk who wants to be the world’s best bike stunt bike rider. And the girl… Umm? Wait a minute. Is she going to fall (another pun) for a kid dumb enough to jump his bike off a three-story building? That story is a non-starter for everybody.
How about a coming-of-age story where the mother of the hard-core punk biker does not know what to do? Umm? She raised an idiot. How will readers ever sympathize?
The doctor who saved a brave child… Umm, no. The kid is a bonehead. Let’s hear the story of saving a normal kid.
The only salvageable aspect of this mess is a story about the kid who videotaped the biker. He could grow up to be a reality television producer—still, not an entertaining foundation.
Well, how do we fix the problem? People and characters will always engage in stupid activities, and authors should not avoid these flaws. My solution is to prevent the stupid prize. The kid sticks the landing. “Wow! That could have gone bad. I was a real bonehead and better make good decisions in the future.” Positive outcomes from stupid activities have a higher story impact (another pun). Essentially, I recommend riding above (a fourth pun) our foolishness.
What am I trying to avoid? What is the central problem? Readers like to cheer for the main characters and relate to their situations. They want something better than reality and empathize with success. Even in a horror story, the despicable villain has solid goals. Can you imagine Hanabal Lector crashing on a dirt bike? That would bring the story flow to a dead stop (almost a pun).
Am I guilty of not taking my advice? I only put this thought together recently, but I had a similar rule over the years. During story development and editing, I identified segments that read stupid. My solution was to delete them or rewrite them to read more intelligently. I felt this made a better story that readers had a better chance of relating to and enjoying.
My rule would unlikely make it into a writing guide or textbook because it falls into the “what a solid plot should contain” category. Still, I find exploring areas that cannot or should not be written about fascinating. Readers are a fickle bunch. We like what we like and will put a book down in a heartbeat for tiny reasons.
You’re the best -Bill
February 12, 2025
The closest I get to owning big equipment is watching YouTube videos. These content creators buy, restore, fix, modify, and use their equipment for fun activities. I devote at least an hour daily to seeing what they are doing.
One of my favorite YouTube channels is Ants Pants. Andris lives in Estonia and works on all kinds of fun projects. I have determined that the attraction to reality shows involves the host’s personality. Some viewers are looking for drama, mystery, and macho goodness. I prefer down-to-earth people with watchable interests, and his channel fits my bill.
https://www.youtube.com/@Ants_Pants
You are probably thinking, “Hey, you normally write about books and stuff. What does a YouTube guy playing with tractors have to do with that?” I am glad you asked. Andris said something the other day that has been rattling around in my bonkers mind. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
I participated in my fair share of stupid activities as a kid. I rode my dirt bike without a helmet and used scraps of wood to jump over shopping carts. And my bike? It was so bad that I could still see the labels from the recycled beer cans it was made out of.
Fast forward to today. We know so much about safety, medicine, health, and physics. Plus, there are endless videos about poor decisions. Spoiler alert! Concussions have lifelong impacts. (That was a pun.) As a result, we instituted laws, quality controls, government department, rules, and lawyers to enhance safety. Yet, it seems now more than ever that people are doing stupid things. Why? To be famous, do something extraordinary, or relieve boredom.
I recall the precise moment when I became aware of this trend. Around 1995, I was watching an obituary on the local news. They had been following the antics of a local teenager who had become a minor celebrity. It started five years prior when his friend borrowed his father’s video camera to record a stunt.
The kid rode his dirt bike as fast as he could down the walkway of a three-story apartment building, jumped off the top-floor steps, and did a twist with the idea of sticking the landing on the railing of the second-floor steps. He came within inches of success and crashed hard on the cement below.
The friend submitted the video to the local news, and they interviewed the kid in the hospital bed. He confidently proclaimed something like, “I am a true champion! When I heal, I’m going to stick that landing!” A year later, history repeated with another spectacular video of him crashing and an interview. The following year, the kid crashed again. I was unaware of the first three crashes, but the news only showed the kid speeding toward the top steps on the fourth. They stopped the video because the resulting crash was fatal. I thought, “Man, that kid was an idiot. Why on earth was he so dedicated to doing something that dangerous?”
Today, the internet is full of videos where people intentionally do stupid things, but what does this have to do with writing? Pondering Andris’s statement made me realize that the main characters should never win stupid prizes. Let’s jump (another pun) in with an example.
It’s a teenage romance with a hard-core punk who wants to be the world’s best bike stunt bike rider. And the girl… Umm? Wait a minute. Is she going to fall (another pun) for a kid dumb enough to jump his bike off a three-story building? That story is a non-starter for everybody.
How about a coming-of-age story where the mother of the hard-core punk biker does not know what to do? Umm? She raised an idiot. How will readers ever sympathize?
The doctor who saved a brave child… Umm, no. The kid is a bonehead. Let’s hear the story of saving a normal kid.
The only salvageable aspect of this mess is a story about the kid who videotaped the biker. He could grow up to be a reality television producer—still, not an entertaining foundation.
Well, how do we fix the problem? People and characters will always engage in stupid activities, and authors should not avoid these flaws. My solution is to prevent the stupid prize. The kid sticks the landing. “Wow! That could have gone bad. I was a real bonehead and better make good decisions in the future.” Positive outcomes from stupid activities have a higher story impact (another pun). Essentially, I recommend riding above (a fourth pun) our foolishness.
What am I trying to avoid? What is the central problem? Readers like to cheer for the main characters and relate to their situations. They want something better than reality and empathize with success. Even in a horror story, the despicable villain has solid goals. Can you imagine Hanabal Lector crashing on a dirt bike? That would bring the story flow to a dead stop (almost a pun).
Am I guilty of not taking my advice? I only put this thought together recently, but I had a similar rule over the years. During story development and editing, I identified segments that read stupid. My solution was to delete them or rewrite them to read more intelligently. I felt this made a better story that readers had a better chance of relating to and enjoying.
My rule would unlikely make it into a writing guide or textbook because it falls into the “what a solid plot should contain” category. Still, I find exploring areas that cannot or should not be written about fascinating. Readers are a fickle bunch. We like what we like and will put a book down in a heartbeat for tiny reasons.
You’re the best -Bill
February 12, 2025
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