No More Heroes or Villains

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I'm a writer, and today I killed an article.

It wasn't a bad article.

The reporting was solid. The structure worked. The facts checked out.

But something felt off.

After staring at it for a while, I realized the problem wasn't the subject. It was the tone.

Over the last few weeks I've been experimenting with different AI systems as part of my writing workflow.

Some are better researchers.
Some are better editors.
Some are better at generating first drafts.

Most of the time I'm not looking for a finished article.
I'm looking for background information, angles, and ideas.

Many of those articles never get published.

This was one of them.

The funny thing is that the article led me somewhere unexpected.

It reminded me of being a kid.

Back then I read Highlights.
I read Scholastic News.
I read the local newspaper.

Looking back, I don't remember many individual articles.

What I remember is how they felt.

They explained things.

They described things.

They told stories.

They didn't seem especially interested in creating heroes or villains.

A company launched a product.

A volcano erupted.

Scientists discovered something.

A spacecraft landed.

The story was usually enough.

Somewhere along the way, much of modern media moved in a different direction.

Every story became a search for the good guy and the bad guy.
Every event became a morality play.
Every disagreement became a battle.

I understand why.

Conflict attracts attention.

Outrage attracts attention.

Certainty attracts attention.

But I've realized those things don't interest me very much as a writer.

I don't enjoy character assassination.

I don't enjoy myth making.

I don't enjoy turning people into heroes.

I don't enjoy turning people into villains.

What I enjoy is understanding how things work.

That's probably why I keep drifting back toward technical subjects.

The technology itself is usually more interesting than the personalities surrounding it.

The implications are often more interesting than the arguments.

The systems are often more interesting than the people running them.

None of this is a criticism of anyone else's approach.

It's simply an observation about my own.

I think I've finally figured out the tone I'm looking for.

Calm.

Curious.

Observational.

A willingness to describe what happened without immediately deciding who deserves praise and who deserves blame.

No heroes.

No villains.

No character assassination.

No myth making.

Just an honest attempt to understand what is happening and why it matters.

That's harder than it sounds.

But I think it's the direction I want to keep moving.

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Aaron Rose is a software engineer and technology writer at tech-reader.blog and aaronrose.blog.