What Is Confirmation Bias, and How Can We Use It to Our Advantage as Writers?

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now, here's your host, writer and educator Brad Reed. Episode 31, Today we're exploring a concept called confirmation bias and how we can use it to influence readers, agents, and publishers, and how it can also help bring our characters to life. Welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing podcast. My name is Brad Reed and I am so glad that you're spending some time with me today to talk about writing. If you're a fan of the podcast, if you've been finding value in what we're doing here, and it's been helping you with your writing journey, I'd love it if you'd consider becoming part of the Patreon team to help support the show and keep it up and running.

You can find out more about how to do that at patreon. com slash Brad Reed writes. You'll also find a bunch of additional resources available there, like our real-time revision videos that show you in real time what it looks like to revise a work of fiction.

Now that's one of the most mysterious steps of writing a novel or a screenplay, I think, and the listeners to the show have confirmed that in the kinds of questions that they ask me to talk about. So check that out. Also, many of you know I'm an English teacher, and school actually starts up again today for me. We start a little bit late in Oregon.

Now that creates both a challenge and an opportunity for me in regards to this podcast. So it's a challenge because the time and resources that I have available to give it get less, right? Although I've reorganized my class load this year, so that won't be that much of a change this year.

But it also means that I'm teaching a creative writing class every single day of the week. And honestly, it's while researching and crafting those lessons for my creative writing students that I discover a lot of what I talk about on this podcast. So it's really exciting to be starting another year of that kind of teaching. I love being immersed in both writing every day and teaching writing every day. Something about that consistency that keeps it top of mind and keeps it evolving. I feel really lucky to get that opportunity.

And honestly, even luckier that I get to share the benefits of that with you through this podcast and the other writing resources that we put together for you. So, all right, enough of all that stuff. I'm excited to get into today's topic.

Understanding Confirmation Bias

So let's get started. Today, we're going to talk about confirmation bias. What is it and why do we need to know about it as writers?

So I had heard the term confirmation bias before and kind of understood what it was. But it wasn't until I saw a segment on a show called Brain Games that I felt like I really got a good grasp of it. Now, rather than give you some technical definition of what we're talking about when we're talking about confirmation bias and why it's so vital for us to know about it, I'd like instead to just kind of tell you about this segment.

Now, if you get a chance to check the show notes over at bradreedwrites. com, I've actually put a link up there to the short little video so you can watch it, which is probably better than having me explain it to you. But I'm going to keep it pretty short.

So basically on this little segment of the show, they recruit these people to come in and pretend as though they're a boss hiring for a new position. And what they do is they send in two people to interview for the job. And these two people, these two women are twins. They're dressed exactly the same. They speak very similarly.

And so what they're really trying to get at is which of these two applicants are they going to choose based on the words that they use. So the first applicant comes in and gives six describing words about what kind of person she is, what kind of worker she is. And here's what she says. She says, I'm serious. I'm hardworking. I'm creative.

But I'm also moody and nitpicky and brutally honest. So the interviewer kind of takes some notes about that. And then they send in her twin. She looks exactly the same. The mannerisms are the same. And she introduces herself, but she describes herself with exactly the same words, but in backwards order.

So she starts by saying, well, I'm brutally honest. I'm nitpicky and I'm moody, but I'm also creative, hardworking, and serious. So what's interesting in this video is I think it's something like 80% of the people that they had do this chose the first applicant.

Now they looked exactly the same. Their first impressions were the same. The only difference that they had were the order in which the words were said, right? One started with the three positive characteristics followed by the three negative. The other started with the three negative followed by the three positive. And the one who started with the three positive was hired, like I said, I think it was 80% of the time they chose that candidate.

And so what's happening in that video is something called confirmation bias. In the video, they actually call it the primacy effect. But at least for our purposes today, we're going to refer to this phenomenon as confirmation bias.

So the interview formed an opinion about each of the candidates within the first few things that they said. So when somebody starts off thinking positively, they're either initially forming this positive bias, we're going to call it about that applicant. Now that opinion, even though the interviewer doesn't realize it, then colors everything else that happens in that interview.

So as they got to the more negative descriptions of themselves, those didn't match their initial decision or their initial bias. So they were able to more easily ignore or discount the negatives that the person is using to describe themselves. It's almost like they didn't hear them, right? Because they'd already made up their minds. They've already formed a bias at the beginning and the additional information that they hear from that point is just confirming that bias.

So now what we're calling bias here, I don't want you to think of it necessarily as a negative term. When we hear this term bias, we often think of the negative connotations. We're simply using bias today to describe our initial impression or decision about a person or a thing.

So when you meet somebody new, you immediately form some kind of bias, right? You either like them or you don't. You either think they're nice or you think they're not nice. And there's that initial reaction.

So that's what we're talking about with bias and confirmation bias. So we see this actually all the time in our real lives, especially in an area like politics. So if you're biased one way already, one way or another, you're more likely to seek out and watch news channels that support your position or confirm that initial bias that you have more than you are likely to seek out channels that are working against it or providing evidence against it. And even if you do hear alternative positions, you're more likely to ignore or discount the positions that don't fit your existing bias than you are the ones that build it up. I tell my academic writing students that teachers and professors do the same thing all the time with their writing. Have you ever wondered why when you're in high school, when you're in college, that formatting is so important, right?

They want everything to be Times New Roman, 12-point font, double spaced, all of that stuff. The reason is because proper format and titles and double spacing, font choice, all of that stuff forms a teacher or professor's initial reaction to your work. So if a professor looks at an essay and the formatting is all wrong, or maybe the student's clearly used too large of a font in order to help meet some kind of page count or something like that, then the professor can't help but form an initial opinion, an initial expectation, an initial bias.

So whether intentional or not, and it's usually actually not intentional, the professor will see everything else now in that essay as a way to confirm that initial bias. So if the formatting is good and everything else looks like it should, and the professor begins to read and discovers a misspelled word, they're probably going to think, oh, well, everybody misses a word here and there, right? It's clear this writer knows what she's doing and they can kind of look past that misspelled word.

But if the formatting is off, right, the spacing isn't there, the font choice is weird, the margins are too big, anything like that. And then the professor reads and finds that same misspelled word. The professor's thought process is going to be very different. They're going to think something like, see, I knew it, right? I knew this writer wasn't any good. And here's even more proof.

Now, this may not be fair. My students argue all the time that it's absolutely not fair. And it didn't feel fair to me when I was in high school and college either.

But that's the real world, right? That's just the way our brains work, the way they process the world around us, because the world around us throws way more information at us than we can possibly ever process. So we have this built-in shortcut that we use to navigate the world.

Leveraging First Impressions

Now, sometimes these biases are dead on right, but sometimes they misfire. So what's important as writers is that we recognize that this is what's happening when people encounter our work. So like it or not, potential readers, agents, and publishers are all doing the same thing with our work. They're getting a first impression based on things that may have absolutely nothing to do with how well we write. And those first impressions are going to color the rest of the experience of reading your book, reading your manuscript, reading your screenplay.

So today what we're going to do is look at some of the ways that we can kind of hijack this process of confirmation bias and get these readers on our side from the beginning, so they are now looking for positives in our work rather than negatives. is our brand, right? We're not Sony. We're not Apple. We're not anything like that.

Choosing Your Writer Name

But in very much the same way, our name becomes our brand name, almost like our company name. So you want to stop and give your name some thought. Is your name memorable, right? Is it a name that's unique enough that it sticks out of the crowd and kind of sticks in a person's mind? If it's not, you might consider making a change to it, using some kind of pen name.

Another thing to think about with your name is, is it easy to spell or is it easy to pronounce more easily? Now I was listening to a podcast, great, great podcast. It's called Script Notes from John August, great screenwriter. And he was interviewing Mindy Kaling of Office fame and the Mindy Project and things like that. And they got talking about this subject. I thought it was a fantastic interview.

I recommend you check it out. But she was talking about how she changed her name. So her given name, and I'm not sure I'm going to say this right, is Vera Mindy Chokalingham, Chokalingham, C-H-O-K-A-L-I-N-G-A-M. And just in that process right there, you can see why that was an issue for her, why she felt like she needed to change it to Mindy Kaling, right? She talks in this interview about how even when she meets writers or artists that she loves, if they have particularly difficult names to pronounce or spell, that she's a little bit reluctant to recommend them, right? Or to talk about them with friends because of that little risk of embarrassment of saying something wrong or having to, you know, spell it or something like that.

So she was thinking about this when she was thinking about her career and decided to simplify her name to Mindy Kaling, something pretty memorable, something much easier to spell and pronounce. So the other thing I love about that interview is they talk about how problematic that really is, right? How, and I'm not going to get too much into this today, but I do want to talk a little bit about the dark side, I guess you could say of that, where maybe we are losing some of the cultural diversity that is out there because we're trying to fit it all into these simple kind of English pronunciation rules.

So there is a, you know, something to think about there, remaining authentic to who you are, balanced with this need to have your name be pronounceable and easily spelled. Now another area that's a bit problematic to think about when it comes to the name that you use to write under is your access to markets. Now fortunately this has changed a lot over the last few decades. It still has a ways to go, but we have in literature, a lot of examples of women who changed their names or use a pen name of the other gender, right? They write as men because there was more access to the markets as men. We still see some of that today, but that's something to at least consider as you are thinking through your own branding.

But that's problematic too, right? We, we lose the opportunity for some diversity, I think when we try to fit into these existing markets, there's also examples of the same thing sometimes to hide race or ethnicity, right? So maybe you've got a writer who is worried that their, um, you know, specific ethnic sounding name may hold them back from accessing a market.

So I'm not saying that's right. I'm not saying that's good. I'm just thinking, saying it's something to think about as you're deciding the brand that you want to put out into the world.

Another way to look at your name is what is it going to look like on the spine of a book, right? Especially as writers, if we're writing novels, short story collections, things like that, eventually, um, our name is going to be on the spine of a book. Is your name really long to the point that it's going to appear very small on that book? Or is it short? Is it punchy? Is it powerful?

So it can be bold and really stand out, right? Probably things you haven't really thought about, but things that I guarantee you, corporations and companies think about when they are branding, right? How is our name going to appear on this product to build that name recognition? Um, you also just think about whether your name makes you seem professional or not. I'm not going to use any examples here because I don't want to offend anybody, but there are names out there, first names especially, that just don't sound like a very professional name. That might be a cause for you to decide to use a pen name or some other variation of your name.

Um, another reason that you might want to think about using a pen name is to hide who you really are. Now, this is something that a lot more people wrestle with than I think we realize. Oftentimes when we're writing, we uh, worry about what our family, what our friends might think if we.. about what we're writing, you know, especially in areas like um erotic fiction or things like that, you know, sometimes there can be a need or a desire to kind of withhold who you are to disconnect that from your real persona in the world.

So that might be another reason that you think about maybe changing a pen name. So I want to walk you through how I chose my pen name and I was surprised as I was putting this together how many of those bullet points that I just went over applied to my name. So my actual name is Brad Thompson. You know me as Brad Reed. Reed is actually my middle name.

So as I was thinking through um becoming a writer and imagining my name appearing on books and things like that and working with this name Brad Thompson, I realized that I was going to have some of these issues. Not in a major way, but a lot of these issues with that name. So I ended up changing my pen name to just my first and middle name, Brad Reed, R-E-E-D.

So first of all, it's more memorable, right? I love that play off of um the two versions of Reed, right? There's Reed, R-E-A-D, like I'm reading a book, and Reed, R-E-E-D, like my middle name.

So I like that Brad Reed connection to literature, to books. I also like that it's short, right? I can picture Brad Reed on the spine of a book much easier than I can picture Brad Thompson on the side of a book. In fact, it's both names have four letters. They actually have, um, three of the four letters are exactly the same, right? R-E and D appear in, in all or in both of them.

So I like that too, right? Helps with that um memorization of it. Uh no trouble in spelling it. you'd be surprised how many times people can misspell Thompson. Leave out the H or it's S-E-N at the end or um some other variations. Reed, there's really only one way to spell it.

I've never seen R-E-A-D as a last name, so people generally get that right the first time and don't need explanation. Um, and it fits bigger and better on a book spine, right? I can, it's much more usable as a brand. And it also provides some of that anonymity that I want, especially as a high school teacher, right? I want to be able to have the freedom to write about things, topics, themes that may not be, not necessarily appropriate for high school because I don't do anything that you would technically call inappropriate, but I want to be able to take stands um on topics that may not be um widely accepted um in the area that I live, right?

So there is that advantage of being able to provide that little level of anonymity between who I am as a writer and who I am as a community member. So there's almost nothing more personal and intimate than your name, right? You've had this since day one and it's who you are and it can be really hard. It can actually even sometimes be hurtful to some of your family, especially to parents if they're around, um, because they gave it to you. It can sometimes be almost offensive to choose a different name.

So at the end of the day, remember that you're creating a product. You're creating a book or a screenplay or a poem that you want to get out into the world, that you want to market into the world. And to do that, you need a good marketing campaign, which requires a good brand name.

Now maybe you're that lucky one and you were given a good brand name at birth, but maybe not, right? I'm not suggesting that you have to change your name here, but I am suggesting that it's worth taking some time to at least explore your options and think through some of these. Um, some of these things that might make your given name, not the best choice to use as, as a pen name.

The Importance of Your Photo

So we're going to move on to the photo, the photo that you use as a writer. Now I spent about 10, well, no, five, six years of my life as a real estate agent. And if you've ever worked with a real estate agent, you know that a photo, that real estate agent photo is key, right?

Now if you're using a photo in your marketing, if you're using a photo on uh profiles online and things like that, that's also key. I probably shouldn't be, right? We, we hate to think about a world that works on how we look, but at the end of the day, we're humans and we're using every piece of information that we can to form that initial impression about somebody. Um, so a photo, if you're using one, can be a really key part of that.

So it's worth thinking through your photo, um, and making sure that it reflects your genre, your market, right? Somebody who's writing kind of playful, Fine, right? But I think there is a time when we're ready to put our work out into the world that we do have to see it at least to some extent as a business, as a product, and make sure that all those details are in line for the best chances of success.

So think about your photo. Maybe go back and look at your Twitter photo, your Facebook profile photo, and even bounce it off a few people, right? Does this look like a writer? Does this look like a professional writer, somebody who's serious about the art that they're putting out into the world? I also want to mention your bio, whether that be on Twitter, Facebook, on a query letter, whatever it is. And I'm not going to go deeply into bio here.

There's a lot of information online about that, but just make sure that your bio represents your best writing. Before an agent or a publisher ever sees the amazing work you've done in your novel, they are, whether, whether they know it or not, they're forming their opinion of you as a writer based on the bio that you've written. So just take time with it again, bounce it off of other people, make sure that that's solid. Next thing I want to talk about is actually sort of two or three things in one, and that's your email address, your website, if you have one, your Twitter handle, all of that stuff that kind of identifies us online.

So the other day I had to email somebody and their email address was still an at yahoo email address. So if you're listening right now and your email address is at Yahoo, I apologize, but my first thought is, you know, get with the times, right? Who uses at Yahoo anymore? I honestly didn't even know people still had at Yahoo email addresses. Sorry, Yahoo, sorry, Yahoo users.

So did you ever stop to think about what your email address says about you as a person? Now I'm not even talking, at least not yet, about what your address before the at sign is. I'm only talking about what's after the at sign. And almost everybody uses Gmail addresses now, so you're probably thinking, I use Gmail, right?

So I'm fine, what's the big deal? Well, that is the big deal, right? The fact that everybody uses Gmail addresses, they're free, they're ubiquitous, and they probably don't hurt your image as a professional writer, but they don't actively help it either. It's an opportunity for very, very subtle brand development that most of us miss because we're using these at Gmail kind of addresses professionally.

So what I'd recommend is that you consider purchasing a domain name. These have gotten incredibly cheap over the years. They're actually a little bit hard to find. com domain names, but if you can find one that works for you, that's still, I believe, the best domain names to go with, but there's a bunch of other options.

So consider purchasing a domain name to show your potential agents and publishers that you're serious about what you're doing. You've done even the smallest little investment to buy a domain name. So, for example, my email address is bradreid at bradreidwrites. com.

So hopefully there's no question in people's minds that I'm serious about writing. And it's based on something as simple as having that custom email address, that custom website. It shows them that I'm not just writing in my spare time and, you know, throwing things out in the world hoping something sticks, that I'm a writer, that I've made some investment in it. And please make sure you're not using the same email address that you set up in middle school.

So if you've got the email, you know, smashmouthrocks at msn. com, that's not going to impress anyone. So if you haven't already, make that change over to an email address that also serves as a very subtle but powerful marketing piece for who you are as a writer. And the same thing here goes for things like Twitter handles and other social media profiles. These are all branding opportunities that actually carry a lot of power. In fact, you might think of them like billboards for your writing business.

So the idea behind a billboard is that you have just a few words. Nobody is pulling over in their car to stop and read a billboard, right? You see it for a second or two, and maybe two or three, four of those words land in your brain along with the logo or slogan, and you have that brand awareness. That's what you're doing, essentially, with Twitter handles, with social media profiles.

So what is the most important information that you can convey in just a few words? So it's probably your actual human name, right? Who you really are, or your pen name, if you're using a pen name. And maybe, just maybe, one other detail, if there's space to get in there.

Crafting Your Book Title

So you'll notice that all of my social media echoes my website and email address. Everywhere I can get it, I'm bradreidwrites online. That's my billboard. I think about that as my billboard. I want to move on to just a couple of other things that are specific about your books that you are releasing into the world that have to do with that confirmation bias. And again, just a reminder here, these are all judgments that are being made almost instantaneously about people who are evaluating your book, whether that's readers who may want to purchase it, whether that's agents who may want to represent you, or publishers that may want to publish you.

All of these things are the things that are forming those instantaneous first impressions that then go on to factor into the confirmation bias. So I want you to think about your book title. On the show, it's been a while ago, I went over something called the kill list, which is actually just a, it's available on the Patreon website. If you go to patreon. com slash Brad Reid writes and scroll down, you'll see the kill list there. And this is an editing tool where you basically go through and take out all of the weak kind of weasel words that don't need to be in a sentence so that you, you get down to the real power of that sentence.

I am shocked at the number of times I see a book title, especially self-published, that have a bunch of these kill list words in there, right? They just jump out at me like a big sign waving this writer doesn't really even know how to construct a sentence because they have these lazy weak words right there in their title, which might be the most important sentence, if you want to think about it that way, of their entire book. So if getting rid of that kind of language is important within each sentence of your book, how much more important to get rid of them in the title?

So in your title, lose every word that doesn't have to be there. Get rid of adverbs. That's probably the one I see the people the most guilty of is leaving a bunch of adverbs in their title. If you don't know why adverbs are so bad, go back and check out the archives of the podcast and you'll see a podcast that we did on that. Also in your title, avoid being too generic. You want to be as specific as possible.

You want to try to find that title that no other book could have, right? Only your book could have this title. So avoid things like all the time. I see people writing memoirs and the title is something like my life, right? Completely forgettable, right? A billion books out there could be called my life or something like love comes knocking.

That could describe a boatload of books out there in the world about love stories or space adventure, right? Avoid these very generic titles. Do the work of finding that title that no other book could have.

So I want to use a couple of different examples here. This is actually this first list is borrowed from a website and I apologize. I did not get it written down where this was from, but it was another writer who was talking about as they were just looking back through their Goodreads history and what they've read about the, all the titles that seem to blend into each other.

So listen to this group of titles that she wrote about here first and tell me how different each of these are. Do each one of these sound like a different story? So the titles are when you were here, after I'm gone, before I met you, far from you, until we meet again, since you've been gone, the last time they met, the day we met, and the next time you see me.

Now I have no idea based on those book titles, what any of those books are about other than somebody's gone and I need to meet them again. And there's no differentiation. In fact, I bet if I asked you right now to name one of those titles that I just gave you, you wouldn't be able to come up with it, right? Without listening back to it and hearing it again.

So those are generic kind of blah titles. Now I want to read to you the top selling books on Barnes and Noble right now. I literally looked at this yesterday.

So this is up to the minute and listen to how specific these are, how different they are from each other and how they can probably only be one book, right? They could only be the title of one book. So the top one right now is actually a book called Girl, Wash Your Face.

Now that's very specific. I'm going to remember that title, Girl, Wash Your Face. Book number two is PS I Still Love You. Initially that sounds like generic a little bit because it says I still love you, but notice how just putting that PS on the beginning individualizes it.

Now I'm thinking, and I don't know anything about this book, but I'm thinking this might be like a collection of love letters or letters that were um, like back and forth between uh two people in a relationship. There's something about that PS. I still love you that is gripping. It's not the most um outstanding title, but it's different enough that it settled on the title of your book, just Google it, right? Google that title and see what comes up. Is your book in a search result going to get lost in the mix of other similarly titled books, maybe even song titles or lyrics or maybe verses of poetry?

If a whole bunch of stuff comes up, it's telling that you probably need to choose something that will make your book the first and maybe the only thing that comes up on a Google search for it. So if I went and searched right now, Crazy Rich Asians book, there's only going to be one thing that comes up, right? And it's going to be that specific book.

The last thing I want to talk about with book titles here is to try out your title on unsuspecting strangers. I actually have some of my creative writing students do this. They get very nervous about it, but they'll, most of them do it. They'll try out their title on unsuspecting strangers.

So they would say, hey, I'm writing a book. The title is this. What do you expect that book to be about? And does it remind you of any other books that you know about?

So if they, if an unsuspecting stranger can't say, well, I bet that book's about blah, blah, blah, then your title is, is too generic, right? They, they don't know what to do with it. And neither will your readers, your agents, your publishers when they see kind of a blah title.

The Role of Book Covers

Okay. We're getting close here to the end of this list today. Thanks for hanging with me. I want to talk about what I think is my own personal pet peeve because I see this go wrong so, so often. And that is your book's cover.

Now you would never think of telling a great cover artist that there's such a good cover artist that you should write your own book just to put your cover on it. Right. That doesn't make any sense.

But so often, especially self-published authors do the opposite of that. They've written what they believe is a great book. So therefore they must have the skills to, to make the cover for it. That's just not true. Just like we talked about with photography, there are subtle, fine details of craft that we can sense in book art and we can recognize on a deeper level. I can't even tell you what they are because I'm not a book design, uh, guru, right?

I know that I don't have those skills, but I also can look at a group of 10 covers and I can tell you which ones are professionally designed and which ones aren't, and you could do exactly the same thing, right? There's something about that professional role that sets your book apart and makes you look professional. People cannot help, but judge a book and its author by the cover of that book. I mean, that's why we have that famous saying, right? You can't judge a book by its cover because that means that's exactly what we're wired to do, right? We have to be reminded to try to not do that.

Writing Compelling Openings

And it's actually terrible to admit this. I feel bad about this, but there are self-published books out there that I've really enjoyed, but I don't recommend to other people simply because of how terrible that cover looks. And I don't want, I don't want that to reflect on me as a person who loves to read and find good quality books to recommend a book that looks like somebody threw it together in Photoshop on their own computer. Last but not least, we're running a little bit long today, so if you're still with me, I appreciate that a lot. If your reader, your agent, your publisher gets past all of these initial elements that they're looking at when they're developing their bias, they're going to get to your first sentence and your first few paragraphs.

So let's go back to this analogy that we started with of the job interview. So if we're using that analogy, then everything up to this point has been just that first impression that you and your book make before you ever speak a word. So these things are like the clothes you wear or the posture that you have or the expression on your faces as you enter the interview. And now it's time to actually open your mouth and speak. And those are the first sentences, maybe the first paragraphs of your book. And how important are those first words that you say?

Well, they're absolutely vital, right? These first words are your opening sentence, maybe the first paragraph. If that goes well, then maybe it's the entire first chapter. And I want you to remember that seven second rule that we talked about in another, I think that was another podcast before that people make their first impressions within the first seven seconds.

So a reader, an agent, a publisher is beginning your book with the exact same question in mind. They're all asking the same thing. And that question is, is this book any good? And they begin making that decision on the first page. And of course, they're looking for things like grammatical problems, right? A page littered with adverbs.

Um, or maybe, uh, other grammar errors show that you don't have control of conventions. All of that can be an immediate turnoff, but they also want to see that you know how to hook your reader into a story. And I'm not necessarily talking about throwing a gripping action scene onto the first page of your story, right? That's kind of the big thing right now is hit them with action on page one, but not all stories work that way or have to work that way. Some stories can start very quietly, but any well-written book will lead the reader into a world or a character that a reader can't help, but at least be curious about.

So those first few sentences, those first few paragraphs creates what I call little mysteries that make your reader want to turn the page to find out the answers to those little mysteries. In a way that's the heart of all writing, isn't it? Leaving enough little mysteries and sometimes huge mysteries that the reader is just curious enough to turn the next page. If you do that consistently over a few hundred pages, uh, then you have a solid novel, solid screenplay.

So you want to revise, revise, and revise again your opening pages, your opening paragraphs, your opening sentence. You want them to shine with polish, with intention. You want to force your reader, grab them by the shirt collar and force them to turn to the next page. We're going to talk about the best way to learn how to do this as part of our weekly challenge at the end of today's podcast.

So make sure to keep listening until then. So you have some actionable steps. So that's what confirmation bias looks like for writers.

Now you may not like that. That's the way you're being judged, but there's no getting around it that that's the way it happens. It's just the way the human brain has evolved to operate. We have to make rushed decisions about whether the things around us are good or bad. And once we made those decisions, then we interpret all other evidence in light of those initial decisions.

Now I'm not saying that an initial impression can't be overcome. So as an example, I've certainly read student essays that have butchered the formatting, but went on to be pretty solid papers. But why not do the simple things upfront so that your reader is on your side from the very beginning. Our wise word today comes from Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. I have no idea if I'm actually pronouncing that right.

So please forgive me if I'm not. I wanted to give credit to writer T. A. Pierce, who actually shared this quote on Twitter with perfect timing for me to see it and include it in today's episode. If you want to follow him on Twitter, you can find him at T underscore A underscore Pierce.

Anyway, here's what Jorge says for this week's wise word. One falls in love with a line, then with the page, then with an author. Well, why not? It is a beautiful process. What he's really talking about here is when a writer gets confirmation bias right, because the first line hooks us and gives us confidence in the writer and the story. Then we take that confidence into the rest of the page.

And when we find quality there as well, we fall in love with that author. We trust that author. So in other words, we're on their side now.

Now, if we come to a weak spot or a fumbled line, we happily forgive that. And we read on looking for more things to love. So if we were to rewrite Jorge's quote from the other perspective, that of reading a work that isn't done well, it might go something like this. One is disappointed with the line, then struggles to read the page, then discounts the author. Well, why not? It is a frustrating process.

Weekly Challenge for Writers

So be the writer that readers fall in love with by getting their confirmation bias on your side from the very beginning. Our weekly challenge this week involves you surrounding yourself with a bunch of books that you love. So even books that you just kind of like will work too if you don't have that many books around you that you love. It could be online books or physical books, but literally get yourself surrounded by these books. And then I want you to do a couple of things to explore how these writers and publishers have gone about influencing your confirmation bias.

So step one here is to first just read the titles, read through the titles and see what those titles might have in common. Do you see that they've used words from the kill list in the titles? Almost certainly not, right? Are the titles long or are they short and punchy? Are they specific enough titles that these books are the only books that could have those titles? And then imagine how would your book look sitting around you among those other books?

Would that title stand up next to them? Because literally that's what it'll be doing when it's in a bookstore or on a page of Amazon. The second step, and I think the most insightful, is to actually open each book Consider joining the Patreon team for just a couple of bucks a month. You'll be helping to support this podcast and the other resources we produce. Sure, it helps us pay the bills around here, but it's also a huge emotional boost, honestly, for us to know that you're finding value in what we're doing and would like us to continue doing it.

So until next week, remember the best way to improve your craft is by writing. That's what I'm off to go do and I hope you're off to do the same. Let's get some words on paper this week and we'll meet up again next week for another episode of the Inside Creative Writing Podcast. Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast with your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. We'll be back next week.