Lincoln Michel
Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic Realms; writes the newsletter Counter Craft on fiction craft and the publishing industry.
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What they believe
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Publishing industry claims to predict how trends will play out, but such predictions are unreliable.
Publishers want to have people believe they know exactly how and when things will shake out, but you just never know.
countercraft.substack.comSaid 15 Sept 2026This on korrents
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The methods and techniques a writer uses to compose a work shape the finished work as much as a painter's or musician's technical choices shape theirs.
The methods we choose to use to compose the work determine the final work as much as any decision by a painter or musician.
countercraft.substack.comSaid 7 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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As its own page →Hiding
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- NewsletterOf Course It’s the Screens. Who Are We Kidding?
- x.com
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From one piece Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observer 3 beliefs · countercraft.substack.com
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korrents.com
Reading a book is fundamentally a solitary experience, unlike watching a film or TV show in a group.Their words
But books, while you can discuss them with a group and relive them that way, are still a solitary endeavor that takes time to digest and feel.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observercountercraft.substack.com
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Their words
Perhaps this is a bold claim, but I think anyone writing about or from the southwest who isn't also in some way clocking how drought and rising temperatures and pollution are affecting the region is being disingenuous.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observercountercraft.substack.com
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korrents.com
Publishing industry claims to predict how trends will play out, but such predictions are unreliable.Their words
Publishers want to have people believe they know exactly how and when things will shake out, but you just never know.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observercountercraft.substack.com
7 September
From one piece Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities 2 beliefs · countercraft.substack.com
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korrents.com
A loosely plotted, anarchic novel requires a correspondingly loose, unplanned writing process to produce it.Their words
You need a freewheeling process to create a freewheeling work.
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Their words
The methods we choose to use to compose the work determine the final work as much as any decision by a painter or musician.
24 August
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korrents.com
A cabin in literature typically serves as an escape from trouble or a place where new trouble is found.Their words
The cabin is a classic literary setting. It's the getaway spot where characters can flee to escape their troubles or journey to in order to find new ones.
Processing: How Josh Riedel Edited Thirty Cabinscountercraft.substack.com
10 August
From one piece Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision 2 beliefs · countercraft.substack.com
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korrents.com
Because most people read so few books, almost any older book is effectively new to them.Their words
Every old book is new to someone. And, given how few books most people read, probably new to functionally everyone.
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Their words
this is one reason why I'm skeptical of outsourcing your creativity to LLMs.
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From one piece Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation 2 beliefs · countercraft.substack.com
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Their words
Regardless of genre or style, nearly all fiction works through a balancing act of repetition and difference.
Principles of Plotting Part III: Variationcountercraft.substack.com
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korrents.com
Stories are always deliberately constructed by their author, not something that emerges on its own.Their words
Stories are not raw milk or nature photography. They are always constructed by the author.
Principles of Plotting Part III: Variationcountercraft.substack.com
22 June
From one piece There Are More than Five POVs 3 beliefs · countercraft.substack.com
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Their words
It's a cold mode. Most readers recoil at it. Characters are our windows into a story, and third-person objective narrators are opaque windows.
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korrents.com
A first-person 'I' narrator and a collective 'we' narrative voice produce dramatically different narrative effects.Their words
Narratively, there is a dramatic difference between an "I" narrator and a collective "we" narrative voice.
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korrents.com
The traditional five-part POV taxonomy is organized around grammatical person rather than narrative effect.Their words
It's not that the categories are wrong exactly. But they are rooted more in grammar than narrative.
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Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 13 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Publishing industry claims to predict how trends will play out, but such predictions are unreliable.
Publishers want to have people believe they know exactly how and when things will shake out, but you just never know.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observer Said 15 Sept 2026
Writing about the American Southwest without acknowledging drought, rising temperatures, and pollution is intellectually dishonest.
Perhaps this is a bold claim, but I think anyone writing about or from the southwest who isn't also in some way clocking how drought and rising temperatures and pollution are affecting the region is being disingenuous.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observer Said 15 Sept 2026
Reading a book is fundamentally a solitary experience, unlike watching a film or TV show in a group.
But books, while you can discuss them with a group and relive them that way, are still a solitary endeavor that takes time to digest and feel.
Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observer Said 15 Sept 2026
Show 10 more
The methods and techniques a writer uses to compose a work shape the finished work as much as a painter's or musician's technical choices shape theirs.
The methods we choose to use to compose the work determine the final work as much as any decision by a painter or musician.
Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities Said 7 Sept 2026
A loosely plotted, anarchic novel requires a correspondingly loose, unplanned writing process to produce it.
You need a freewheeling process to create a freewheeling work.
Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities Said 7 Sept 2026
A cabin in literature typically serves as an escape from trouble or a place where new trouble is found.
The cabin is a classic literary setting. It's the getaway spot where characters can flee to escape their troubles or journey to in order to find new ones.
Processing: How Josh Riedel Edited Thirty Cabins Said 24 Aug 2026
People should be skeptical of outsourcing creativity to LLMs.
this is one reason why I'm skeptical of outsourcing your creativity to LLMs.
Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision Said 10 Aug 2026
Because most people read so few books, almost any older book is effectively new to them.
Every old book is new to someone. And, given how few books most people read, probably new to functionally everyone.
Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision Said 10 Aug 2026
Stories are always deliberately constructed by their author, not something that emerges on its own.
Stories are not raw milk or nature photography. They are always constructed by the author.
Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation Said 1 Jul 2026
Nearly all fiction works through a balance of repetition and difference.
Regardless of genre or style, nearly all fiction works through a balancing act of repetition and difference.
Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation Said 1 Jul 2026
The traditional five-part POV taxonomy is organized around grammatical person rather than narrative effect.
It's not that the categories are wrong exactly. But they are rooted more in grammar than narrative.
There Are More than Five POVs Said 22 Jun 2026
A first-person 'I' narrator and a collective 'we' narrative voice produce dramatically different narrative effects.
Narratively, there is a dramatic difference between an "I" narrator and a collective "we" narrative voice.
There Are More than Five POVs Said 22 Jun 2026
Third-person objective narration alienates readers because withholding interiority removes the window characters normally provide into a story.
It's a cold mode. Most readers recoil at it. Characters are our windows into a story, and third-person objective narrators are opaque windows.
There Are More than Five POVs Said 22 Jun 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 21 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Recommends Metallic Realms
A reminder that my novel Metallic Realms is available at a bookstore near you. Reviews call it "brilliant" (Esquire), "a total blast" (Chicago Tribune), "unrelentingly smart and inventive" (Locus), and "just plain wonderful" (Booklist). Maybe the perfect holiday gift for the booklover in your life?
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
their own
Loved Pedro Páramo
Some excellent short novels that fit this include Juan Rulfo's haunted and brilliant Pedro Páramo
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Recommends Child of God
Cormac McCarthy's Child of God is the perfect starter book to see if you enjoy McCarthy's maximalist prose and macabre images before tackling the longer Blood Meridian.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
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Show 18 more
Loved Sula
Toni Morrison's brief Sula—rereleased with a new cover this month—is one of her best works and a great starting place for her lush and lyrical style.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Recommends The Loser
You can't go wrong with the short The Loser (trans. by Mark M. Anderson) as an introduction to Thomas Bernhard.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Liked The Box Man
A reader reminded me that one of my favorite authors, Kobo Abe, has a very fun and formally bizarre novel called The Box Man
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Loved The Employees
Olga Ravn's The Employees (trans. by Martin Aitken) that takes the form of employee interview transcripts on a spaceship that has encountered bizarre alien life.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Loved Multiple Choice
Two other formally odd books I love: Alejandro Zambra's Multiple Choice (trans. by Megan McDowell), structured as a standardized test with e.g. chapters of fill-in-the-blank questions
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Loved Invisible Cities
I'm going to have to include Italo Calvino's Oulipian novel Invisible Cities (trans. by William Weaver), since it is a foundational text for me.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Recommends Exercises in Style
Oulipo's co-founder Raymond Queneau has a book to include here called Exercises in Style (trans. by Barbara Wright), which retells an intentionally banal story 99 times.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
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Liked The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise
The Art of Asking is a delightful and quick read. Only 80 pages in fact.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
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What others say about The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise →
Loved Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick remains perhaps the best reading experience of my life.
countercraft.substack.com 18 Nov 2025
affiliate link
Loved Season of the Swamp
Yuri Herrera is one of the few contemporary authors whose books I will always buy and know I will love.
countercraft.substack.com 1 Dec 2024
affiliate link
Liked Euphoria Days
Like the previous two books, this one is short (just under 200 pages) and written in lively prose and fast-moving chapters.
countercraft.substack.com 1 Dec 2024
affiliate link
Loved Fulgentius
Point being that it was probably inevitable I would love this short and absurd novel about a sexagenarian Roman general who is obsessed with staging the sole play he ever wrote—back as a precocious young artist—over and over again.
countercraft.substack.com 1 Dec 2024
affiliate link
Loved On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)
I won't spoil anything by saying more but the novel is really lovely and captivating, pulling surprising meaning and depth from repetition.
countercraft.substack.com 1 Dec 2024
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What others say about On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) →
Loved The Werewolf at Dusk
Obviously, my text appears in the book but I would have loved it even if that wasn't the case. Small is just an astounding artist—see his bestselling memoir Stitches
countercraft.substack.com 22 Feb 2024
their own
Loved Reboot
For now, let me say I tore through Reboot, which is a sharply written and hilarious novel about a has-been actor in a downward spiral who tries to fix his life with a (yes) reboot of the Buffy-by-way-of-Baywatch teen drama that made him briefly a star.
countercraft.substack.com 22 Feb 2024
affiliate link
Loved The Novices of Lerna
And if you are, like me, a fan of surreal and fantastical literature I think you will be blown away by The Novices of Lerna.
countercraft.substack.com 22 Feb 2024
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Loved Headshot
Rita Bullwinkel follows up her excellent and weird story collection Belly Up with a knockout punch of a debut
countercraft.substack.com 22 Feb 2024
affiliate link
Loved James
Briefly, James is Huckleberry Finn retold from the perspective of Jim. It has all the energy and humor of Twain's work—in Everett's own unique voice of course—and adds a whole new level of depth to the story.
countercraft.substack.com 22 Feb 2024
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Where they publish
Newsletter Counter Craft His newsletter on fiction craft, reading and the publishing business.
Open countercraft.substack.com
Recent
- Of Course It’s the Screens. Who Are We Kidding? 17 Oct 2026 The only mystery to the decline of reading is why we pretend it’s a mystery. (But also some hope for books.)
- Processing: How Adam Wilson Wrote Fail Sons 6 Oct 2026 The author on novels in fragments, fiction as lucid dreaming, and the millennial midlife crises
- The Roots of the Novel Are Parody, Pastiche, and Play 24 Sept 2026 On reading Don Quixote in 2026
Show 17 more
- Processing: How Nicholas Russell Wrote Observer 15 Sept 2026 The author on desert horror, being unencumbered by genre, and the process of writing and selling a debut novel
- Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities 7 Sept 2026 A little look at the writing techniques of César Aira, Vladimir Nabokov, Garielle Lutz, Zadie Smith, and others.
- Processing: How Josh Riedel Edited Thirty Cabins 24 Aug 2026 The author and editor on making zines, literary cabins, and planning volume two.
- Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision 10 Aug 2026 Some recent links plus an update on how my horror novel revisions are going
- Processing: How Paul Tremblay Wrote Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep 28 Jul 2026 The author on writing horror and comedy, unusual narrative approaches, and pouring AI anxieties into fiction.
- Principles of Plotting Part IV: Intersection and Redirection 9 Jul 2026 The fourth entry in a series on figuring out plot and applying it to your fiction
- Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation 1 Jul 2026 The third entry in a series on figuring out plot and applying it to your fiction
- There Are More than Five POVs 22 Jun 2026 A little craft rant on points of view in fiction.
- The Ghostwriter in the Machine, LLM Author Psychosis, and Other Saturday Sundries 6 Jun 2026 Some more AI thoughts and other odds and ends
- Processing: How Hannah Lillith Assadi Wrote Paradiso 17 26 May 2026 The author on writing through grief, the ghost of setting, and adding a layer of dream to reality
- LLMs Are Revealing How Low the Bar Is (And Lowering It Even Further) 19 May 2026 Quick thoughts on the Granta AI scandal and a bunch of other recent AI scandals
- Scavenging in the Media Wastelands: Or, Substacking While Trying to Make a Living Writing 10 May 2026 Chatting with John Warner about the state of literary magazines, freelancing, Substack, and vanishing writing careers.
- On Making Money (Or Not) Writing 1 May 2026 Plus, more thoughts on book reviews.
- Why BookScan Is Different from Book Sales (Which Are Different from Royalty Statements) 24 Apr 2026 A quick explainer post on book sales and BookScan. Plus, a little publishing gossip.
- The Principles of Plotting Part II: Oscillation 17 Apr 2026 The second entry in a series on figuring out plot and applying it to your fiction
- I Loved this Novel About Digging Up Frozen Soldiers in 19th-Century Prussia and You Might Too 8 Apr 2026 Thoughts on the bad state of book reviews. Plus, a review of a great book: Centroeuropa by Vicente Luis Mora (translated by Rahul Bery)
- What Memoir Scandals Tell Us about Two LLM Writing Scandals 31 Mar 2026 On James Frey, Amy Griffin, Shy Girl, and LLM book reviews.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @TheLincoln His X account, linked from his Substack profile.
Recent
- Just like boss Trump, @SenatorCollins only defense is ever "It's not my fault! I'm an idiot who is constantly played for a fool by everyone around me." Utterly pathetic. Collins can't even own her own decisions and their widely anticipated consequences. 21 Oct 2026
- Good moment in James Daunt profile when a billionaire marvels at how saving a bookstore chain is so cheap it’s “not even half a boat” 20 Oct 2026
- Classic case of a guy who got it wrong and can't stop doubling down. For years, right up until the invasion, Mearsheimer said over and over Putin was "too smart" to ever invade Ukraine. When Isaac Chotiner interviewed him after, he just... pretended Russia hadn't really invaded. 20 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- Centrists love to frame DSA/progressive Dems are insufficiently loyal to the party and then all rush to boost the GOP and undermine the party. Pathetic. 19 Oct 2026
- When I've pointed out Hassett, a celebrated and powerful economist, epitomizes the joke economics has become I had some economists "rebut" by saying "Hassett just says things he knows aren't true." Lol yes exactly. It's a field where lying, fraud, and fantasy are encouraged. 19 Oct 2026
- “If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best” - Dr. Henry Jekyll 18 Oct 2026
- The GOP is fundamentally an anti-democracy party. 18 Oct 2026
- This was so foreseeable (indeed my early prediction when ChatGPT came out) but a lot of tech people have a hard time understanding that the hypothetical enriching use of a tech loses out to the lazy corner cutting use 99.9% of the time 18 Oct 2026
- People don't realize how much AI is transforming education. Boys used to have to go to Jupiter to get more stupider, but now with AI they can get more stupider right at home. 18 Oct 2026
- Republicans despise their voters beyond belief 18 Oct 2026
- Well to begin with it doesn't? You think Romania and the poorest parts of Britain are among the highest GDP areas? 18 Oct 2026
- One of the most insane parts of the 2024 was watching self-described leftist pundits claim that Trump 2 would just be a "normal Republican" presidency no one should worry about. Trump was obviously be less restrained in second term. Just stupid not to foresee this. 17 Oct 2026
- This is truly my favorite AI guy argument. "You know what makes me avant-garde? Using tech products that the richest corporations on earth----along with the reigning political administration--are pushing as hard as possible. It's super edgy to do what you're told!" 17 Oct 2026
- I wrote about the decline of reading, mass market paperbacks, but also why there is hope for books. 17 Oct 2026
- This just is the plot. What's the joke? 17 Oct 2026
- Future is going great 17 Oct 2026
- I'm going to write an update to Blood Meridian where The Judge is a Lockheed Martin CEO 17 Oct 2026
- "I support Donald Trump and his enablers because I dislike sexism" is not a line that is going to work lol 17 Oct 2026
- "are tech companies just ignoring the law now" "Now"???? 17 Oct 2026
- Remember when you could get 100k likes just posting something like "Oscar Wilde implies the existence of Oscar Tamee"? Good times. 17 Oct 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
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