Kelly Bender and the Writing Advice I Did Not Want to Hear
Road to Rank 1 - Episode 1
I have a plan. It's not a good plan. Let’s goooo!
For my mission to become a better writer, I keep talking to people who have already done the work and hoping one of them finally gives me the secret shortcut.
This time I spoke with Kelly Bender, a narrative designer, comic writer, game writer, and mentor who started in indie comics, moved into games through a Ubisoft writing test, worked on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Age of Mythology: Retold, and now also teaches narrative design through his own bootcamp.
Kelly was also the first person in this series to tell me, very clearly and repeatedly, exactly what I did not want to hear.
The Shortcut Does Not Exist. Very Rude.
Naturally, I asked Kelly the important question: what is the one trick that will make me a bestselling writer without years of pain, repetition, failure, and effort?
Kelly’s answer was brutally simple: there is no shortcut.
Not “there is kind of a shortcut.”
Not “there is a framework.”
Not “there is one mindset hack.”
Just: no shortcut.
And yes, that is deeply inconvenient for my overall strategy.
But the way he explained it was useful. Writing, in his view, is not about suddenly producing one masterpiece. It is about doing the reps. Small stories. Then bigger stories. Different genres. Different perspectives. Different structures. Not because every story will be amazing, but because each one forces you to become better.
That was his real point: the goal is not only to improve the story. The goal is to improve yourself as a writer.
Why Small Stories Matter More Than Big Dreams
One thing I liked very much in Kelly’s thinking is that he pushes against the fantasy of starting with your giant life-defining masterpiece.
Write one story.
Give it a beginning, middle, and end.
Then write another one.
That sounds almost too basic. But it is probably correct.
He compared writing to training for a marathon. Nobody just decides to become an Olympic runner and starts with the final race. You train. You fail. You build stamina. You improve your technique. Then you do it again.
The same goes for writing.
That is especially relevant because so many writers, myself included, are in love with the big vision. The great series. The huge fantasy world. The bestselling saga. But Kelly’s point was that those ambitions are useless if you do not build the practical muscles first.
Three archetypes. Three kinds of danger.
The people of Kadras tend to sort themselves into recognizable shapes. Not roles. Not jobs. Shapes.
The ones who know more than they say. They are everywhere. In the Abyss they are survivors. In the Belt they are middlemen. In the Crown they are strategists. The same posture, three different power levels. They will help you if it helps them. The question is always: what are they actually buying?
The ones who have already decided. They picked a side, a faction, a cause, a debt they intend to collect. They are not negotiating. They are executing. Some of them will try to pull you in. Some will try to use you as a tool. A few will become the most reliable people in your world, precisely because you know exactly what they want.
The ones the city has not broken yet. They still ask questions. They still get surprised. They are usually younger, always reckless, and occasionally right about something that everyone else stopped believing in years ago. In a city like Kadras, that kind of belief is either the most dangerous thing or the most valuable. Sometimes both.
Becoming Better Is a Process, Not a Mood
Another thing I found strong was how practical Kelly is about motivation.
He does not treat writing as some divine emotional state that either arrives or does not. He treats it more like work you schedule.
That does not mean you must produce brilliant pages every time you sit down. It means you deliberately make space for the process. Sometimes that is writing. Sometimes that is research. Sometimes it is watching something in a similar genre. Sometimes it is studying structure, building characters, networking, or learning how a certain profession actually works so your dialogue sounds believable.
That distinction matters.
Because a lot of writers think they have failed if they are not actively drafting scenes every day. Kelly’s view is broader and more useful: if you are doing meaningful work toward the end goal of finishing your story, all those smaller steps still count and add up to the result.
Why Most People Calling Themselves Writers Never Finish Anything
One of the sharpest parts of the conversation was Kelly’s view on writing as a profession.
He pointed out that “writer” is one of those rare identities people claim without ever having been paid for it, trained for it, or finished anything substantial. And that creates a strange illusion around the field.
Lots of people want to be writers. Far fewer actually write consistently. Even fewer finish. And fewer still improve on purpose.
Kelly has written a huge amount across comics and games, and what came through very clearly is that professional writing is not built on inspiration alone. It is built on repetition, failure, revision, feedback, and persistence.
Again: extremely inconvenient advice. Also obviously true.
What Fantasy Writers Can Learn from Westerns
Toward the end, we got into westerns, and this became one of my favorite parts of the call.
Kelly loves westerns, and what he pulled out of the genre was not just aesthetics, but focus. Westerns are often stripped back. Fewer distractions. Simpler worlds. Rawer characters. Cleaner stakes. A cabin, a horizon, five riders in the distance, and suddenly you have tension.
That was a very strong reminder for me.
In fantasy, we often hide behind scale. Big lore. Big maps. Big external threats. Westerns show what happens when you remove all that extra decoration and let character, space, danger, and human conflict do the work.
And honestly, that might be one of the best lessons for fantasy writers too.
What I’m Taking From This One
This call was valuable mostly because it attacked my favorite illusion.
I wanted a shortcut. Kelly gave me a process.
Write.
Finish.
Try again.
Get better.
Repeat.
Very annoying. Very useful.
And I think that is why this conversation stayed with me.
Not because it gave me a magic trick, but because it reminded me that becoming good is not mysterious. It is just harder, slower, and more repetitive than most people want it to be.
Kelly, thank you. I hated parts of this advice, which is usually a good sign.
About Road to Rank 1
Road to Rank 1 is my public learning series about becoming a better writer of interactive fiction and audio stories by talking to experts from games, books, audio, and narrative design.
