Last week, I went on an opinionated little rant about how fictional 'nice guys' teach men things that are actually counterproductive in their efforts to woo women.

This week, as promised, I'm going to look at the other side of the coin, and see what kind of unhealthy ideas women are picking up from these fictional romances.

1. They tell you that you're stupid or wrong for being attracted to the people you're attracted to.

I've noticed a bombardment of fiction and anecdotes that all give the same message: "Even if you aren't attracted to the nerdy/fat/awkward nice guy, give him a chance. Keep spending time with him. Eventually you'll probably become attracted to him."

And all too often, it's coupled with a scenario in which the more charismatic option turns out to be a player or just not interested enough.

Yes, some crushes are a BAD idea. Not every attractive guy is relationship material, and sometimes, you have to know when to walk away.

But between too many stories and the rantings of a horde of rejected 'nice guys', the message comes across loud and clear: girls who are attracted to the handsome or popular guy instead of the underdog are shallow or wrong.

The people they're drawn to are dangerous, so they should spend their time with guys they don't want in hopes that they'll someday be attracted to them.

I wonder how many 'nice guys' think they've been played, simply because the girl involved didn't know that a lack of attraction is just as good a reason to walk away as him not being relationship material... and that the fact that she wasn't attracted doesn't mean she's an idiot.

2. They act like 'niceness' and wanting the woman are enough

"Why is that stupid female character going after that guy who isn't interested in her? She should be going after the guy who wants her!"

Go ahead, tell me that's never crossed your mind. In my brainwashed youth, I know it often crossed mine.

The trouble is, saying "she should date me because I'm nice" is kind of like saying "you should eat at our restaurant because our food is edible!"

And saying "You should date him because he wants you"... do I actually need to explain how that's wrong?

Yes, niceness and desire are prerequisites for a relationship, but he needs to be more than just 'nice', and the desire has to be mutual.

But then, the desire WOULD be mutual if you'd just grow up and start forcing yourself to like nice guys, don't you know?

What's your opinion on this?

Have you seen an example of the kind of stories I'm talking about that you'd like to share/bash?

Do you agree with what I said, or do you think I'm missing something?

I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Ah, the "Nice Guy vs Bad Boy" dichotomy. A dynamic that causes the 'nice guys' of the world no end of angst, as they watch the women who SHOULD be with them make bad decision after bad decision, and suffer years of pain that they wouldn't have experienced if only they'd gotten their heads on straight and chosen the right guy.

After all, if a guy is nice to a girl, it would be stupid and shallow of her to be attracted to someone who isn't as nice as he is, right?

...Please tell me you aren't nodding your head. If you are, I've got bad news: you've been watching too much TV. And those shows and movies are NOT keeping you single, but the stuff that you're learning from them is.

That goes for you too, ladies. I'm going to focus this post on the guys, but the next one will be for you.

So here is how, in my opinionated opinion, the 'nice guy' dynamic in pop culture is screwing up our relationships and keeping men from being attractive to the women they want:

1. It turns relationships into currency.

You know that moment in a story when a woman gets rescued, and she rewards her protector with a kiss or by falling in love? Yes, there's an element of truth in that - by saving her, he showed that he cares about her, and he probably made a pretty attractive display of bravery and skill in the process.

But by portraying love as a reward for good actions, fiction risks equating it with currency. A guy puts bravery and kindness coins into a girl, and eventually, love and/or sex falls out.

And nothing turns a woman on like knowing she's a product and the 'niceness' is actually a down payment.

What, you don't do that? Let me ask you a question. Do you think the 'friendzone' is a punishment? If you spend time with a girl, and listen to her problems, do you consider that closeness and the trust she's placed in you by baring her soul to be 'wasted effort' on your part if she doesn't become your girlfriend?

If the answer is 'yes', then yes... you were treating her like a product. And, what's more, you weren't being a nice guy - you were trying to make a purchase.

2. It portrays women's romantic decisions as being immature, shallow, or stupid.

If the protagonist has competition for his love interest, chances are, it'll be a charismatic 'bad boy' who doesn't treat her right. The 'bad boy' will be sexy, mysterious, but obviously bad for her... if only she would do the smart thing and hook up with the nice guy!

But no, she's too shallow or stupid. He's rich, he's handsome, he's got 'game', and that's all she cares about. She isn't intelligent enough to know what's good for her. This, of course, takes the onus off the 'nice guy' to discover why she isn't attracted to him; if he waits long enough, maybe she'll grow up and notice him. If not, she wasn't worth it in the first place.

Trouble is, as explained in point #1, it doesn't necessarily work this way in reality, because a lot of real-life 'nice guys' aren't actually nice. They've got an agenda, and they're just as happy to 'play' the women in their lives as the 'players' are - but instead of faking love, they fake friendship. They do nice things, but everything has strings attached.

So if a woman doesn't fall in love with a guy who's wearing a mask and playing her, it isn't because she's stupid. It's because she's smart enough not to get involved with a person who has a hidden agenda!

On the other hand, these 'bad boys' tend to be pretty up-front about who they are and what they want. And even if who they are and what they want is, admittedly, unhealthy in some cases, that honesty is still a lot more attractive than a fake friendship and a mask that looks like what a guy THINKS a woman wants to see.

Let's face it - it's just wish fulfillment.

There are a lot of jilted 'nice guys' out there. Enough that creating a piece of fictional wish fulfillment, in which the girl gets over her bad-boy lover and falls for the nice guy, is a profitable proposition.

"Just be yourself", these stories tell you. Which is great advice, except that a lot of people take it to mean "keep pretending to be the person you're pretending to be, without owning your own preferences and beliefs or being honest about what you want".

"She'll grow up and become attracted to people like you, or else she just isn't worth it", the tales imply, without admitting that sometimes it's their target audience who needs to grow up.

What's your opinion on this?

Do you think my assessment of the situation is accurate? If not, what have I missed?

Are there any other ways in which the fictional portrayal of 'nice guys' is affecting our relationships?

I'd love to hear from you!

And also, stay tuned, because women also make mistakes when it comes to nice guys and relationships, and I'll be exploring them next week.

Have you ever had a time when you were writing something, and you had NO idea where your protagonist was?

I knew that the building Alexandra was moving through was tall, kind of labyrinthine, and heavily damaged. But I wasn't clear on what kind it was, the nature and extent of the damage, or any of those other identifying features that are necessary to create a vivid word picture.

For the first draft, I made due. I included what few details I had, or as many as were necessary. Now, during the edit, I'm starting to fill in the blanks.

I'm not even looking at the grammar, pacing or anything else as of yet. I'm skimming through all the scenes that happen in the building where so much of the story takes place, making notes about the layout and damage, and trying to get an idea of what I'm working with. It's already coming together quite nicely, so I'm happy about that. Once I do get to the deeper, more comprehensive edit, I'll be able to paint a very rich, eerie, haunting picture that will have so much more emotion than this current version does.

I'll also be able to flesh out Alexandra herself. As I noted in an earlier blog post, I didn't have a very firm grasp on her character when I first started writing this book. Zorei practically wrote himself, but his would-be victim was far more ambiguous.

Since that time, she's developed into a fun, bold, sassy person with a very entertaining sense of humour, and I look forward to bringing more of that into the earlier parts of the book where it didn't show through quite a much.

So much to do, but the end result is going to be awesome.

And, a reminder: if you want to get a discount on Heroic Lies, you can pre-order your copy for only 99 cents here. Shortly after it's published, it'll be going up to the standard price of $2.99, so if you order now you can get it for a third of the price.

Well. That was as deliberately nonsensical a title as I could possibly make it. So now I guess I should explain myself.

A little while ago, I read an article about candy bar scenes. You can see it here, and if you're a writer, you should definitely read it.

For the busy or uninquisitive, the gist of it is: every scene should be a candy bar scene.

No filler. No boring scenes. None. Every scene should be awesome.

Does it sound like an unreasonable challenge? Sure. So of course, now I have to do it.

That is my new challenge to myself. During the edit of Heroic Lies, I plan to make every scene into a candy bar scene. In every book I write in the future, everything will be candy bars.

Because let's face it, once you've got over a decade of experience in something like writing, there's really no reason not to accept a challenge that helps you to take your craft to the next level.

Speaking of challenges, I recently took one on in a different area of my art: music videos. I heard a beautiful song called "Wanderer's Lullaby", and it was so wonderful that I had to make a video of it... but which character to make it for?

I weighed several options, but in the end, I decided to focus the video on two characters: a badass sci-fi antagonist whom you wouldn't tend to associate with lullabies, and a one-shot character who only gets three brief scenes in the entire series. Not much footage to work with.

What can I say? Improbable but fitting song/character matches, and characters whose viewpoints tend not to be explored, are an interesting challenge, and one I'm happy to accept.

In most of my music videos, I try to tell a story. I put the clips in mostly chronological order, or if I can't do that, I batch them together so that each segment of the song tells the story of a specific arc or episode.

A lot of the time, it works very well. But in one of my recent videos, I felt that it caused some dissonance between the mood of some verses and the mood of the clips, and that bothered me. So I decided to try something different.

Behold, my latest music video: the busiest, least linear, and artsiest video I've created to date. In this one, I was careful to match the tones of the instruments, vocals and video clips, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Enjoy!

And, on the less artsy and more tongue-in-cheek side, I also created a video set to Jonathan Coulton's "Sucker Punch". No, it's not about Scorpius - this time, I decided to focus on John Crichton, and the crazy, madcap, ridiculous adventures that seem to entangle him everywhere he goes.

Third location and a second-string team and one awful plan: put it all together, and it's probably the funniest music video I've created yet.