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On New Year’s Eve when the clock strikes midnight, a new world will be born.

It’s a world filled with future possibilities—like flying cars, sentient AI, and your published novel.

But before we meet any of those potential timelines in the New Year, I’d like to give you my own predictions while looking toward 2023. See below for my quick commentary:

1. AI will be heavily marketed in the (fiction) writing world.

SudoWrite and Chapterly are just a couple programs powered by artificial intelligence that will write stories for you, and many more are coming. But please do not fear the AI. Humans will stay the best at telling stories about the human condition, because, well, we’re actually human. 🙂 And remember the AI is only evil if people train it to be wicked.

2. You will hear more new words coming to life.

Well, not necessarily new words, but at least lesser-known words are being revived—such as poioumenon and verisimilitude. I was shocked to have only met these words in 2022. Here are their meanings:

Poioumenon is a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation (sometimes the creation of the story itself).

Verisimilitude is is the “lifelikeness” or believability of a work of fiction. The word comes from Latin: verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar.

3. MetaFiction will make a comeback.

Metafiction is fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions (especially naturalism) and traditional narrative techniques.

I am going to help produce, promote, and profit from metafiction in 2023. Details coming soon.

4. The demand for creative storytellers will continue to rise.

The movie industry seems to be shifting online and show streaming feels like it’s exploding. I know someone who swallows a whole season while working a day shift from home. Throw in the exponential stories that will be told in the gaming and virtual reality worlds and it’s not hard to see why companies need original content and intellectual properties.

5. Musical scores for books will increase.

Every year I secretly hope that original music accompaniments will come with the books I buy. Because I remain disappointed that soundtracks are not mapped to pages to increase dramatic action. It seems like such an easy feature to turn into a benefit. Recycle awesome music for the best books for all I care. And if you don’t dig the feature, keep it off.

6. Personalized journeys become the storytelling norm.

People love to choose their own adventure. Thus customized learning experiences and personalized entertainment will grow in price and prestige. It’s good to be faster and better. But it’s best to be different.

7. Twitter will die. Or thrive. 😉

The app is growing fast, but so is the mainstream wrath. I predict Twitter will either die with a mass exodus event — Or it will become the most popular digital playground for creative storytellers and entrepreneurs.

8. The murder mystery genre will stay strong through 2023.

Murder mystery movies and shows stayed hot in 2022. I expect them to remain popular in 2023 because people love to feed their curiosity. And murder acknowledges the presence of violence which which highlights the preciousness of life. Also murder mysteries tend to feature ensemble casts which can sell more tickets due to more recognizable faces presenting a bigger value. I would imagine they have lower overhead budgets due to fewer CGI shots but I’m still just spitballing here.

9. People will want more escape hatches from life.

The economy may or may not grow. And with the news media selling chaos in the world, consumers will want to escape from reality. And real escape can come through the stories you write.

10. DavidVillalva.com becomes one of the most respected and recognized fiction writing websites for unpublished novelists.

I am on a lifelong quest to build a world-class digital playground for creative storytellers. I shall succeed.

11. My debut novel meets publication.

I foresee the book earns word-of-mouth marketing. Its character study on the human condition seizes the hearts of fans. I publish fiction that makes a difference in the real world.

For #10 and #11, haven’t you ever heard that writing down your goals increases your success rate by 42%? I’m serious about making time for what matters most because helping fiction writers and publishing a novel that connects with readers remain my core goals.

    That’s it for this Saturday.

    If you found value in this post, would you consider sharing it? Maybe you’ll be helping someone create the story they’ve always wanted to write.

    See ya next week!

    — David