 When we talk about the quality of writing on the SCP Wiki, we often treat modern SCPs as somehow having more value or having a higher level of quality than the earliest of works. On any given day, you can find a dozen authors complaining that their works are being overlooked in favor of things that aren't as good. It's a bit of a problem with elitism, really, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what success really looks like. I mean, SCP-173 is one of the most popular SCPs on the site. It's not even close. The next thing is almost a thousand upvotes away. 4,914 upvotes have been cast for it, and only 283 downvotes. So now I'm going to talk to you about the lessons that we can take away from SCP-173 to make our own writing better. Now, first of all, let's talk about the confusion we have about the comparison of quality and success. It's a thing that people do pretty naturally. We just assume you have to choose between creating something of quality or creating something successful. Thought is, you know, you can be Michael Bay and make a billion dollars with another movie about giant robots fighting each other, or you can be an Oscar nominee and winner like Martin Scorsese. This is a false dichotomy for a variety of reasons. See, success does not have an inverse relationship to quality. Now, it feels like this isn't something we should need to explain, but of course we actually do. Because there are many best picture nominees which are hugely successful financially. It's not all of them. But there are plenty. People go to see good movies, believe it or not. This is true across all media. I mean, good books get read, good TV gets watched, and good SCP articles get upvotes. SCP-173 has been read for what is likely several million times. And for not an unsubstantial section of the wiki's writers and readers, it was the first thing they ever read involving the SCP Foundation and it draws them into the world like few other articles really can. And that's because of the world building. Drawing people into the SCP Foundation's world is something this article does very well. And it also builds on that world while still providing an interesting and short read. It's just 233 words long after all. And in that small space of time, it manages to convincingly build a world of secrecy and danger that hides under the surface of normalcy. Without there being an SCP Foundation wiki or anything relating to it, think about what even just SCP-173 means. I mean, it implies that there are at least 172 more of these things. And then of course, there's the containment procedures. When personnel must enter SCP-173's container, no fewer than three may enter at any time and the doors will be relocked behind them. So they have personnel. That's an organization of people who handle this thing. And they've been handling it long enough now to know how to avoid danger. They have procedures for it. And when they even have standard protocols for dealing with those issues, a line out of the description states in the event of an attack, personnel, or to observe Class 4 hazardous object containment procedures. Now, sure, that probably belongs in the containment procedures, but it doesn't change the fact that the line means something in the greater scheme of the world it's building. Because of course, having procedures like that means there are other hazardous objects that must be contained. Now I've seen a lot of newer writers treat things like this differently because there are a lot of clumsier ways to deliver this information. Something like SCP-173 is to be contained by the SCP Foundation, an organization devoted to the containment of anomalous objects. Of course, this blunter approach actually prevents much of the development that a story like this would need. Once you bluntly say what's going on, there's not much of a need to cover much else. And then already short work like this would be half as long if you could just tell the audience outright what you're going to do and why you're doing it. But beyond a subtle approach to world building, the article paints a very clear visual of what it's supposed to look like. Later, SCP articles probably do a better job of physically describing the objects at the center of their articles, but this first one simply leaves it up to your eyes because there's a picture of it on the screen. And that image is very compelling. I've talked at length before about the copyright issues inherent to that image and it's also why you're not seeing it on screen right now. But putting those concerns aside, it is a staggeringly good image to use for an article. And this is something that we've known from the very beginning. Never underestimate the bump in quality that a good image can add to the article you're writing. I think about articles like SCP-106 with that image of a rotting old man, or the face at the bottom of the staircase in SCP-087, or the image of SCP-682. These are iconic. They are compelling and they are very memorable. Now, like I said, I can't put SCP-173 on the screen right now for copyright reasons, but I'll offer a small inferior description. It shows a humanoid statue leaned against a wall with its hands outstretched. The head is huge and bulbous, and it's far too large for a body if this was a real person, but obviously it's clearly not. The head is turned slightly, looking at the camera, and the face is painted on. The room it's in is brightly lit from the outside, and the room itself is in a very, very rough state. The ground almost looks like it's covered in rust and the walls are discolored. When you see it, it imprints on your mind immediately, and a good author will reinforce that with subtle descriptors in the text that you can then use to engage other senses. Like the article says that SCP-173 is comprised of concrete and rebar. We all know what concrete feels like. Rough, and coarse. It's covered in Kryolan brand spray paint, and that reddish brown substance on the floor? That's actually blood and feces, and we can almost smell it now. Of course when it's not being observed, there's a rough scraping noise of the concrete statue moving around its containment cell, so we can almost hear it too. When you're building a monster like this, or literally any object, be sure to engage the senses as much as possible. This is true for non-SEP writing as well. Engage the senses more than one if it's at all possible. You're creating it in the mind of the audience, and your job is to make sure they not only understand what it looks like, but what it feels like, sounds like, smells like, even tastes like if you can manage it. But this is all pretty basic. So why did SCP-173 take off? Well, let's take a look at the era it was created in. The idea of secret forces working behind the scenes have always existed, but deeper fundamental government conspiracies as understood by the wider public, at least in the west, have their roots in the mid to late 2000s. I'm gonna explain why. See, SCP-173 was originally written in 2007. When we think about what that means to the culture that was present at the time, we can sort of see the idea of why a widespread secret like this took hold instead of the standard personalized or specific conspiracies that existed before. In 2007, George Bush was still president, if that doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what will. But his popularity had plummeted among the American public at the time, and the origins of the Iraqi war were, more and more, being understood to be a lie. True or false? That narrative ran through fiction at the time strongly, and that mistrust of government, reticence in fiction of the idea that those in power were hiding things from the rest of us on a grand scale. And it's really continued ever since. While movies in 2007 didn't generally reflect this, mostly there was some stuff. The stuff that was written then, and filmed then, and then released in 2008 certainly did. A small selection for memory would be movies like Cloverfield, where the government is all but understood to if not be behind the monsters attacks by making a mistake. They're at least aware it was going to happen. This is also the year that Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk came out for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And hopefully I don't have to explain how SHIELD and the SCP Foundation have a strong similarity. Heck, even the comedies of the time had this theme of conspiracy running through them, even if it wasn't treated particularly seriously. Harold and Kumar, a skate from Guantanamo Bay, is a thing that happened that year after all, though the less said about it the better. But the biggest movie of 2008 was The Dark Knight, which is a political thriller about corruption, and it's a movie that ends with a grand lie being told to the populace to keep them happy and subservient. In a more limited fashion, even television got on on the action. With the adaptation of an older work for television in the Dresden files about a secret world with supernatural that's hiding from the public. Though because that was actually adapted from a book from 2000, that's actually a good way to demonstrate that the underlying concepts are not entirely exclusive to that era. They just became more popular then. You know, the first Indiana Jones movie had the US government keeping magical relics and artifacts and storage somewhere hidden away, and that came out in 1981. The X-Files covered a lot of the ground involving grand conspiracies well before the SCP Foundation was ever conceived. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off angel also had a heavy dose of secret conspiracies hiding the supernatural from the rest of the world, and Buffy even included the initiative, a fictional group associated with the US military, that literally kept sentient supernatural entities in boxes for experimentation. And we could think of these earlier works as setting the stage. By 2007, the world of fiction was clearly primed for something like the SCP Foundation. And even if the creator of SCP 173 was not cognizant of the trends in fiction at the time, you don't have to be aware of it to be swept up in it. But you, as a writer, knowing this can actually observe the trends in fiction and run with them. Like the last couple of years I've seen a huge trend in horror, both on television and in film and in books. If you understand that and you work in that genre, you can increase your chances of success. And that goes double for the wiki. People are going to read the things they're interested in, at the time. Following greater societal trends will help you create something that is lasting, and which feels a niche that maybe no one else has thought of yet. Let's talk a little bit about the lessons that SCP 173 teaches us in summary. 1. Stop thinking about success and quality as somehow mutually exclusive. Do something good and success will follow you. There's no problem with chasing trends if you can create something good along the way. Treating quality and success as separate means you might end up willing to sacrifice quality for success, and that's the one bad option you have. Do both. 2. You don't need to launch world building with some grand creed that explains everything. Give us a subtle story, understated, that takes place in the world you imagine, and that can be much more interesting to readers, and it will genuinely help you in building the world in the first place. 3. When you're writing in SCP or frankly anything, your descriptions should be compelling. One easy tip is to make sure that you use one sense beyond sight in the description. Sight and sound are the most passive options. Smell and touch are the most visceral, obviously, outside of taste, which is a lot harder to do. But choose something that helps the reader understand what you're trying to describe outside of just sight. And it might be cliche, but that doesn't mean it's not true. A picture is worth a thousand words, so pick something memorable and evocative. And 4. Understand the underlying themes of what you're writing and how they fit into the grander desires and trends of society and culture at the time. What people want to read or watch is constantly changing and evolving. Your writing should change with it. And finally, have fun. I'd like to thank my subscribers for May, especially Dr. North, who just became a $20 patron. Thank you. I appreciate that more than I think you can imagine. It's donations like yours that help make sure I can keep making this kind of content. And also a thank you to everyone else on the screen right now. Every single one of these people has pledged on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash decimarian. If you want to support my content, head on over and pledge at any level. If you do, you'll get a shout out in the next video. And also, I know I've got a lot of new subscribers today. I just want to say thank you. It's been a while, last few days, watching the increased interest in traffic. If you haven't subscribed already, please do that. And definitely, if you're already subscribed, hit the notification bell next to that so you're always informed when I post a new video. You wouldn't want to miss something I made, right? Anyway, I'll see you guys on Thursday. And thanks for being here.