3 Top-Notch Writing Tips For Beginners

Using psychology and not how to make money tactics

As the world continues to shift to freelancing and writing platforms like this one, Vocal, and Simily, more and more folks are turning to writing online.

Some are looking for side-hustle income, hoping they can leave a 9–5.

More still are looking for outlets, communities, and support that only shared experiences and human connection can give.

While it makes the competition a little stiffer for me, I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. I think it’s beautiful.

But there are big things that beginners don’t know and that gurus don’t share.

They’ll tell you how to format, structure, and write for every platform.

They’ll show you metrics and try to sell you courses about how they did this, this, and this, and now they make a gazillion dollars a year while traveling the globe.

But they won’t tell you that protecting your mental health is the most important thing to keep in mind when sharing your words online.

It took years of experience and writing online for me to learn this.

Here are my three top-notch tips for beginners that I wish someone had told me.

Write for yourself

Don’t let the hustle and bustle of making an income stifle your words.

The chase, the attempt to make it big, can get in the way.

Worse, the hateful comments that seem to be more and more common in online spaces, regardless of what they are, will knock you down.

When we write for others, we look for validation.

So, write for yourself. These are your words, your story, your experience. Barring hate speech, no one else has the authority to tell you what your words meant or if your experience was wrong.

Detach your value as a person from your words

When we’re looking for validation via our words, we can place our value as a person in them.

Here’s the deal.

People will hate things you have to say sometimes. People will react based on how they view the world through their trauma responses.

Sometimes folks will be really ugly because they didn’t like how your words made them feel, and in turn, they’ll project that onto you.

It’s hurtful, and often, when this happens, you won’t be able to defend yourself enough to change the other person’s perspective—trying to will end in a barrage of replies and comments that continue to inflame and irritate both sides.

Does that mean that a damaging or hateful comment makes the commenter a bad person?

Not necessarily. It’s psychology.

First impressions, aka confirmation biases, make people view the world through the first piece of information on a given topic.

Then anchoring biases reinforce what folks learn, perceive, or believe based on that first piece of information.

This means that when people read your words, they will judge them based on their own confirmation bias. Sometimes their first impression is formed from reading your article. Other times, they already have a preconceived idea of what you’ve written.

If a commenter does not like what you have to say, they’ll use an anchoring bias to react (aka comment).

And the person paying the highest price for that will be you, the writer, every single time.

That’s why it’s important to detach your value as a person from your words. (This isn’t always true. Some commenters disagree with your point of view and do so respectfully. But as a beginner, it’s important to take note of the psychology here.)

Don’t plug metrics in for validation

Using metrics in the form of followers, views, claps, or comments as validation can set you up to fail.

When we attach our self-worth to words and then look for validation via metrics, our experience is shaped by how we perceive our words are received.

Again, this is psychology (classical conditioning).

Humans can learn that negative or hurtful comments mean that they are terrible writers and bad people.

Positive, happy comments mean that a person can learn they are a great writer and therefore a great person.

The learned experience with writing online and how it is perceived will shape how a writer can view themselves.

Here’s what I mean…

Let’s pretend you have 2.3K followers.

It would be insane to think that all 2.3K people (providing they’re real people and not bots) would like you in real life, huh?

It would be insane and impossible that every one of them will always like your words, no matter what they say.

I’m guessing here, but I don’t think that ever, in the history of the universe, have 2.3K people showed up for a book signing or live reading, do you?

So, you have to write for yourself, detach your value as a person from your words, and stop seeking validation in the form of metrics, or this rat race of online writing will eat you alive.

Your mental health will suffer.

And I know that because it’s happened to me many, many times.

One last thing

When we focus on the negative or very hurtful comments because our value is in our words, we lose the very foundation of writing for joy.

That’s why you started, isn’t it?

That’s why you keep writing in journals and under pen names.

For joy? Fulfillment? Because you love to weave the ol’ words together into a tapestry of story, opinion, heartache, pain, exploration, discovery, information sharing?

Don’t let anybody take that away from you.

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