WRITING
7 Habits That Will Make You a Successful Writer
Steal these practices followed by the top writers 🏆
I’ve spent the last 3 months following many top writers and observing their writing and practices.
Am I qualified to give tips? In my humble opinion, the answer is ‘no’.
But I recently became a top writer 🔥 in one topic (Ideas), and this is a testament to some valid observations I have put into practice.
👉 I encourage you to practice these — and you shall see success 👀.
(Bonus: I have included some resources that will help your writing)
#1 Write Everyday
Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. (Jules Renard)
Why not embrace this beautiful practice of talking without interruptions? The idea is to practice writing everyday. Forget the structure, and forget the word count — just write freely.
It need not even be a topic of interest. It could be about someone you hate. It could be about your innermost dirtiest desires. It could be about anything you never intend to publish or share.
Express anything that comes to your mind. And if your mind is blank, write about what it feels like to be blank!
You don’t have to publish everyday. But you must write everyday!
#2 Read Everyday
A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. (Susan Sontag)
Read stories that also go beyond the topics of your interest — often there’s more to learn when you don’t have an assumed prior knowledge.
Reading about your interests will give you more perspectives and content ideas for your future posts. But reading outside of your interests will give you diverse knowledge, and an unobstructed view on other important things — structure, storytelling, length, narrative style, etc.
You must read everyday!
#3 Practice Writing Good Headlines and Good Intros
Writing headlines is a specialty there are outstanding writers who will tell you they couldn’t write a headline to save their lives. (Bill Walsh)
This requires a lot of practice, but it is extremely rewarding once you get into the habit. A good headline will guarantee that readers will pause and click your story. And a good intro will guarantee that they will continue to read ahead!
Many writers suggest coming up with 10–15 headlines for your story, before picking one. Resources like Inbound now provide a great template for your story titles. Check these examples:
- Beware of [Common Problem] and How to Spot Them
- [Number] Steps to a Successful [Keyword]
- The [Insert Well Known Industry Expert] Way to [Problem Solving Keyword]
Your best crafted stories are not getting the attention they deserve — only because your title and intro are not working out! Fix them today!
#4 Collect Quotes, Jokes, Anecdotes, Statistics
Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting. But what they hide is vital. (Aaron Levenstein)
You must have experienced how most good stories grab and hold your attention by using a relevant quote, joke, anecdote, or statistics. It is worth your time to collect these, and use them appropriately in your stories.
Build and organize a library of ready-to-use attention-grabbers — you will not only save time in your writing, but also get inspired with more ideas.
You can use a spreadsheet to categorize the content — making it easier to view and manage your resources.
Start collecting today!
#5 Engage with Writers
Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much. (Helen Keller)
Genuine engagement is all about having a dialogue with the story writers. You should go beyond claps and template responses (“nice read,” “awesome,” etc.) and write about your perspective or experience on their story.
Sharing someone’s story inside your own story or on social media is another way of spreading the love ❤️ and extending support.
The obvious benefit is a deeper connect with the writer — who is most likely to reciprocate and engage with you. The feedback resulting from the discussion will bring new learnings. It’s like having a partner — with similar goals.
The hidden benefit is that you get more practice of writing and expressing through this dialogue.
Engagement is almost always a win-win!
#6 Use Tools
Even the simplest tools can empower people to do great things. (Biz Stone)
There are many simple (and free) tools that top writers use — to help write easily and consistently. Often we don’t realize what we need. And we end up spending more time and energy on things other than actual writing!
Listed below are some tools that will help your writing:
- Content ideas — Answer the public, Hubspot’s blog idea generator, Google, StoryLab, Jasper, Semrush
- Editors and Corrective tools — Hemingway, Writer, Grammarly, ByWord, MS Word, Google Docs
- Writing — Rytr, Jasper, Copy AI, Anyword, Ink for all, Wordtune
- Headlines — SEOPressor, Headline Studio, Share Through, Headline Analyzer, Capitalize My Title
- Productivity — StayFocusd, Any calendar app, Centered, Hypefury
Identify your toolkit and put it in action — get more writing done!
#7 Implement SEO
The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google. (Unknown)
Sadly, your content will never be discovered automatically. You need to provide the necessary meta information for people to find you and your stories.
Answer the public is a fantastic resource that helps you take a stock of what people are searching for. This information can feed back into:
- Crafting perfect titles and subtitles
- Using appropriate keywords in your story
- Embedding the right image with Alt info
- Attaching the relevant tags
The good news is that you can edit these meta information on any old content you own — to make it SEO-friendly.
All of the above habits are non-negotiable.
👉 Reading and writing everyday — will improve your quality, structure, and narrative.
👉 Practicing writing titles and intros with interesting anecdotes, quotes, or stats — will improve the audience engagement.
👉 Using the right tools — will make your writing easier, better, and consistent.
👉 Finally, implementing SEO — will help your audience discover your content.
I’m changing my habits. Are you with me?
Copyright © 2022 Vishal Mehta. All Rights Reserved.
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I extend my sincere thanks to the following writers for writing the articles I have used in my post 🙏:
E.S. Yates, Brandon Foken, Jeff Goins, Jim Katzaman, Tom Stevenson, Maryam, Medium Creators
