7 Things Beginning Writers Wish They Knew
Unpopular opinions about writing that will kickstart your writing career.
I started writing when I was young, like many writers. Words and stories flew from me quicker than I could pen them down. So, I decided young that I would take the steps toward being a career writer.
20 years later, I was still writing but no close to being an actual writer. By “actual writer” I mean someone who is paid and sought out for their writing. So while yes, I did write and technically was a writer. I was really just a hobbyist.
Someone who wrote for fun.
If you’re familiar with my writing, then you know that I left that stage of the wanna-be writer and entered the stratosphere of being a paid professional writer. I’ve written for places like Better Humans, Tor.com, Rue Morgue, and more. For the past two years, I’ve been working solely as a writer and editor to pay my bills and feed my cats.
I’m tired of hearing the same old same advice and information from the pearly halls of academia to the murky message boards. So, I take all the common advice given to first-time writers and throw it under the bus. This list is for the writer who was like me, sick of banging their head against the screen and getting nowhere.
Writing every day won’t make you a writer.
You’ve heard it all before. Write at least X amount of words a day and then you’ll have a novel. Or write every day and you’ll earn a living. Worse yet, write every day and you’ll soon be a writer.
The only thing writing every day will do for you is make you write every day. It won’t make you better or instantly transform you into a *writer*. If that were the case, then more people would be Grade-A writers out there living their dreams.
The common misconception is tied to the act and idea of starting something:
By starting something, you’re on your way to being something.
While that is true, it doesn’t actually help the person who wants to become a writer. It doesn’t teach them how to know when a piece is done. Or show them how to craft a story.
To learn how to write while writing everyday, the writer has to analyze what they’ve written.
Without close study and examination, the writer who writes every day is simply filling a bottomless bucket and stroking their ego. By coupling a daily writing practice with a daily examination of your work, you can begin to learn what a story is, what good writing is, and how to control your voice.
Getting a story accepted isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
I’ve sold and published over a hundred pieces to magazines, sites, clients, games, and more. It’s great to get paid for making up stories or embellishing them. But when I first started out, no writer warned me about the high levels of anxiety that also come with getting a story accepted.
For a lot of other professional writers I know, revision and editor notes is what makes them anxious after a story is accepted. What if the publisher loves it but wants to change it entirely? It happens. It happens a lot. And it sucks when it does, but that’s not the type of anxiety or yuckiness of acceptance that I’m talking about.
Reader interpretation and bad reviews are what keep me up at night after having a story accepted. When I worked in retail, it was widely known that people who had a bad experience, typically left comments or feedback. While the people who loved the experience of shopping with us, wouldn’t say anything or leave a review.
People want to tell you when something sucks, but they don’t always want to tell you when something is amazing. Yes, I get a lot of great comments that show the wonderful support my readers give my work, but there are also the people who leave negative or contradictory comments on my stories. They take what I’ve written and turn it into something else. Something awful.
This is why a lot of professional writers and creators will have a safeguard in place for negative feedback from the public. Some hire assistants who go through their comments, reviews, and mail, weeding out the bad and passing along the good. But if you don’t have the extra income, try my method.
When you come across a negative review or comment, don’t respond. Keep moving with your day and shake off the negativity. Don’t waste energy on responding or justifying.
Accept that not everyone is going to vibe with what you are writing, and keep writing.
Your dream publication isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
In the five or so years since I’ve been writing smarter and publishing more, I’ve had the opportunity to publish with some top names in my genre. I’ve also been able to get access to certain closed professional or semi-professional groups for writers.
These groups are like all-day slumber parties for writers. A place for professionals to go and talk like real people with others in their industry. What I’ve learned in these groups and from working as a professional, a lot of top publications are not great to write or work for.
There are several well-known publications that don’t pay their writers or pay them pennies for their work. Some have records of rejecting stories from writers and then stealing their work and running it under a staff writers name. A few writers have complained about a particular publication in the speculative fiction field that is known for not responding to writers but publishing their story anyway without payment or notification.
Research into your publications as best you can before submitting to them. Not to learn what they publish but to learn how they treat their writers.
Just because you’ve seen some of the top names in your field publishing with them doesn’t mean they are great to work with. Follow your favorite writers and the mags they write for or ones that you want to write for on social media. Keep an eye on how the community treats and responds to them.
Sometimes, though, you won’t be able to know when a publication is bad news until after you’ve been wronged by them. This is where candidness and your writing community come in handy. Let other writers know of your terrible experience and save them the pain.
Reading won’t make you a better writer.
A lot of writers are told to go out and find stories to study so they can be better writers and understand the craft. But like simply writing, simply reading won’t do anything but entertain or maybe frustrate you.
Reading for writing or as a writer requires a different lens than regular reading. It takes a lot of skill, focus, and knowledge to read something and use it to become a better writer.
You must understand the different aspects of story, themes, characterization, and other craft aspects to learn from reading.
My method of learning writing from a story is heavily steeped in note-taking. In a fiction book after reading each scene, I’ll write a one-sentence summary of what happened. By doing this, I am forcing myself to boil the scene down to what it actually is accomplishing. Also, I’ll mark any moments in the scene that I gripped me or made me lose interest.
Then I’ll go back and underline or highlight any dialogue. I do this so that I can focus in on the characters’ voices and how the author writes each. Next, I move on to the beats of the scene. What is actually happening? How is the story being moved forward by the characters? The final thing I do before moving on to the next scene is identify the theme or meaning behind the scene, any reoccurring themes, and what the author may want the reader to feel.
Identifying and analyzing the text, helps think about craft and story as an experience or process for the reader. You’re able to see what is working and why and vice versa. “Reading Like a Writer” is another great resource for picking up and acquiring the necessary skills for reading in a way that helps and not frustrates.
Marketing and sales are a part of being a writer.
Whether you go the traditional, independent, small press, or hybrid route, you are going to have to market your stories. You’ll have to learn what sells and what doesn’t and to whom.
Understanding marketing and sales will make you a successful writer.
That’s how people who are terrible at writing are able to make a living at writing. They know how to market to the right people and sell not just their stories but themselves. They’ve gamed the author system by not writing good stories, but by building a brand, following, and marketing strategy.
Once I started bringing marketing and my decades of retail sales experience into my writing did I see some traction. Yes, I had grown as a writer and knew how to tell a story, but I began marketing myself to editors and publishers so that opportunities came to me. This is the power of the writer who knows how to market and sell.
Stephen King’s “On Writing” won’t make you a better writer.
I’m going to get tons of flak for this, but it’s true. Stephen King’s “On Writing” is great inspiration for the writing bank and has some cool nuggets of basic advice, but nowhere in the book are you going to learn how to become a better writer.
It’s not what the book was written for, but what everyone believes it does. So much so, you can find all of the lessons within the book simply by Googling it. Pages of articles with the similar sounding title will pop up and inundate you with the latest in unoriginal advice. King wrote the book over two decades ago and speaks from a place of the privileged white male.
Those days of publishing are long over. Editors and agents are looking for fresh voices that don’t follow the template of advice handed down to literally every writer since the book was published. Writers following “On Writing” and the advice given produce the same cookie-cutter type stories and ideas on story.
The landscape of publishing has changed so much since “On Writing”, King’s advice has become mediocre and template for every starting writer.
Craft books that are actually aimed at making you a better writer and not an average writer:
- The Way of The Writer- Charles Johnson
- About Writing- Samuel R Delaney*
- Craft in the Real World- Matthew Salesses
- Painless Writing- Barron
- Wonderbook- Jeff Vandermeer
- The Art of Fiction- John Gardener
- How to Write a Sentence- Stanley Fish
*Delaney’s book is geared toward advanced writers who have a strong grasp on story and want to take it up a notch.
Networking will get you further than talent.
Whenever I have a chance to speak with another professional writer or one that is further along in their career than me, I always ask the same questions. What steps did they take to get where they are? How did they start at their current position?
The number one answer, if not the only answer, comes down to the fact that they knew someone or had a distant connection. Publishing is a small world. It grows smaller when you start looking at specific niches, too.
Being known within a niche for positive things, will mean that editors, publishers, and the gate keepers of opportunity will give you a chance over someone else.
A few writers and editors I know have even said that they didn’t have experience in certain areas, but got the gigs because they had made a good impression on someone high up. A champion with a lot of clout will get you further and support you when your writing or experience won’t.
It’s one of the main perks of an MFA or higher education writing degree. Being in a writing program will allow you to interact with professionals you wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to. But you don’t have to resort to academia to get noticed or meet your idols.
Social media, particularly Twitter, is a great place to go to find writing community, network, and get jobs. I’ve landed several gigs and bylines at publications just because someone tagged me in a post and said I was great to work. It had nothing to do with my writing, but that I was a great person and fun.
That’s all it took for editors to give me a shot.
Beginner to Pro
Everyone’s path to publishing is different, but it doesn’t have to be hard. Stop relying on the same old advice and strike a path that’s smart and sustainable for you. That’s what’s going to help you level up your craft and career.
The difference between an amateur and professional is that one kept trying and experimenting, learning until things became intuitive. As writers, we all have to start at the bottom. We all have to figure out what this crazy world of imagination and publishing is all about. But we don’t have to do it alone or ignorantly.
That’s why I write articles like this, to save someone from years of frustration and make the rocky road to publication just a little easier.
Aigner Loren Wilson is a 5X Top Writer in Fiction, Writing, Art, Books, and Poetry. Her work has appeared in Better Humans, Better Marketing, The Writing Cooperative, and more. Subscribe for access to masterclass courses in writing, editing, and making a living as a writer.
