Don’t Take Writing Advice From Writers. Take It From Readers Instead

It’s simple when you think about it

If you want to become a successful writer, as ironic as it may sound, maybe it would be better to get your advice from avid readers instead of published writers?

Sure, knowing the best font and formatting may be a great start. But what about the story? Who can tell you best which story hits the mark? I think it’s the reader.

For technical stuff, the writer’s advice is great

I’m sure you have searched for writing tips from more and less famous writers in hopes of improving your own writing. I know I have.

And many people are eager to offer you some advice. Some tell you what worked for them. Some tell you what didn’t work. Some have accomplishments to show off, others haven’t quite hit that milestone yet, but they enjoy sharing their endless wisdom with you anyways.

Some of the tips you can get from other writers is invaluable and can help you to ease your own path.

For example, the following article by Martin Rushton talks about how to publish your work to KDP when it’s ready. And it’s not a bleak copy of the KPD user manual, but his own attempt to get his book out. It includes all the failures and good old 20/20 hindsight.

If you have never dealt with KDP, getting an ISBN, and all that stuff, this is a good read and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

But there is also advice that I think may not be good to hear from a writer. Because it may only apply to the writer who shares it with you. Or the writer purposely gives you some misleading advice to keep you out of his market. There are many reasons another writer’s advice may not be the best approach for you.

If you need to improve your core writing, listen to readers, not writers

Don’t rely on a “bestselling author” tag when it comes to getting reliable advice. Unless they tell you to keep on going and never give up. Because that rings true.

But when you need help in storytelling, what plot to develop, how to move the story forward, what makes an interesting character, I think the best advice you can get comes from readers. Because writers only have their own story to tell. But a reader knows many stories from many writers. And they can tell you immediately what they love about each one of them.

Look at top rated heroes, most compelling plot twists. Those don’t always come from the same professional writers. They come from all across the board. No writer knows them all. But a lot of readers do.

One good way to get a reader’s opinion on your story is to get it out there. Post it online, have them read it. Let them tell you what they like or dislike. If you show your book to a writer, he may subconsciously compare it to his own works, which were written after his own personal taste, and thus, yours may fall flat in his opinion.

Here’s an example on a reader feedback

If you would ask me for example as a reader what I’d consider an interesting plot twist, then I’d give you this idea, which lingered in my mind for quite some time now:

The hero belongs to a larger faction which seems just and noble. Throughout the story, the deeds of our hero and his faction seem to be the right moral choices. They fight evil. Then halfway through, it turns out that this was only the biased version of our hero and his faction. While our hero believed that he is doing good work as he was told, the truth slowly comes out. Events that first were shown as good defeating evil suddenly reappear in a new light. It was evil killing good. The executed perpetrators turn out to have been powerless victims, killed in cold blod.

Our hero realizes this now and must make a decision. Should he turn his back to his family, friends, his former life, and everything he ever knew to try and stop this injustice? Can he atone for his sins?

Think about the character Finn from the last Star Wars movies. He was a stormtrooper who felt shocked at the sight of what the empire is really doing. Finally, he deserted and became one of the good guys.

But Finn was only a side character. And we knew since the first movies that the Empire is evil. There was no surprise. I think they even call this trope “obliviously evil” or something like that.

My plot focuses on presenting the injustice as justice at first. In a believable manner, so the reader does buy into it. Because in reality, there is no good and evil. The moral is a slurry hunch of gray. I’d love a story that really sells us the idea of X being the greater good. And we as reader only learn the truth together with the hero later on.

It reminded me of a few of the cases where soldiers of the Wehrmacht were kept in the dark about what’s really going on. They only knew they were to defend their country. To them, the war must have seem just. I remember the phrase “Wait, are we the bad guys in this?”, I think it was from a comedy sketch.

I would love a story in which I can’t tell who’s good and who’s evil in the beginning. Too often we get told at the start: “He’s the hero and that over there is the bad guy. The bad guy may kill a lot of people, but he only does so out of deep sorrow and personal issues or whatnot.”

Instead, I’d like to see a story that sells me evil as good until the turning point. Imagine (and I’m going hyperbolic now) writing a story about how the Third Reich is the best thing ever without making it sound like fascist propaganda, then, when the reader agrees with you, BAM, an ugly truth, full of wrong answers.

There you have it. It’s just one idea. But as a reader, I think this type of story would captivate me. I love good plot twists. One that hits you in the face and makes you rethink your moralistic approach.

The bottom line is: Like in every other industry, don’t ask your competition what to produce. Ask your customers.

So instead of listening to writers on how and what they would write, listen to readers and see what they’d want to read. Of course, my idea above is just one. And many people may very well not want to read a story like that. Tastes differ.

But I think if you listen to many readers, you can quickly find out which plot and trope are favored and why. And you could ask them what they didn’t like about a particular story to make a similar story, but better.

Just don’t forget to tell your story while you attend to reader’s needs and wishes. Every writer is different. You need to keep this uniqueness of yours close at heart.