How To Make Your Writing Into a Gift the World Can’t Refuse

You need to provide value, or you might as well quit.

If you’re a creative person who wants to be seen by the world, you have to create something people want. You want fans to flock to your door, and for that, you need to give value. No one wants to read the work of a selfish know-it-all who only wants to take. It’s all about the reader.

We can all learn from authors like James Patterson, even if we aren’t novelists. His work over the last decade earned him an estimated $700 million. Why? Because he produces writing that the world values. He entertains them and gives them good feelings.

You can create writing that gives more than it takes from readers. All it takes is the right focus:

• Inform, educate or teach
• Entertain, amuse or occupy
• Grab their emotions

But it isn’t enough for your work to give value. It also has to be seen by the right people. Pumping out high-quality content and waiting for the world to come to you will get you nowhere but frustration-town.

And let’s face it. Your topic needs to be one that people care about. No matter how amusing or informative your deep dive on the lives of professional paint-drying-watchers happens to be, it will struggle to find its way to the top.

My Dad Made Cool Stuff No One Wanted

I watched my dad make stuff that nobody wanted for years. He had high hopes that his polished rocks would make him tons of money. The man dreamed that the world would beat down his door for his shiny stones and give him wads of cash.

He put in countless hours with his agate, jasper, carnelian, and quartz. He was good at it. Not a master, but darn good.

We went to trade shows, farmer’s markets, and craft get-togethers. Everyone looked at his cool rocks, oohed and awed, but hardly ever bought any. It was nice to look at, but they didn’t need it. We went home from those shows sad and defeated, and he quit in disgust.

To this day, he has sacks and boxes of polished rocks that he prepped for a market that didn't care. 35 years later, he still talks about selling stones, but they’re only worth pennies. They’d be better off paving the driveway.

Dad made a product that no one needed. Who wants a giant polished agate rock on a simple steel chain when they can get a gold chain and an expensive diamond pendant? His work didn’t give customers the right feelings, and it had low intrinsic value to them.

Don’t Major in Medieval Husbandry Unless You Want a Dark Age Job.

Ask yourself, what’s your goal? Are you creating just for yourself? If so, it doesn’t matter what or how you do it. Go ahead and make yourself happy!

But there’s a 99.99% chance that “just for me” wasn’t the answer. We all need validation in our work, and it doesn’t have to be money. It could be compliments, comments, claps, views, or raving recommendations. As long as the information flows out into the world and then back to you, you’ll get some fulfillment from it.

It also happens to be that this might bring you money.

Or, you can study up on your medieval husbandry and write how to raise chickens and pigs in your living room beside the futon. There’s a huge market for those zooarchaeological skills these days.

Inform, Educate, Teach

Everyone has valuable knowledge. Even if all you know is your life lessons, you can share them. Turn your experiences into stories that have takeaways.

What do you love to learn about? You can research and share your findings. Maybe you can write about your passionate love of technology and give valuable product information.

An example is Amanda D. She does this well with her OnePlus 9 smartphone article. You can tell it’s a topic that she has a real interest in, and she does a great job of informing us about upcoming new smartphones.

I’m planning a series of articles on growing a certain kind of special fungus. People out there want to know how to do that, so they’ll read my stories about shrooms with interest.

What knowledge do you have that the world wants? Brainstorm it.

Stories about places you’ve traveled are interesting and helpful. The recipes you cook can help those who want to try new foods or don’t even know cooking. Tell everyone how you trained your wombat because wombats are big business these days!

Entertain, Amuse or Occupy

This is the Netflix way. They make it their mission to entertain, amuse, and occupy all of us.

There’s just a tiny bit of teaching in there somewhere. I watched at least one documentary once… Okay, so it was why you shouldn’t f$%k with cats. I guess it was entertainment after all.

“If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed.” — T. C. Boyle

Will your art keep people occupied? If it does a good enough job of that, then it’s valuable to them.

People like content that keeps them moving along from one end to the other with interest. They don’t need deep takeaways or giant emotional leaps to find your stuff useful. It can be enough to amuse them soundly.

Get an Emotional Response

If you don’t have anything else to put into your art, go with emotion. Pound those feelings right into the canvas, clay, or words. Hit em where it hurts, right in the feelings.

We all have stories from our personal lives that are interesting because they make readers feel something. Like that time I found out my wife was cheating on me with the pizza delivery guy. This is interesting to readers because it makes them feel something.

Poetry needs to create emotions, or it doesn’t go anywhere. The same for drawings and painting. If the observer doesn’t feel something, what’s the point?

If you can’t find a way to get that emotional response, you can always add some killer clowns to your work. Trust me, killer clowns can fix anything.

Create Art That Teaches While It Entertains and Stirs the Heart, and You Will Win the World Over

Combine all of these elements, and you have a winner! If you‘re writing can educate, entertain and emote, it can really catch on with fans.

There’s just one catch, though. And this one is maybe the hardest part to master. How does anyone know it exists?

Your readers need to be able to find your work. If no one knows about it, it will just wither away on the vine.

Without persistence and visibility, readers won’t appreciate your earnest efforts. That’s just the way reality works.

The only way to make sure you’re seen is the tried and true method:

• Make great stuff
• Keep writing great stuff
• Put it out there
• Do more writing!
• Don’t stop creating
• Keep putting your stuff out there

This method is simple, yet it almost always works. If you make high-quality, valuable content that teaches, entertains, and emotes, then repeatedly put it out there where consumers can see it, you will slowly win them over.

It might take a while. But that’s the life of the creative. There are no instant fixes for this. Just keep going, head down and arse up.

But What if It Isn’t Working?

If this method isn’t working for you, then maybe you have a problem. Maybe the quality isn’t there yet:

• Is your work visually appealing, with a cover picture that stands out?
• Is your formatting good, with lots of white space and short paragraphs?
• Is your art informative and has a takeaway or insight readers will want?
• Is it entertaining or relevant?
• How do people feel while they read it?

We all need to step back and think about our art once in a while. It’s not too late to change your focus if no one wants your stuff.

And if you think you’re hitting all the targets, then you can either quit or keep going. If you don’t keep working at it consistently then you’ll never know if you’re on the right track. It's a journey, not a race!

Final Thoughts

Art is great. Making content is awesome. But if you want to really move that needle, it needs to do some of these things:

• Give some insights or takeaways that readers can use
• Entertain the readers
• Make readers feel something in their hearts (and not boredom!)
• Add killer clowns and wombats

Then, you need people out there to see it. It needs to be on a platform with a bunch of viewers, and it needs to be consistently on that platform, so they get used to seeing your awesome work.

• Make great stuff
• Keep making great stuff
• Put it out there
• Make more stuff!

Don’t just polish rocks that no one wants. Cut diamonds instead.

It’s no accident that writers like Tim Denning and Todd Brison get success. They are hitting all of these targets. Their work entertains and makes us feel, and we learn a few facts along the way. And they keep making more. We never run out of Denning art!

Okay. You know the drill. Get out there and create! And make sure we get to see your work. Go ahead, drop a link with your latest below.

Want to stay in touch? You can get more of my stories here.