Do You Want to Write Stuff? GOOD.

I get a lot of messages from people who have questions about writing stuff, and often those messages are along the lines of “I want to write a book, what do I do?”

And that’s a pretty legitimate question, actually. What DO you do? I mean, obviously, you write, but how exactly does that work? Getting started is often the hardest part. I might stew on an idea for months before I actually commit words to paper laptop. So I thought I’d put together a few tips that I’ve shared with people in the past about writing – obviously, these are not rules, but more of a guideline, and they’re based on personal experience and observations. They may not all work for you, but if even one of them helps you, that’s a start.

1. Forget about “write what you know.” I get it, all the writing guides say to write what you know, but I think a better approach is “write what you want to read.” If all of us just wrote the things we knew, we’d miss out on an awful lot of really good fiction. Write the books you want to read, and read the books you wish you had written. In other words, if you love cozy murder mysteries, read a lot of cozy murder mysteries and then write one, complete with little old ladies who knit and have cats and who own bookstores. If you’ve never read a cozy murder mystery, it’s not the genre you should be writing, because YOUR READERS WILL KNOW. Do you love spy thrillers? Try your hand at writing one.

2. Take the time to learn about the technical aspects of writing. This means put some effort into understanding things like sentence structure, basic rules of grammar, style, and so on. Develop your own voice while you do it. A great example of an author who improved on a technical level is J.K. Rowling. If you read the Harry Potter series, somewhere around the third or fourth book, it goes from being more than just good storytelling, and it becomes much richer because Rowling took the time to hone her technical skills. The books get darker, more complex, and just better all around. Take the time to learn these things.

3. Network with other writers. Join online writing communities, local writers groups, whatever you can afford to do… but here’s the caveat. Network with writers who are going to challenge you, not the ones who are going to pat you on the head and gush about how your first draft is the best thing they’ve ever seen. Interact with people who are going to dissect your work with a fine-toothed comb and tell you how to make it better.

4. Learn about the business of writing. Make no mistake about it, writing is a business and your book is the product, and your readers are the customers. Put some effort into finding out which publishers are good and which are Not Good, understand that money always flows TO the writer and not the other way around, learn about how to contact agents and what not to do when you reach out to them. If you need resources on the business of writing, be sure to check out the links I’ve posted here: For Writers.

5. See that part in #4 where I said your book is the product, and your readers are the customers? As your customers, they deserve a quality product. For the love of Pete, never underestimate the value of a good editor. And I’m not talking about having your mom or your best friend look over your manuscript and tell you how awesome it is. I’m talking about having someone who (a) reads the genre and (b) understands the technical side of writing go over it line by line and tell you all the things you need to fix. If you’re submitting it to an agent or publisher, this needs to happen before you send it off to them, or you’ll never make it out of the slush pile. If you’re self-publishing, it needs to happen before you upload that file into the Kindle store or wherever else it may be. You owe that to your readers, because they deserve quality, not laziness.

So, is this a hard and fast set of rules that you have to live by? Absolutely not – but it’s a good start. Now, go write something. What are you waiting for?