One Piece of Advice From 27 Literary Fiction Authors in 2024

Here I’ve collected one piece of advice from 27 literary fiction authors who were featured in our author spotlight series in 2024. Be sure to click the author names if you’d like to read their full author spotlights from earlier this year.

“Be as patient as you possibly can—and then try to be one degree more patient than that. This path is a wonderful one in many ways, but it is long, and will feel long, for just about everyone at one point or another. Taking the time to get the work itself exactly right—to craft the absolute best possible version of this piece of writing that this version of yourself is capable of producing—is something you will never, ever regret.” –Clare Beams, author of The Garden (Doubleday)

“My advice is: Keep going. If you keep writing, you’ll outpace the rejection. Storytelling is as old as humanity—every known civilization has told stories of life as they lived it, passed down legends of how we got here, and created fables or parables to illustrate morals or deliver lessons. Stories are inextricable from existence which means your story has incalculable value. It is needed by someone, somewhere, and if you keep at it, at some point you will connect with that someone.” –Nanu Ekua Brew-Hammond, author of My Parents’ Marriage (Amistad Books)

“Read the best writing you can lay your hands on. Experiment with workshops, writing groups, and teachers. But most of all, let yourself fall headlong into the fictional dream of your characters. Sit in the backseat and notice where they take you. Don’t worry if they are terrible drivers, if they get lost, or total the car. Read David Wagoner’s poem, ‘Lost.’ Lost is where you want to be. Don’t help your characters find their way to safety. Instead, watch them do and say things you would never have dreamed. You’ll know you’ve breathed life into them when they start disobeying you. Buckle your seatbelt and be amazed by where they will take you.” –Tess Callahan, author of Dawnland (Little A)

“Don’t be a poser—it’s fundamentally detrimental to society when artists lie about who they are. Right, I don’t think I’ve ever met an Ivy League Author who didn’t present as though from utter trauma. Um … WTF? How does that even work?” –Brian Allen Carr, author of Bad Foundations (Clash Books)

“Never forget that actually sitting down to write is the fun bit!” –Bridget Collins, author of The Silence Factory (William Morrow)

“Set a schedule for your writing. There’s always something else to be done, so your writing time has to be carved out of an already full day. Create a word-count goal each day, whether it is 200 words or 2,000 words, and do your best to meet it. Single drops of water will eventually fill the well.” –Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of Behind You Is the Sea (HarperVia)

“This may sound silly but … write. That’s it. Just write.” –Hazel Hayes, author of Better by Far (Dutton)

“Every book and every project will be different. Stay open to new processes, new ways of working. Write a personal mission statement that articulates who you are and what you want to accomplish. It will go a long way in helping you say ‘yes’ to what aligns with you are and say ‘no’ to what doesn’t.” –Donna Hemans, author of The House of Plain Truth (Zibby Books)

“Write the book you want to rewrite—because most of writing is revising! Don’t agonize over every word in a first draft; that will only slow you down. Just write the story. Get it onto the page. Drafting is the stage where you capture the idea. Revising is where you figure out how to really tell the story well.” –Beth Kander, author of I Made It Out of Clay (Mira)

“Keep writing. Get to the end of the page, and then the next day start again. Find your community. They will buoy you.” –Crystal Hana Kim, author of The Stone Home (William Morrow)

“At the risk of sounding like the protagonist of my novel, Able God, I’d say: Talent is never enough. Hard work and tenacity are needed too.” –Samuel Kọ´láwọlé, author of The Road to the Salt Sea (Amistad)

“If you’re able to walk or swim or do another body moving activity, then make that a priority when you take breaks! My brain simply ceases to function if I’m sitting in front of a computer all day.” –Brydie Lee-Kennedy, author of Go Lightly (HarperCollins)

“Whatever you are writing, even if it is a story about your own back garden, go out there and do lots of research.” –Christy Lefteri, author of The Book of Fire (Berkley)

“I used to roll my eyes whenever I heard writers or instructors rhapsodize about writing ‘process.’ Write every day, write 500 words a day … to me the fixation on process seemed fetishistic and beside the point. If you’re writing something valuable and of genuine interest to you, I thought, you don’t need to concern yourself with habits and tricks. But after years of flailing and stalling out I finally admitted defeat and instituted a process, and only then did my writing really get off the ground. My process? I write every day, and I write 500 words a day. My former self is rolling his eyes again, but he was wrong!” –Daniel Lefferts, author of Ways and Means (The Overlook Press)

“Always have tabs of great writing you admire open next to your draft on your computer. (Or real books next to your ink-and-paper.) When I feel my flow waning mid-writing, I read a few sentences of someone whose linguistic pyrotechnics set my brain on fire, creating an aesthetic charge that makes me antsy to get back to my own document for a discharge of words that bring a genuine energetic current to the page.” –Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West (William Morrow)

“Write about the hard stuff. Tell the truth.” –Joyce Maynard, author of How the Light Gets In (William Morrow)

“For me, it’s a delicate balance between taking yourself seriously, being disciplined about having a writing routine, but also remembering to have fun and be playful. I do my best writing when it feels completely low stakes, when all I’m trying to do is create a pleasurable, stimulating, absorbing experience for myself. I try to remind myself before I sit down to write that it doesn’t really matter whether the writing fails or succeeds. I’m just here to have fun and see what happens. I find that this approach, combined with taking myself seriously enough to show up at my desk every day, works for me. The other big thing is to try to have a pretty restrained relationship with my phone! If I go on Instagram before writing, it can ruin the whole writing day because it makes my mind so frazzled. I turn my phone off and put it in another room when I write, block all websites for the duration that I’m writing, and generally don’t have social media apps on my phone at all except when I have to re-download them for promotional purposes. I get really addicted to my phone and need to be careful about it because it affects my attention span in a way which is terrible for my writing and well-being.” –Oisín McKenna, author of Evenings and Weekends (Mariner)

“Just switch off whatever it is you need to switch off and write.” –Eliza Moss, author of What It’s Like in Words (Henry Holt)

“I’d say, ‘Don’t listen to anyone, you hot god. Art is freedom. Make the book you want to read.’ But then I’d whisper, ‘Read everything. Read Virginia Tufte. And listen to all the advice, but take only what feels right to you.’ That’s what I’d say, but I’d never say it to anyone because general advice is for boors.” –Brad Neely, author of You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant (Keylight Book)

“So much of the seemingly uncomplicated advice on writing handed down to us is ableist and exclusionary—write daily, join a group, read voraciously—it all belongs in the bin. The only advice should be find what works for you!” –Tom Newlands, author of Only Here, Only Now (HarperVia)

“Write your first draft without the weight of seeking perfection, but once you’ve written the end, embrace criticism. The ability to receive feedback with an open mind can be transformative. Approach criticism as an opportunity for growth and recognize its potential for enhancing the overall quality of your work.” –Elba Iris Pérez, author of The Things We Didn’t Know (Gallery Books)

“Read and study different authors. Really study them. What they show and what they don’t. How they exercise restraint, how they hold back, so that the reader must feel what is there to feel. How they create atmosphere. Study them, and then try different things, until you find your own voice.” –Deepa Rajagopalan, author of Peacocks of Instagram (House of Anansi Press)

“Download one of those no-nonsense internet blockers for your timed writing sessions. I use one appropriately called ‘Freedom.’ Because if you’re like me, there’s a saboteur that lives within you, and it wants you to check your email again.” –Joselyn Takacs, author of Pearce Oysters (Zibby Books)

“Don’t listen to advice from authors. Figure out what works for you and do it!” –Maggie Thrash, author of Rainbow Black (Harper Perennial)

“To keep going, no matter how daunting it feels!” –Fiona Williams, author of The House of Broken Bricks (Henry Holt)

“Read widely.” –Monica Wood, author of How to Read a Book (Mariner)

“Use your imagination. I find it dispiriting how many young, aspirational fiction writers—including undergraduates, MFA students, and anyone learning the craft—don’t actually want to write fiction. They want to publish their diaries and draw rapturous acclaim. It’s OK to be a poet. Why not call yourself that? It’s totally fine to write nonfiction. Why not own it? Fiction that’s too reliant on autobiography tastes like, to me, milk that’s been left in the fridge past its expiration date. Don’t let your imagination curdle!” –Snowden Wright, author of The Queen City Detective Agency (HarperCollins)

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While there’s no shortage of writing advice, it’s often scattered around—a piece of advice here, words of wisdom there. And in the moments when you most need writing advice, what you find might not resonate with you or speak to the issue you’re dealing with. In A Year of Writing Advice, the editors of Writer’s Digest have gathered thoughts, musings, and yes, advice from 365 authors in dozens of genres to help you on your writing journey.

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