Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Writing Someone Else’s Way
Everyone makes mistakes—even writers—but that’s OK because each mistake is a great learning opportunity. The Writer’s Digest team has witnessed many mistakes over the years, so we started this series to help identify them early in the process. Note: The mistakes in this series aren’t focused on grammar rules, though we offer help in that area as well.
Rather, we’re looking at bigger picture mistakes and mishaps, including the error of using too much exposition, hiding your pitch, or chasing trends. This week’s mistake is writing someone else’s way.
Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Writing Someone Else’s Way
Write for an hour every day. Write 2,000 words a day. Already be thinking of your next story. Already have a draft for a second story written when you’re submitting this manuscript. Perfect your elevator pitch. Make sure it’s marketable. Never start your story with nature. Don’t make it too long. Series’ sell. But write whatever you want!
We often ask authors what advice they have for other writers. We ask because the answers are often diverse and unique to whatever worked for that author, hopefully offering readers an array of examples that essentially add up to one thing: The only wrong way to write is not to write at all.
Which is true. But what I say next comes from personal experience. Sometimes, writers hoard writing advice, and contradicting nuggets of wisdom bump up against each other in our brains, fighting for legitimacy to be the one that helped us finish our stories.
Personally, I have tried on several different pieces of writing advice to varying degrees of success. Often, I find myself cycling through authorial advice when I am at my most frustrated with my story or my process, hoping that another way of thinking will help me see through to the end. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it takes me down a path I ultimately didn’t want to go, and then I feel like I wasted precious time.
What I’ve come to realize is that I have a habit of hearing what published authors have to say as some oracular, prophesied truth because, clearly, it worked for them. And in that, I would alter my writing process—even my writing style—to fit whatever advice they had to offer.
What happened was my writing suffered every time I tried incorporating a new piece of writing advice, because not every piece of writing advice is going to serve my story or how I write. I grew frustrated when something I wrote didn’t feel like me.
The Fix
Writing advice is not a perfect puzzle piece, it’s more akin to growing out of your clothes as a teenager. One day something fits, the next day you need a brand-new wardrobe. My writing changes on its own naturally with every passing year I spend writing. Instead of implementing what worked for other people, I now spend time unpacking my past writing and comparing it to my current writing, seeing where I’ve improved, where I could do better, and what my new goals are. I let my new-self advise my old-self. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still incorporate writing advice from others, and that isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s encouraged. But don’t overwhelm your brain with too much outside writing advice.
Here’s what worked for me. I think of writing advice in two categories: practical and emotional. When I’m stuck on the practical side of writing, the literal sitting-down-and-getting-words-out part of the process, I’ll investigate what some authors have said about their writing process on books that I’ve loved. We recently interviewed Lydia Kiesling for the “Writer’s Digest Presents” podcast on her new book, Mobility, a book I loved and wanted to learn from. In chatting with her, she described the process of intentionally misdirecting readers, something that requires a certain level of subtlety but also something the writer needs to be aware of the entire time. I learned so much from that conversation, and it felt like advice that my specific story and my specific writing style needed.
For the emotional side, I find myself looking for advice on how to get through the arduous process of writing something you want to be proud of. Lately, what I find myself turning to is Brandon Taylor’s advice from the May/June 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine:
“Remember that when you’re writing that first thing, you’re in an incredibly precious time. When you’re writing that book or that early story, write for yourself first and foremost. There’s going to come a time when that won’t be the case anymore, when there are going to be all these people who are involved. So, don’t be in any great hurry to publish or to get it out there into the world. Take your time to hone and craft that first book. Appreciate those early years where you’re writing for yourself because it never is quite the same once you start publishing.”
I think about this all of the time now when I sit down to write—when I start to feel anxious about the end goal being published and that I’m not there yet. In reminding myself that this moment of writing what will hopefully be my first published work is something that won’t happen twice, and that I need to try and enjoy it now.
So, as you’re working on your drafts, eliminate all of the well-intentioned-but-not-for-you writing advice you’ve heard and distill it down to the most relevant and the most necessary. What’s going to help your writing, and what’s going to help your mind? The answer to those questions will change as you keep going on this creative journey, but don’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet.
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