“Four tips to make you a better writer”
Yesterday, I was perusing instagram, and I found a post much like many others I’ve seen before:
“Ten tips to make you a better writer”
The subsequent slides included ten thoughtfully crafted pieces of advice, each with the same cutesy background of the author holding up a book they’ve published. It included things like, “read more books” and “show, don’t tell.”
Now, I’ll give credit where credit is due: most of the advice they gave was generally good and broadly applicable. I know very few writers who wouldn’t benefit from reading more books. However, it got me thinking about the role of that sort of content and how — in many ways — it actually prevents writers from getting the sort of advice that will further their careers.
I may be early in my journey as a professional writer, but I’ve been a storyteller for a very long time. And, like many storytellers, I sought guidance from creators who summarized their learnings into shortform content. Ten tips to do this, five ways to do that. But the knowledge I gained from those materials is next-to-nothing compared to what I learned from getting my work out there and asking people for their opinions. For example:
Both as a Dungeon Master and a writer, I have received feedback that I can be too subtle. I am too biased by my own knowledge, and what to me feels obvious (like a hint, or foreshadowing, or a character’s motivation) is often undetectable by my audience. This feedback has come up so consistently in my creative efforts, it’s clearly a growth opportunity for me.
Yet in the hundreds of posts I’ve seen about how to become a better storyteller, I have never ONCE seen that as a piece of advice. Not. Once. And if I believed these creators — the ones who promised success if I just follow these “ten easy steps” — I never would have started addressing that problem in my writing. I never would have even been aware it was an issue in the first place.
The advice we put out there is colored by our own experiences. It’s one of the reasons good therapists are trained to be weary of giving out advice; you never truly know if, and how, it will apply to someone else. Many people, especially creatives, over-index on the advice of those with success stories. They want a world where someone else can give them the playbook. They want to avoid the vulnerability of failure and criticism. Can’t I just benefit from what others have learned?
But here’s the thing: you will never learn how you can become a better writer, without learning how you, specifically, can become a better writer. That shortform content will only get you 10% of the way there; to get that remaining 90%, you need to get feedback from people who’ve actually read your work.
So, here it is, folks: not ten, not five, but four tips to make you a better writer:
Get your writing out there.
Get honest feedback from people whose opinions are relevant.
Write some more.
Repeat.
