The WordPress/JetPack writing prompt for today is:
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

It’s always been easy to call yourself a writer. Where’s the proof? How do you, pre-publication, show that you really are a writer? And with the boom in Generative AI, now people who don’t even have a clue how to write are calling themselves writers and showing “proof” in terms of finished product.

But the truth is writers write, and it’s not easy. That’s what makes a writer. If you’ve ever tried to write a novel, you’d know it’s hard. There are ways to make it easier without cheating (cheating = using AI in this instance): plot before you write if that helps you, write something you’re passionate about, take writing courses, join a writing group and learn how to give and accept critiques…

About thirty years ago, I read an interview with a writer who was asked to give advice to new writers, and the advice was simply “Writers write.” But I can’t attribute it. I read a lot of interviews with writers back then.

And now, with AI both messing search results and leading to so much slop flooding the internet, I can’t find this source (I want to say it was David Gerrold or one of the other famous Star Trek authors, but I could be so wrong).

So why is this such good advice?

Writing is a craft. It’s also a learning journey.

As with any craft, you get better the more you practice it (any musicians reading this?)

Also, writing allows you to explore both ideas that are important to you and techniques. When I was a university student (late 1980s), I discovered that I was good at mimicking other’s writing voices. But I didn’t have a strong voice of my own.

This skill, mimicking, proved useful later, as I started commercial writing. I needed to create a long email campaign in the tone of “an uncle who’s a doctor giving friendly advice” in concise email-sized bites. I had the advice in front of me. I had to work out the delivery.

One of our account managers was a recent grandfather who always gave ‘folksie’ advice to us young ones. I had a lot of his writing in emails, to consume. I’d read three or four of his emails, then write a passage for the email campaign, mimicking his vocabulary and pacing.

The client loved the content, and ended up submitting it for an award.

During this same period, I was working hard on discovering my own author’s ‘voice.’ I can’t explain what that means, except you know it when you read it. You can identify a Stephen King story from just a paragraph or two. it’s in the pace, the detail.

It was through writing and submitting, reading feedback, taking writing courses where you’re challenged to write outside of your comfort zone, you wear off the edges and discover your ‘voice.’ Apparently mine is “character-focused’ with minimal detail, creating a ‘cinematic, immersive’ story. I ‘trust my readers to fill in pieces, thus making them participants in the story’. (based on feedback from tutors and fellow students).

I’ll take that.

It sounds good.

I can give a small example. Someone with limited experience as a writer, may write a sentence such as “He entered the room and took a seat.” There’s nothing wrong with that sentence, but it’s just stage direction. It tells the reader the absolute minimum that a sentence needs to, to be considered a sentence.

Compare that to, “The crowded room fell silent as he strode in and took his seat.” There’s so much more detail in that sentence – the room is crowded, and loud with conversation. His appearance is enough to silence it, so he is who the crowd is waiting for. He’s striding, which is walking purposefully, and the seat is his, and his alone – still empty despite the room being crowded. So everything about the sentence reinforces that he is somehow important.

It’s the type of sentence that you learn to create from writing and writing and writing; thirteen carefully chosen words over eight generic words.

Writers write. it’s what makes us who we are.

= = =

NOTES:

I usually write third person omniscient, though sometimes I write third-person tight. Either is pretty common in fiction, especially my genres. First person has been popular recently in YA (Young Adult) fiction. It is not a voice I prefer writing in, but one of my most popular short stories, Last Breath Day, which has appeared in three anthologies (one each in The UK, the USA, and Australia) is first-person YA. If you have Kindle Unlimited you can read it for free. I also wrote in the first person for a course I was taking. That story is on this website. If you really want to experiment, try writing in the second person (“You enter the room, pissed at being summoned. You see they’ve left you only one choice of where to sit, so you stride towards it, owning the space, not letting them see your insecurity.”). It’s not easy and not fun for me to write, but I did try once, and you can read the very short result here.