How To Be A Successful Writer (In Five Easy Steps)

To begin with, most people ask the wrong question.

This doesn’t happen too often locally, but because I also write for national publications, I often get this question: “What do I need to do to become a good writer?”

This question comes in many flavors. For example: “How can I become a better writer?” “What should I do to improve my writing?” “How did you learn to write so well?” That sort of thing.

These are all the wrong questions. Their common mistake: they all assume good writing is the key.

Here’s what most people (and most writers) don’t realize. There’s a difference between “good” writing and “successful” writing.

Most (though not all) writers would prefer to be successful than good.

Now, truth be told, it’s far easier for you to be a successful writer if you start out by becoming a good writer.

Would you like some encouraging news. It’s easy to become a good writer. All you need is to follow these five steps:

1. Read (but not too much). Before you can write, you need to have a template in your head. This will guide you. How do you construct this template? Read and read some more. Read a lot of different kinds (styles and genres) to discover which you like best. Then read more of those. But don’t read too much. You don’t want to simply mimic your favorite writer. Smart readers will see through this immediately. Your writing won’t give you the credit you deserve. (There is an exception to this rule, and we’ll get to that momentarily.)
2. Write (you can’t do this too much). There’s another reason not to read too much: you need time to write. In fact, once you start writing, you’ll find you won’t need to read as much. You’ll still want to read (especially if your writing alludes to other people’s writing, which includes writing about popular culture). There are those who say you need to start with 3,000 words to whittle it down to 800 words. For some people this is true, for others, a first draft of slightly more than 800 words will yield 800 words. But this is getting ahead of the game. At this point, you’re just writing creativity for the sake of writing. You want to get comfortable, to find your “groove,” and to let you know when you’re on a roll when it comes to spilling words on paper (or on the screen, depending on your preferred venue).
3. Find Your “Voice” (but don’t seek it, let it find you). This happens to be the #1 piece of advice teachers give their writing students. It does more harm than good. After all, what does “voice” mean? It means nothing. Really. It’s stupid. You’ve always had your voice. You lose it when you try to copy another person’s writing style by using their template. This could be another writer, but more likely it is a template you received from a teacher. This might get you a good grade in class, but it’s not your writing. It’s your teacher’s writing that came from your pen.
4. Find Your Audience (and don’t expect them to find you). When you’re a student, your teacher represents your audience. That’s why using your teacher’s template gets you a good grade. You’re writing what they want to read. The same holds true for any audience. This is why your “voice” is less important than what people say. (It’s OK to have a unique voice, more so in certain types of writing, like, say, a weekly newspaper columnist.) Ultimately, your target audience determines your template, and that determines the “voice” or style of your writing.

As an aside, this is where using another person’s template can pay off. Decades ago, when I had nothing better to do (and before I was married), I wanted to “do something completely different.” The March of Dimes was having a fundraiser auctioning off dates with Rochester’s “Most Eligible Bachelors.” I figured, “Why not?” and submitted my name. Of course, I realized that I have a face for radio, so I knew what I wrote in the application would be make or break. What should I write? I had no idea, so I decided to quickly scan through random Romance novels while waiting in the checkout line at Wegman’s (this was the time before the internet). I discovered their template and used it in my application. Not to my surprise, I, a virtual nobody, was selected to stand among a couple dozen (mostly celebrity) bachelors. That’s when using a template really works.

5. Before you do anything else in the morning, write what you’re thinking. This represents the most practical step. Once you’ve found your writing groove and you’ve got an audience in mind, your brain will start storming ideas of what to write for them. The best time for this occurs when your brain has little else on its mind, usually just before you get up from bed.

This is where many writers make their biggest mistake. They get up, eat breakfast, and get up to date on the world around them. Here’s a better idea: don’t. If you wake up with a writing idea, go straight to your desk and write it. It doesn’t have to be a finished draft. It doesn’t have to be those 3,000 words that get you 800. It could be nothing more than a rough outline. What ever it is, write it out until you’ve expunged as much from your brain as you need to.

Got it? Follow those five easy steps and you’ll become a good writer.

But that’s not good enough.

You want to write with success.

This leads us to the most important question and the one only you can answer: “Why do you want to write?”

The “why” is more important than the “how.” This will not only inform you on what you should write about but who you will be writing it for.

Consider this: Do you write to earn money, or do you write to get readers? Which is more important to you?

First, the bad news: If you want to earn money, good luck. This is a hard road. The competition today makes earning a living as a bestselling writer most difficult in all but a few areas. What are those areas? These would be technical writers and copywriters. In these areas, you aren’t selling your writing, someone (a company) is buying your ability to write. It’s their job (not yours) to make your writing sell.

If you’re writing to get readers, now is the best time to be a writer (and also why there’s so much competition in the paid markets). Anybody can write, but that’s always been the case. Today, unlike in almost any other era save for the pamphleteer era of the late Colonial period, anybody can distribute their writing.

By the way, “distribution” means sales. It’s one thing to post your essay on the web (it’s effortless, in fact), but it’s quite another thing to lead people to it. And then, once you lead them to it, it’s a still tougher matter to get them to read it. That’s sales (and also copywriting). That’s the topic for another day (or two, since “sales” and “copywriting” can each hold their own as separate topics).

One final note.

Remember when I said “good” writing isn’t “successful” and vice versa? Here’s an example of bad writing that’s successful: Almost any “Twilight” genre book today. I’ve read some of them. The writing is atrocious. The authors would never have passed English class in my day.

But, then again, English teachers were never concerned about the target audience.