When it comes to making it as a writer, thereโs no magical shortcut to success: You just have to show up and keep doing the work. But there are some things that might be helpful to know and bits of wisdom to encourage you to keep going. Below, nine writers share what they wish theyโd known and the advice they would give fledgling writers.
Alexander Chee
โI have always asked my students to focus on the stories only they can tell. By which I mean, to watch for the vision that opens to them. To write what they never see in books. And I think that is still the advice, it still works now.โ
Brit Bennet
โIt feels basic, but youโd be surprised at all the people that will tell you they are not readers but want to write a novel. I think that reading is so crucial. Itโs how you learn what happens in novels and how to put them together and how you start thinking about it. Even when the books that youโre reading are bad, I think they will teach you about the books that you donโt want to write.
I would say that the first is to read wisely, and the second is to learn how to forgive yourself โ because the writing will be bad for so much longer than itโs ever good. If youโre lucky to get to a point where you really enjoy your writing, and Iโm rarely at that point myself, you have to muddle through years and years of bad drafts, and you have to sit down every day with that writing knowing that your standards are way higher than whatever it is that youโre accomplishing, and still go back to it anyway.โ
Ingrid Rojas Contreras
โRealize the value of your own work. There is no industry without what youโre writing and what youโre producing. Itโs important to learn to be an advocate for that work, learning to protect it. Be patient with finding the right people who can lift it up or get it to the place where you ultimately want it to get. And this comes back to agents, just realizing that this is someone who works for you, and this is someone who you want to really represent the work in the best way that they can. Be less grateful. Less I canโt believe you reached out and more what can you do for me and my work?โ
R.O. Kwon
โI was teaching a writing class, and, of course, the class moved online midway. And my students often seemed to find that when they were having real trouble putting together a story or essay or working with an overarching narrative structure, that if they were just able to let that go and write whatever came to mind in the spirit of playing rather than in the spirit of producingย something โ andย at a time when so much is unknown and there is so much that our minds are grapplingย with โ thatย that sort of playfulness can be helpful.โ
Emma Straub
โMy No. 1 tip is to finish whatever it is youโre working on. I think there are a lot of aspiring writers in the world who have a great idea, or who have a great idea and 16 pages that are so beautiful, or that could be so beautiful. But it doesnโt matter. Like it just doesnโt matter unless you finish it, if your goal is to sell it. If your goal is to become a person who makes a living as a writer, or who even makes a portion of their living as a writer, as most writers do, including me now.
Also, if you just want to make something great, it first has to be fine. When I am writing, I never worry about the first draft, whether itโs terrible or good or somewhere in the middle, because it just doesnโt matter until youโre done. Maybe not all writers think this way, but I usually donโt even know what a book is about in the first draft. I donโt know what Iโm writing about. Iโm just feeling around in the dark, trying to find my way. And itโs only once I have a whole thing to look at that I can take a step or two back and say, Oh, okay, thatโs weird. I didnโt know that thatโs what this book was about. And then you can go back and actually make it better.โ
Sigrid Nunez
โYouโll hear other writers say that you shouldnโt do a lot of reading, that if youโre a writer, itโs important to write and reading isnโt so important, and that I think is really bad advice.
I really think that a writer learns more from reading other writers than from any workshop, so I would say the opposite, that you should read as much as possible. And you know, some other bad advice that Iโve heard is, when you workshop something, you should take everything that you hear from people in the workshop to heart and then go about trying to revise what youโve written, according to the response. But of course the responses tend to be very varied, you have a class of ten to 15 people and theyโre not all going to agree, theyโre going to have very different responses to your work, so if you try to write something that will please all of them, you know, that would really not work well.โ
Samantha Irby
โMy advice is to, first, just take it easy on yourself. Nothing is helped when you beat up on yourself or are cruel to yourself. Donโt push yourself to write things that you donโt want to, because you might not be happy with it. Thatโs a big waste of time. And donโt be afraid to do some writing for free. Have a blog or a newsletter, or if you have a website where youโve compiled lots of things youโve written for yourself that make you happy, thatโs where people can go to to see your work. Thatโs how I built up a relationship with this audience.
The majority of people who buy my books are people Iโve had a relationship with on the internet for a long time. And itโs great for new people who have just heard of me to buy my book โ I love and appreciate them. But there are people who are like, Iโve been reading you since 2008, when you were writing about pooping your pants in your tiny apartment. I didnโt even have ads on my blog. It just was like a thing I liked to do that made people happy. So donโt think youโre wasting your time by putting your writing somewhere people can read it and have access to it. But let me be clear โ if youโre writing for a publication, they should pay you. Writing for other people for exposure is bullshit.โ
Akwaeke Emezi
โI would tell myself to keep building a body of work. Thatโs the important part. I think if I had only focused on Freshwater and just wrapped everything up into that one book, I would have a very different career now. Iโm glad that when I was starting out I had the foresight to be like, actually, no, you need to plan long-term. You need to plan whatโs the book after this is, and what the book after that is, and what are you planning to do down the line? If I hadnโt done that, I donโt think I would have the career stability that I do now. It sounds so clichรฉ, but I genuinely do think that the work is the answer. And I know that there are a lot of sacrifices to make, to be able to make work, especially when there are all these structural barriers in the way. Like, I canโt imagine trying to start off writing in the world weโre living in right now. Survive first, by all means, be okay first. And then do what you can. I feel like whatever advice I gave before the pandemic honestly would be different than what Iโm giving you now.โ
Daisy Johnson
โI didnโt really know how to write a novel, and I was panicking, I think, a lot at this point about whether I could write it and trying a lot of different things and failing a lot. What I wish Iโd known then was that the deleting of words was part of the process. And actually every time I deleted something, the idea of what the novel was, was becoming clearer, and clarifying, and I think thatโs the same with short stories. I talk about this in schools sometimes, and when you tell school-aged students that they might have to do more than one draft, they look so horrified, but I think there is this freedom in knowing that whatever you put on the page, it can change. Typing something on a screen or writing it in a book doesnโt make it solid. It can change right up to the last minute. I think to trust that process of writing and changing and keep pushing towards the final draft, however many drafts that might be โ I wish Iโd known that.โ
Interviews by Claire Lampen, Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz, Kelly Conaboy, Gretty Garcia, and Amanda Arnold.
These interviews have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
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