Being A Great Writers Is About Using Your Brain

A couple of days ago, I was on LinkedIn just surfing the net and saw multiple authors promoting their workshops that would promise you a successful novel or to make you the most amazing author ever. I am sure you have all seen these workshops. Maybe you have also picked up a book proclaiming that if you follow these 10 easy steps, you too will be a multi-millionaire author.

I say Bull Pucky!

Being a great author requires using your brain. It requires critical thinking skills. It requires hard work and dedication. I am sorry to say this, but those books and sites are full of it. I will even add that if you believe you can read the posts I put here, you will be a successful writer. There is no way I would ever promise such a thing.

To be successful, you have to be able to think. Let's consider a few things:

THINK ABOUT THE MARKET - You believe you have this amazing story. It is fully developed in your head! But is this a story that will sell? Is the market even interested in this project. I don't care if you want to take the traditional approach or the self-publishing approach. If this story is not something people will buy, you will not be successful.

THINK ABOUT THE WRITING OF OTHERS - I am always promoting this. You need to take the time to read the writing of other authors. What are they doing that works? What are they doing that you don't like? Don't just read a story for the plot; read it for the technique. You have to have the critical thinking skills to really figure out what that author was doing, and this means going all of the way down to the sentence level.

THINK ABOUT YOUR WRITING AS A READER - You are overly focused on your writing as a writer, but have you even taken the time to read it as a reader? Probably not. The issue that so many authors have is that they write with tunnel vision. They only see the story from their perspective and never see the plot, the characters, the setting or the theme from someone on the outside. Until you can do that, success will be out of your reach.

THINK ABOUT YOUR WRITING AS A TRUE WRITER - Why did you have your character do that last thing in your book? Why did you decide to write the story in first person and not third person? If you are doing these things because someone told you to, but you really do not understand the impact on your story, success will also be out of your reach.

THINK ABOUT YOUR SUBMISSION AS AN EMPLOYER - I personally love this one. Would you hire you? Look at that submission packet and look at those submission guidelines. You are now the agent and you tell me, is this someone that you would hire. Get rid of your personal bias because you think the world of yourself. Look at it as someone in the profession really looking for a professional writer.

The point is, this is not just a matter of "banging out a story" and "shipping it off." This requires a brain.

You have one so use it!