11 Unfortunate Truths That All New Writers Need to Know
1. You can’t write whatever you want
Well, technically you can, but it’s not that simple. Write the story you want to tell, but if you want to get published, you have to make compromises. For starters, your writing has to be good.
Wait!!%*&…
Before you click away, let me explain myself. Of course, quality writing is the name of the game. No one needs to be told to be fantastic. But it’s more than that. Not only do you need to be good with the wordy words, but your content needs to be professional, relatable, and intriguing.
No big deal, right?
The thing is, professional, relatable, and intriguing writing often- frequently in my experience- does not always equal fun writing. Nor is it always what you want to write.
It can be frustrating to write while constantly asking yourself, “What does this scene add to my story. Why would I have this character if they contribute nothing to the plot?” You have to be tough here, methodically murdering plot bunnies one by one.
In my experience, this is especially true for those fanfiction and dungeon master gateway authors. I learned the hard way that just because a trope was popular on fanfiction, didn’t mean it would fly in the writing world.
If you have your heart set on writing the world’s angstiest, most underdeveloped character, that’s great. There is always an audience for everything. But it might not be the one agents are interested in.
So, your goal is to get published you have to play but the industry standards at least some of the time.
2. Everyone thinks It’s easy until they sit down and do it
One of the most important distinctions about writing comes down to this: liking the idea of becoming a writer and actually doing it are not the same thing. Everyone, and I do mean like 98% of the population or something banana’s like that, thinks they could write a book. As the stats reveal, not everyone actually does it.
Having a great book idea does not equal writing a great book.
Of course, you have an amazing idea, so does your hairdresser, so does every single roommate I’ve ever had. YES! Everyone WANTS to write a book. The difference is not everyone actually wants to WRITE a book.
Ideas are cheap. You can buy them for a cent on the dollar, taking inspiration from the mirage of stories we are presented with on a daily basis.
Writing isn’t really about ideas, it’s about the presentation of that idea. How you frame it, how you set up the world, the characters. The hard part is breathing life into your idea.
So, just because you have an amazing idea, it doesn’t get you very far. The gravity of your idea is determined by you.
Good storytelling is based on how much work you are willing to put into your idea. Or how long you are willing to rewrite the same sentence. Or how many chapters you get to before losing motivation and moving on.
That’s the tricky part.
3. It’s straight-up not for everyone
Like I said, not all hobbies are right for everyone. Case in point, I love guitars. I’m addicted to listening to them and I daydream about breaking one out as a party favor to make up for my personal lack of depth.
However, under no circumstances should I ever get one.
For starters, I don’t have that much money to drop into a sinking ship. Secondly, I am hopeless with all kinds of instruments. My piano teacher fired me at ten. My middle school bass teacher gave me a solo and then said “Wow! How have you been in my class for two years without learning anything?”
I’m not good -like at all.
I’m sure that with enough hard work and elbow grease I could push past my lack of talent. But the thing is- I don’t want to do that. I don’t have the time or motivation to kill myself over a couple of strings and a dead-end music career. I just don’t love it enough..
That goes for everyone, for every hobby. Just because you want to doesn’t mean it’s ‘Write’ for you.
The tell for writing is doing the act. If you can’t enjoy it, at least some of the time, it might not be the right hobby for you. AND THAT’S OK. You can’t force yourself to like something any more than I can play the guitar without the neighbors filing a noise complaint against me.
4. Legit no money in it
You’re not Steven King, JK Rowling, James Patterson, or anyone who wrote themselves mansions to live in. Anyone will tell you there’s not a lot of money in writing. Especially for newbies.
Sure, your book could be a breakout success- the same way your aunt might win the lottery. Probably not though. The time you need to invest in your first novel (practice novels aside) you might not even make minimum wage.
If you’re lucky and sign with a big writing house, you might get $10,000. Great right? Now subtract $2,000 for your agent. $8,000 is still a lot. Say you write two hours a day, every single day for a year. Twelve months is a good time frame for your rough draft, second drafts, third, fourth, fifth, and final, plus incorporating the edits from your beta readers, then, of course, the final polish, the query, and then reaching out to agents.
If you manage to write, edit, and snag an agent in a year for $8,000, then you will get around $11 dollars per hour. Less if it takes you longer which is a real possibility. You can’t really put a down payment for a mansion with $11.
5. Traditional publishing is hard
It’s just plain sucks. Agents get hundreds of query letters every day. So they can afford to be really selective about which ones they pursue. Some sources recommend that writers query at least 50 to 80 agents. Yikes.
As amazing as the invention of the email was, it’s making agents more accessible. Which forces them to be a little ruthless with the number of query rejections.
Once you get published it’s not over. It’s just getting started. You have to market your book yourself. How? Good question – no idea.
If you can’t get enough readers to read your book then the publishers lose money on you. Suddenly they can’t get rid of your book fast enough. That would put an end to any future sequels. You might even get fired by your agent.
Traditional publishing also puts a lot of the decisions into the hands of the publisher. Things such as plot, length, and design are no longer under your control.
Plus, with the hostile takeover of amazon, hard copy books are slowly dwindling. This doesn’t mean that physical books are going to become endangered.
But, it does mean that bookstores no longer have the capacity to display as many books as before. Most of their space is going to be taken by the heavy-hitting best sellers. AKA not the new authors.
6. Self-publishing isn’t much better
The great thing about it is that anyone can do it. The bad news is that anyone can do it.
Like traditional publishing, self-publishing has its ups and downs. There is a lot of competition here and your book isn’t going to stand out.
Worse yet, it’s not free. You need an editor, an artist for the cover, probably a website or some type of platform, a really solid marketing strategy, possibly some courses on this whole process, not to mention beta readers, sensitivity readers ect. It’s going to give your wallet a run for it’s money without the promise of any monetary value in return.
7. Skill means way less than you think
I have read some terrible, terrible books that somehow got traditionally published. It’s not just me being petty- these suckers were badly written.
The truth is that trashy books make it, and some amazing talent goes unrecognized and unsold. Skill only matters some of the time.
Just remember that the most popular books on the market are rarely the best-written books.
The silver lining is that we all have a chance, no matter how bad my someone’s writing skills are, to make it big.
8. Grow a thick skin because they are coming after your writing
And not in a fun way. If you have a writing ego, which you will because no one shares their work if they don’t think it’s ready- get ready to have it bashed repeatedly with a hammer.
It’s easy to say don’t take criticism personally. But it’s really hard not to wince as someone rips your lil writing baby apart. And they will. It comes to us all. Darn it constructive criticism. Everyone’s third least favorite type of criticism.
What’s worse is that it is actually how growth as a writer happens. Personally, the fear of my beta readers finding flaws drove me to try and find perfection. Obviously, I failed (who could have seen that coming). But I did ensure that no beta would go after my story quite as hard as the first one did.
9. You can’t just sit down one day and write a publishable novel
We’re not all Stephanie Meyers. For most people, there is a lot of stuff between deciding to write a novel and publishing a novel.
To be more specific that stuff is skill.
Unless you were born with it, (most of us aren’t), than you need to go get some. So hold off on your amazing novel idea because the reality is most people write two to three practice novels before they can actually get into it.
Personally, I wrote nine trash ones, but that’s what happens when you exaggerate your ten-year-old’s writing ability to make them feel better about flunking third grad lit.
So until we can figure out how to rise up against the naturally talented, we plebeians have a long way to go before we have anything to show for our efforts other than carpel tunnel.
10. People don’t realize how much work goes into a novel
Once upon a time, my roommate sat down to write her first novel, and said to me an hour later, “I figured out that the hardest part of writing is picking the names.”
That’s what people say when they have yet to reach the actual writing stage yet. Spoiler – the writing is the hard part.
Rarely can you just sit down and knock out a novel in an afternoon.
In actuality, you brainstorm your ideas, plan out your novel, possibly throw some research in there. You sit down and start writing, then you write a couple of pages, then a few more, and lo and behold you have your first chapter. It sucks. So does your second. Three months later you have six more chapters and you think chapter four might not totally suck.
By the last chapter, you are starting to hate your life.
Then you get to do the entire thing over. Do you wince at reaching your first few chapters- well time to go drown yourself in the overuse of alliteration, your characters sloppy motivation, and the love interest fembot?
The second draft is the draft you realize just how underwhelming your first draft was. Time to do it all over again, and then again, and maybe one more time for good measures. Then send it to the beta’s so they can find new and exciting ways to tell you that’s it’s not very good. Then do that until you half like it and all spelling mistakes are hunted to extinction.
Congratulations you earned the right to get snuffed by fifty publishers. Are we having fun yet?
11. No one could be less interested
The biggest misconception is that people actually care!
Your beta readers don’t really care, your critique partner has better things to do, your orthodontists want to take their fingers away from the chatty patient mouth as soon as possible. The entire world isn’t sitting on the edge of their seats to hear about your ‘genre defying’ screenplay that your aunt couldn’t put down. That’s not a thing.
Every time I mention the word ‘novel‘, I watch my roommate’s eyes gloss over. Right now, be honest, do you want to read a ten-page comprehensive piece about how MY book:
‘ Challenges the young adult genre with quirky themes and a totally rad protagonist?’’
No! You are here to read about writing stuff for your own novel. It’s nothing personal. Everyone has their own stuff going on. That’s fine. There is a time and place for your audience to devour your novel and it is not in the grocery store checkout line. Make peace with the fact no one cares right now. You will spare your feelings and your family resentment in the process.
Just remember that if you keep at it one day that could all change.
Here’s the Trick: None of That Stuff Really Matters
When you’re doing what you love, and getting to share the world in your head with others, then the rest is just semantics. This is just how some things are SOME OF THE TIME.
Don’t think for a second any of this stuff really matters. Not when it’s your passion and dream in the balance. These are the minor inconveniences of writing, not the heart of it. If you have a story to write, then you will write it, that’s all there is.
It’s always good to be prepared and to school your expectation s
People wouldn’t suffer through all of this if it wasn’t worth it. The only one who gets to decide if it is or not is you.
So get out there and get to it!
Or Check Out My Other Posts on Writing!
Remember that writing isn’t all heartbreak. Check out one of my favorite posts about all the great things being a writer can bring you.