Writers: Do Your own Thing

All of the typical goals we have as beginning writers – writing for publication in a magazine, or to win a writing contest, push us to follow convention. To look at what exists, what has won, what has been published by that magazine, and make something that will win over the same editor. In other words: to write what other people seem to want us to write. I believe an important piece of advice, however, for any writer, is to write what they want to write, in the way that they want to write it. To create stories that they want to see but cannot find.

There is no doubt that beginning writers should study the craft of writing.  We should know what has already been done, the tropes and cliches of our field. Reading currently popular authors and classic works is a great way to do that. However, at a certain point, we also need to be brave and find our own path. If all we ever do is follow the rules and conventions of earlier authors then all we will ever produce is pale shadows of the past. 

I think this is more clearly seen in art. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist. So were Picasso, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Pollock, Warhol, and Kahlo all of whom came after da Vinci. And if all of them had simply tried to paint in the style of da Vinci then we would be missing newer classics of art like Picasso’s Guernica, or entire art movements like impressionism, cubism or modern art.  At a certain point in our development as an author, we need to have trust in our own voice. Once we have learned to write following ‘the rules’ we need to experiment, to follow our hearts so that we can create something worth producing, something original, something that adds to the field, or, in other words, the next generation of writing.  Not just a pale copy of the past.

As always. let me know your thoughts in the comments below!