Worst Writing Advice: “Write Better (lol)”

Say this one in a snooty tone: “Have you tried just not sucking, maybe?” Or possibly “Get Good, Scrub.”

Because whether you are trying to get started, you’ve written you first book, your tenth book, or your fiftieth book, someone will always tell you that your books would sell better if you just wrote a good book in the first place. I say this from personal experience, and from dealing with people who struggle to string together words on social media.

“RiTe bEttar” is the sort of advice that every author receives, often from people who don’t realize just how condescending they sound. I’ve seen it hurled at authors who make more from writing than I do in my day job, often by some internet troll who lives in their parent’s basement.

It is the kind of generic, essentially subjective, advice that is about as helpful as someone seeing you out of gas on the side of the road and slowing down just long enough to tell you that you should have filled up, because the next station is sixty miles that’away and best of luck.

I say this as an author who always values feedback and really tries to improve with every story I write. The “If you write a good story it will sell” mantra is complete bullshit. Even before the rise of AI enshitification, there have been tremendously popular authors who get there through connections, media efforts, sheer dumb luck, demonic pacts, or some combination thereof. Some of the best books I have ever read have been from authors with nowhere near the reach and success of some genuinely lousy writers.

Should you try to write well? Yes. Everyone, even in basic communications like emails and even texts, should strive to be clear, concise, and coherent, at the least.

Should you try to improve your writing craft? Absolutely. Take the time, read up on elements of prose and writing styles. Strive to find your voice and what makes your writing unique.

Do not, however, bother to care about the drive by comments from internet randos who tell you that your writing is terrible, cliché, etc. Especially if, as most have not, they haven’t read it. Definitely don’t buy into the idea that the only reason you aren’t seeing massive and overwhelming success is because your writing is terrible. (I mean, that might be it, maybe, but rarely is that the only case).

Writing, especially if you self-publish, but often it is the case even for traditional publishing, now, is a whole of person approach. Gone are the days where a writer could be a shut-in who would send off a manuscript to a publisher and reviews and praise would rain down upon them, and hopefully hundred dollar bills as well.

There is knowledge of the market, knowledge of readers, having an established name or reputation, marketing, media and social media campaigns, a whole array of sales and analysis metrics. You have to know your target audience well enough to get the book in front of them. If you want real success, and we’re talking quit the day job level success, then you need to do each of those things as well or better than you write.

Remember the one-man band from Mary Poppins? Yeah, that’s you as the author. You have to be good at all the things, and that’s just if you go traditionally published, because to add to those things are line-editing, copy-editing, revisions, cover art, alpha and beta readers, launch crews, keyword analysis, advertisements across multiple platforms… the list never ends because it is the Aegean Stables.

This might be overwhelming. I promise you, I don’t mean it that way. What you need to keep in mind is that “write better” is terrible advice from people who aren’t in it, who have never done it, or who are looking at things from the outside. The far better advice I can give any prospective writer or author who goes into this is: do the best that you can.

Your book(s) may not be perfect. You may have to rush it to meet a deadline. You may come to the end of a story and find it is 20k words shorter or 100k longer than you planned. You may find that you just don’t have it in you to write more in a series. You may realize that you killed off the wrong character in a previous book.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s a bit like parenting, there will be rough days, there will be days you feel like you’ve been mauled and you’re terrible at this, but you just keep on doing your best.

Sometimes the best you can do is open the word document and put a couple of words down… or even go in and cut the section that’s not working, drop it in a separate document for cut bits, and start from where you amputated.

Sometimes it’s not a writing day at all, so do research on marketing, work the social media aspect, or try to fix your mailing list (Trust me, it’s fifteen minutes, that winds up being the best three hours that you could spend all day doing).

And keep in mind, even when you are successful and you do have sales and things are looking good, someone will still tell you that you aren’t GRRM rich because you don’t write that good. That’s okay, because in the ad-libbed words of Gene Wilder from Blazing Saddles, “These are the people of the land, the common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”