A reader recently e-mailed me a few questions about writing and being a writer, and I decided (with her permission) to share my answers with you. I’ve had a little more time to reflect on these answers and expanded them a bit more from my initial response to her. I hope this helps all of you fellow writers and hopeful authors.
1) Because I wasn’t much of a reader, I don’t think I really drew much inspiration from books (I’m trying to read more now!) So, I never observed anyone’s writing styles, or the way they constructed good stories. Every time I’d try to write a story when I was younger it would come out all disjointed and awkward. Probably because my brain was just all over the place! Just…character development and everything wasn’t up to par, I put tons of thought into stories but could never come out clean. I feel like part of the reason why was because I didn’t read enough, so, how important would you say books were to helping you grow as a writer?
Books, aside from whatever unprovable talent I was born with, were probably the single most important thing to helping me grow as a writer. Go through my site and read my pieces “You Are What You Read” and “Letter to a Young Novelist” and that pretty much sums it up.
Stephen King once said that if you don’t read or write 4 to 5 hours a day, don’t expect to become a good writer. That’s not necessarily an unflinching rule, but it’s a pretty good guideline. Read and write a lot, and your writing will be better off for it.
2) What about your inspiration? I drew mostly from my own life experiences, but my life hasn’t deviated TOO much from the norm.
My inspiration definitely comes from life experiences. But not just things that happen to me. People say be careful what you say around writers because it’ll end up in a book, and that’s true for me. If I witness or eavesdrop anything worth writing, chances are that it will end up in a story.
It’s not just experiences. I can be inspired by pretty much anything. A no-smoking sign, a crumb on an old man’s face. It usually happens without me having any say in the matter.
For my relevant blog post, check out: Fiction Comes From Life (here’s a handy link http://www.somewhereoverthesun.com/post/1663889206/fictionlife)
3) If I were to write a story about something specialized, I’d want it to be as accurate as possible. Or having an underlying theme…like, someone having amnesia, or cancer, growing up in a destitute town…I’d have to do research, but how? Pour over books and the internet, what if I wanted to interview someone, how could I get in touch? I suppose I would just be unsure how to go about that, or how much research I would do. Because I think we all know if someone doesn’t properly research it makes the story less credible, believable, and touching.
I may not be the best person to answer this question because I’m not much of a researcher. In high school, I had to write a position paper for Model United Nations, and somewhere in there I wrote the line: “In my home country, research is frowned upon.”
A bit of it is definitely necessary to make things believable. Like..a duck’s life span, or what have you. Certain things just need to make sense, and if you don’t know them, it’s best to keep them as non-fiction. Google or Wikipedia it up.
To get in touch with someone you need to, just try. Call their office or shoot them an email just asking a few questions. I haven’t had to quite yet, but I’m sure that it wouldn’t hurt. Don’t be shy about it. People like telling writers things.
4) I think with any writer, you have to start small. You can’t just become an overnight sensation, even J.K Rowling got rejected dozens of times before a publisher agreed to pick her up. So, how would you advise going about this? Would you advise utilizing my university in any way? Submitting my stories to school papers or writing competitions…what’s legit, what’s not?
This is hard to answer. There’s no real established path to success in the field. Some find it quickly through an agent and start getting paid for their work right away. Many get rejection letters from agents, publishers, literary magazines and almost anything else for years until they finally get a break.
School papers and writing competitions are probably a good idea. Almost anything is a good idea if it gets your name out there and gives you something you can mention. “I’ve been published in so and so literary magazine, was a finalist in so and so competition.” Every one of those things you can mention gives you more credibility and though it doesn’t guarantee any success, it won’t hurt.
The only non-legitimate practices in the writing world are usually editors or magazines claiming that you have to pay them a ‘reading fee.’ Never pay a reading fee. Send submissions to anyone that might be interested, be ready for rejection and no responses, but legitimate publishing ventures will never charge you for doing so.
5) My parents aren’t very…erm…supportive of me becoming a writer. As in, a fiction writer as a full-time job, to be specific. They’re more concerned with my being able to support myself financially first, which is understandable. So they tell me to “write on the side” while I have my own job. Do you have any idea how much writers are typically paid? Or, does it depend on the volume of your sales (of course it would in some way) Starting out…could you make a living out of it?
With the publishing industry in decline, or at the very least changing, I’ve read that many agents are advising writers not to quit their day jobs.
Financially, becoming a writer is not a wise choice. The chances of you being able to become financially independent off of writing income alone is low. Author royalties vary from contract to contract, of course. With traditional publishing, the percentages are lower but the volume is generally much higher than self-publishing.
However, with that being said, if you have to write, you have to write. Having a way to support yourself is great, but, in my opinion, if you want to give your writing a chance to succeed, you have to submerge yourself in it. Jobs are necessary and not everyone is lucky enough to be able to feed themselves and still write a book in a few months. Try to come up with a way to take a few months off to dedicate to writing.
There are other non-monetary rewards to being a published writer, and although some people do make a very lucrative business out of it, your best chance at success is when you focus on your writing.
