Maybe You Don’t Need to Buy More Courses

Maybe you just need to emulate someone who’s where you want to be

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Learning to be a writer is hard. Sometimes we need help. I certainly did. I took courses, quite a few of them. I’m a Gen X writer who’s been writing since my teens, so I started my training before the internet existed.

The early writing courses I took (back in the late 80s and early 90s) were correspondence courses. I would send my writing off by snail mail to be evaluated by my tutor, and wait two weeks for it to be returned, covered in red-editing-pen mark-ups.

I’m still a fan of training and education. But I’m also a fan of knowing when to stop. Too many writers buy course after course, program after program, or maybe book after book. After a while you have enough training, and enough books about writing. It’s time to implement.

My writing courses helped me – a lot - but ultimately they’re not what got me where I am today. I really started to become successful at writing when I picked a few writers who wrote similar pieces to me, studied their writing, and emulated it.

I got published in The Washington Post when I studied the work of published journalists. I hit four-figure months on Medium when I studied the work of other four-figure Medium writers. I built this Substack by studying what other successful Substack writers were doing.

I’m not suggesting you plagiarise other writers, but I am suggesting you copy them, to a certain extent.

Study their style, the topics they write on, the way they write their headlines, how they open a piece, and how they conclude it. Look at their sources. Which publications do they link to? Who do they quote? Which books do they mention? (In other words, what input leads to their output?)

When you read one of their sentences – or perhaps a whole paragraph – that you absolutely love, don’t just keep reading. Pause, re-read, analyse exactly how they put that sentence or paragraph together.

Aspiring novelist? Take up your all-time favorite novels and read them again, but this time not to enjoy. Just to learn. Why do you love this story? Is it the writing style, the character arcs, or the setting? How did the writer build the plot, the world, the characters, and the imagery? What techniques did they use? How did they foreshadow? What was the cliffhanger at the end of each chapter that made you want to keep reading?

It’s surprisingly easy to emulate others in this field, because writers write in public. Their published work is available to everyone. And it’s possible - to some extent - to analyse it.

You can look at an amazing work of art and perhaps have no idea how it was created. But writing is something that you can read over and over, pull apart and learn from.

Recommended resource: Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. And yes, that’s another book on writing – but really on reading. You absolutely don’t need it if you’ve already got too many books about writing, but I’ve found it helpful in my quest to learn from other writers.

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Some thoughts from others I’ve been enjoying this week

• You can multiply your confidence by writing from

  Alex Mathers

• The 5 Common Mistakes New Authors Make (And How to Avoid Them) from

  J.R. Heimbigner

• The Oldest Rule Of Compelling Writing from

  Linda Caroll

What else I’ve been up to this week

Exploring a bucket list destination: I’m just back from a 4-day trip to Rome

Watching: This YouTube video about how writing can change the world

Reading: Winter of the World by Ken Follett (it’s taking a while - it’s a long and thought-provoking book)

A quick head’s up

My digital products have been the same price for a long time (some of them for years). It’s time for a price raise on everything, which will happen Wednesday. If there’s anything you’ve been meaning to buy, grab it now - and don’t forget there’s a 50% discount on my Freelance Writer’s Success Kit (discount is ‘baked in’ at that link - no coupon required).

Changes are coming

There will be some changes to Change The World With Words very soon. Stay tuned.

The newsletter is still free (and there will always be a free version). If you want to support me or simply show appreciation as I put in the time to create it, you can:

• Buy me a cup of tea

• Gift me a book I’d love to read

• Send me good vibes and positive thoughts

Many thanks in advance.

Disclosure: Some of the links in my content all around the web are affiliate links. If you buy through me, I may earn a commission. Find out more here.

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P.S. Help yourself to my list of free tools for writers.

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