TSS - Write for Yourself

Write for Yourself

A Miscellaneous Article by Benjamin Hall

When you sit down to work on your novel, who are you doing it for? As the title here suggests, I always think it’s best to write for yourself, and there are a good number of reasons why.

The first and most obvious one is for enjoyment. If you go around looking at what’s selling well and popular at the moment and base your choice of what to write on that, chances are you won’t enjoy writing at all. It will get very old very quickly, and that’s not a situation to be in when writing – if you don’t enjoy your writing, how’s a reader going to react to it?

But it stretches beyond just that. Writing to please a reader, while it may seem like a sensible idea, can turn into a definite no-go if you look at the implications of it. If you’re writing for the readers and the readers alone, you’re effectively working for the readers. When writing feels like work (or any hobby, for that matter) it could well end up seeming monotonous and a grind that you just have to get through, rather than something fresh and exciting that you can enjoy yourself. There are few crafts as varied and deep as writing; you should enjoy shaping your stories and characters, and not feel like you’re simply working to entertain something else.

This brings me onto another subject – characters. Who are your characters meant for? Obviously they have to be meant for you and your story. They should fit seamlessly into your beautiful creation, and never feel like they’re shoehorned in to attract an audience. A good example is the old stereotype of a “mysterious mercenary” character in high fantasy. Does a character based on a tired old cliché ever spark off the imagination? There’s not really much you can do with such a character. Characters should have real feeling to them – they should react like people because they are people. This doesn’t all mean that you should like all your characters, of course. In real life there are plenty of people who we don’t get on with, so why should fictional characters be any different? The trick is, making the characters interesting to read about. They must seem real to you, otherwise nobody else will perceive them as real. I’ve made this mistake before, and it’s not a pretty sight.

Of course, the point to all of this is that some authors don’t write for themselves. Their writing normally turns our jarred and unnatural because their inner editor creeps out and halts the flow of the story. Remember, and I’ve said this time and time again, write terrible first drafts! Just let the words flow and see what comes out. You don’t have to write brilliant first drafts, just ones that you can fix and edit later on to make something that could be publishing. Just, whatever you do, don’t make publishing you ultimate goal. Being published doesn’t make you a good writer, as there are plenty of terrible books on shelves. If you believe in your writing, and have confidence that your stories can be great, they will be in the end. Just bear in mind that when it all comes down to it, you’re the primary audience of your book. Make sure that you like your stories, and the rest will eventually fall into place in time.

Benjamin Hall