Q&A: When Someone Says 'What Should I Write About' What Do You Say?
And how much time should you take saying it?
Hello, Everlastings, I hope you read my tutorial on building a Substack newsletter, and that you’ve shared it with Substack beginners who might need it.
That would be great! They’re going to need it.
As I was writing it, I found myself wanting to veer off and talk about the writing itself but kept from doing it, mainly because I needed to focus the tutorial on building a home for their writing. I needed to keep it simple.
The reason I thought I should add it is because every time I’m in a writers’ forum, like Substack Office Hours, for example, someone new to blogging or newslettering wants to know what they should write about in order to draw readers. It’s like asking ‘what kind of air should I breathe today?’ There is no good answer, but the question is a staple now. I’ve never not seen it there.
So that’s the question today: If someone asks what they should write about, what is your usual reaction? I’m not trying to be snarky or dismissive, it’s just that the question stumps me. Genuinely stumps me. I think the question must be borne out of desperation. The writer wants to write, maybe sees a chance to latch onto something fun and interesting, but gets to that blank screen and everything goes…blank.
I see it as putting the cart before the horse: Writers write because they have something to say. It’s hard enough when we’re struggling with how to say it; it would be near impossible if we had to start out with nothing on our minds.
So my immediate first impression is we have a dilettante on our hands. Someone who wants to be a writer but doesn’t want to do the work. Or someone so naive about writing they haven’t figured out there’s a mountain of skill involved before the magic happens.
And I don’t answer. I never answer. But that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it. So there it is. Am I missing something? Misinterpreting the intention? Getting those people all wrong?
Is ‘What should I write about?’ a fair question? As always, comments are open. Let’s talk!
Omg I’m the first to comment! That never happens. Here’s my experience:
Writers want to write. They have a big book idea, they might have even started writing it, but they have been told that to sell that book eventually they need to begin building their brand yesterday. And part of that brand, for a writer, is a platform where they write short-form content regularly so would-be readers of their eventual novel will fall in love with their voice and ideas and then buy and read the eventual book so the author can finally start making money from the book.
But, especially as a long-form fiction writer, it’s hard to know what to write in short form on a regular basis.
What I’ve heard, and what I pass along, is to write around the themes you treat in your stories. My book is about reproductive rights and motherhood, so I write about motherhood and women’s issues. It’s a sci fi dystopian book, so I share other dystopian/sci fi stories. That kind of thing.
Hmm. I'm not the best one to answer the question, because I've never asked it. I occasionally ask myself, "Of several writing ideas or projects, which I should devote attention to?" Or "Do I have enough time to work with this idea I just had, or do I make notes on it and hope I can retrieve that thread later?" (I'm 50/50 on working from my notes — sometimes I understand what I've written, but the notes don't put me back in the mainframe where I SEE the results in my head again.) I guess if someone asked me, "What should I write about?", I'd have to counter with, "What have you written up to this point in your life?" And if they can't give me examples, then, sorry, you're not a writer and you need to think about another line of work.