Episode Three: Plotter? Pantser? Does it even matter?

Listen to episode three here.

Watch episode three here.

In this episode, I’m tackling one of fiction writing’s greatest controversies - the divide between plotters and pantsers.

I’ll talk about the real difference between plotters and pantsers, how to find a writing process that works for you, and how to avoid the shame that comes from putting too much pressure on what we “should” be doing instead of focusing on what we could accomplish if we just honored our strengths.

Links:

• Subscribe to the Better Writer Weekly newsletter here: https://olivia-helps-writers.kit.com/better-writer-newsletter

• Learn about my outline critique service here: https://oliviahelpswriters.thrivecart.com/outline-critique/

• Learn more about my work here: https://oliviahelpswriters.com

Key Takeaways: 

• Plotters outline their stories, while pantsers write spontaneously.

• The distinction between plotters and pantsers exists on a spectrum.

• Outlining can take just as long as revising a draft and ultimately it doesn’t matter how you spend your time.

• Readers care about the final product, not the process. No one gives you a gold star for outlining or a free pass if you wrote without one.

• Experimenting with different writing methods is essential.

• Your writing process may change over time and that’s okay - you have to keep testing and adapting.

• Don't let other people’s expectations dictate your writing habits.

• Quality of writing time is more important than quantity - don’t beat yourself up about not having enough time, just focus on making the most of the time you do have.

• Every writer has a unique approach to creativity. Find yours and make the most of it.

• The goal is to create a book that readers love. That’s it. The route you take to get there doesn’t matter.

Transcript: 

Please note, this transcript was automatically generated and lightly edited. I apologize in advance for any errors that may have come through. 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you even know? Does the difference even matter?

to another episode of the Better Writer podcast. Today, I am tackling one of the most controversial topics in the writing world, the difference between plotters and pantsers.

In episode 2, I mentioned an experiment that I did in my classroom where I basically allowed students to self-identify as a plotter, a pantser or in between, and then choose a set of deadlines that worked for them. And I thought it would be good to talk a little bit more about that plotter versus pantser distinction and what it really means.

whether or not it really matters to our writing and then how we should navigate the questions about plotting, panting, and our writing process in general.

So first off, in case you have not heard these terms before, a plotter is someone who writes their books with an outline. Essentially, they plan their books in advance, they design the plot of their story ahead of time, thus the term plotter. In contrast, a pantser is someone who makes up the story as they go along. They write whatever comes to mind along the way.

The term pantser comes from this idea that they are writing by the seat of their pants. I personally prefer the term discovery writer. I think it makes a little bit more sense because essentially they are discovering the story as they write it rather than designing it ahead of time.

This is not an all or nothing situation. You're not like fully in one camp or the other. In my mind, it is a spectrum and people exist anywhere along that continuum. Some people will literally plot out every single aspect of their story until their outline is like 25,000 words or more. Some people will literally jump in with a single

image in their head and nothing else and then see what comes next. And then most people are in between. I've noticed that in terms of talking to writers professionally, but that also was true in my classroom experiment. I continued to use different sets of deadlines for students for the remaining three years of my teaching career for multiple assignments. Almost universally, middle in between set of deadlines was the one that students chose.

What I have come to realize as an editor, as a writer, as a teacher, is that ultimately this distinction does not matter. At least it does not matter in the way that we think it does or the way that we're often told it does. And again, this might be super controversial, but I will stand behind this opinion. And I think the perfect example,

I was listening to a podcast called How Writers Write. It was hosted by Brian Murphy, great podcast. There are still episodes out there. Unfortunately, the show is not being created anymore, but the back episodes are there. Go listen to them. It's a fantastic show. In one episode, there was an author, very successful author. He'd been writing for years, published multiple books, millions of copies in print. And he went on this long rant talking about how

outlining is the only way. And he is moralizing on, you know, outlining is the only way to be efficient. It's the only way to write a good book that if you do not outline, you are wasting your time because you are going to have to go back and fix everything in revision. And then this man said that it takes him up to eight months to complete an outline. Eight months.

I just sat there in my car and laughed. Because eight months spent outlining is the same exact amount of time as eight months spent revising. One is not inherently more efficient than the other if they take just as long. And I also want to be really clear. There is no specific timeline in which you should be writing your book.

It could take you less time, it could take you more time. I would say especially if you were writing your very first book, it will probably take you quite a long time. You may spend more than eight months revising. That does not mean you're inefficient. But for someone to sit there and say that writing an outline is so much more efficient when it takes him almost an entire year just to produce the outline, has not drafted a single word,

And this is not a beginner. This is someone who has published multiple books for him to sit there and say that pantsing is inefficient, that it is not the way to write a book. When there are authors out there who are pantsing and finishing books more quickly than he is. And again, it's not a race, but he is sitting there putting a moral judgment on the writing process, saying that pantsing is wrong. It's bad. It's inefficient. When his process,

to a pantser probably looks just as inefficient. that pantser is probably sitting there saying, I can write a fast draft of my entire novel in two months and then start revising. Why would I spend eight months outlining when I can do XYZ faster? So again, it's not about the timeline. You are not aiming to write your novel in a certain period of time, but.

There is no difference between spending more time outlining and spending more time revising because ultimately we are all going for the same goal and it does not matter if we get there differently. I think a lot of this kind of like moral overtone of plotting versus pantsing, I think a lot of it comes from that high school mindset of the kids who follow the rules, write the outlines, those are the good students.

and the kids who want to skip the outline, those are the bad students. So this is something that is starting early. It is starting in the classroom in our K through 12 education system. And if you want to hear more about how education is misguiding us when it comes to writing, go back and listen to episode two if you haven't already. But the other thing that I think contributes to this is that a lot of people who are very adamant that you must outline and very adamant that pantsers are just bad writers are people who are trying to sell you their outlining system.

are doing it to sell a particular method that has worked for them. And they are then making the assumption that it will work for everyone else. And that just isn't how it works. People's brains work

In my opinion, and this is based on what I have seen in the classroom, what I have seen in my own writing, what I have seen from clients. It does not matter how we approach the process as long as you are working toward the right goal. At the end of the day, every single writer has the same job. You have to produce an amazing book that meets the expectations of your future reader. And it doesn't matter how you get there.

If you are a plotter, no one is going to buy your outline. No one is going to give you a gold star because you planned that big twist on page 50 in advance. No one cares. No reader cares. a publisher might buy that outline. That's true. But you have to execute on the story effectively. You have to actually deliver a great experience just because your twist on page 50 sounds good in the outline.

If you fail to actually set up that reveal, if you fail to make us fall in love with your characters, if we don't care who that twist is happening to, if there isn't enough emotional processing on the page to actually make that big twist land, it doesn't matter what you put in your outline. It only matters if you deliver and make it matter to readers.

And I think that's something that is sometimes really hard to hear. I talked about this in the last episode, that a book can follow all of the rules and not deliver an engaging experience. I also want say you can also just be working from a bad outline. Just because you have outlined doesn't mean you've done so effectively or that the system or the thing you've been sold is effective for your genre. So I think that's also something to be really careful of is just because you have an outline.

does not mean you're automatically going to create a strong, structurally sound book. As a developmental editor, I have clients who pants, I have clients who plot. And if you were to compare those first drafts side by side, you might not be able to tell the difference. And I know that is gonna be so controversial because there are so many people out there saying that plotting is the magic bullet that is gonna save you from revision. And I'm gonna be honest.

As a developmental editor, can say that's only true if A, you start with a really strong outline and B, you know how to deliver and execute on the story you planned. Total side note, I will put in a quick plug. If you are a plotter and you have a really hard time with revision, you hate throwing out words, you hate redoing stuff, consider getting feedback on your outline. I offer an outlining critique service I know many other developmental editors do. You can get feedback.

on your story plan, on your plot, your conflict, your character arcs, get feedback on that stuff first before you start writing, before you lock yourself into something that you know you're gonna have a hard time changing. I will put a link in the show notes so if you are in that boat, you can explore that service. Again, don't wait until you have a finished draft to get feedback, especially if you know.

that you are not going to want to undo stuff.

back to it. If you are a pantsir, the same thing applies. No reader is going to give you a free pass because you didn't use an outline. If your book is structurally unsound, readers are going to put it down. It does not matter that you did not outline on the front end. They don't care. They don't need to know how you got there. They just need to see that

By the end, your final product has a coherent structure and a plot that flows logically and conflicts to develop and escalate as they should. No one cares how you got there as long as you actually make it to that final destination. And I think something that happens is that people try to kind of pick and choose from the process. They try to pick and choose and skip the parts they don't like. But you just need to recognize what your process requires.

So if you start off without an outline, you are going to have to do more work and revision, most likely. Not always, because again, someone can have a bad outline and end up having to do more work to fix it. But as a pantser, you are most likely going to have to throw away more words, you're going to have to rewrite more sections, you are going to have to rethink different parts of your book, because new ideas are going to come up as you draft that you then need to account for by rewriting the beginning. That's just the nature of the process.

If you are truly a pantser, that delights you. For me, for example, I come alive in revision. That is what I'm good at. I am so much better at taking something that already exists and fixing it than I am at trying to kind of, you know, conceive of how to make it perfect from the start. If that's not you, that's totally fine. There are people out there who hate, hate, hate, hate rewriting their words. They hate adjusting the things they've already done.

So for those people, Start with an outline so that you can minimize the amount of rewriting that you're going to need to do. It's not a guarantee. Again, if you have a bad outline, it's still not gonna work. Just because you have an outline does not free you from having structural problems. But if you wanna minimize the chances of having to do massive, massive rewrites because you hate revising, start with a really strong outline. Get feedback on that outline so you don't have to do that.

In contrast, if you are someone who loves and thrives on writing, do not force yourself to outline just because someone said you should. Don't force yourself to go through a process that's going to stifle you. Just accept that I'm gonna write the craziest worst draft I can and then I'm gonna use that and fix it from then on. So, know, again, the idea is to find what works for you and then adjust the rest of your process accordingly. But, and this is important.

you still have to put in the work to make your book work for readers, and that may include parts of the process you do not like. So just because you identify as a plotter, you're still going to have to revise. Just because you identify as a panzer, you might have to go to the drawing board and answer a character bio or something like that at the end of the day.

You have to do whatever it takes to get your book ready for readers. assuming you want to publish and you want people to buy your work. If you don't care if anyone ever read your book, you don't have to do any of this. You can just write for fun. That's also totally fine and amazing. But if you want someone to pay for your work, you have to be willing to do the work to make it worthy of them paying for it. That might make some people uncomfortable when we say that, but it's true. I don't buy crappy products at the store.

I expect products I buy to work. If I can see that it is not well constructed in the store, I'm going to put it back on the shelf. Why is your book any different? It's not. So again, we have to be ready to make the necessary changes to do the necessary work, but that work doesn't have to look the same.

ultimately my theory on where these distinctions come from is just some of us are more creative at different points in the process. Some people can sit down with a blank sheet of paper and start answering character bio questions and discover who their characters are just with that rough sketch. In contrast,

Some people need to actually start writing scenes. They need to see their characters in action in order to start conceiving of who that person is. Initially, I assumed that I was a plotter. I'm a very type A person. I was best known for having color coded planners in high school. I'm a very organized person, very logical person. You know, I hate surprises. I hate making stuff as they go along.

on paper, I should be the ultimate plotter. I am not. Because where my creativity comes out is in that process of making things up as I go along. And the best example of this, I will never forget this moment, I had just started writing first draft of my first book and I had this character who has a really bad relationship with his father and he's basically exiled from the country where he grew up.

And he's on this ship traveling across the ocean and all of a sudden he punches a child, not like a little, child. He punches a teenager, still evil. And all of a sudden I realized that this character was an antagonist.

As I was initially conceiving of this character when they first popped into my head, I did not know that they were going to turn out to be a villain until he punched that kid. I literally surprised myself. I don't really know where that came from in my subconscious, but I think that is the moment where I really understood that I'm a panzer.

Because if I had sat down with one of those character bio worksheets and tried to plan out who that character was, I would have been totally wrong. And then I would have ended up trying to make that character do what I wanted them to do or what I had thought they were going to do when something so much more creative and beautiful came out of me just starting this scene on the ship and seeing what happened. And that scene had nothing to do.

with the kid who ends up getting punched was just him being seasick and then all of sudden he punched someone. I still don't know where that came from. But again, it's just a wonderful example of how my process works that I need to start writing scenes and then I get to see what happens and I get to explore what happens. And I think I don't know, I'm not a plotter, but I think that plotters have those serendipitous moments when they are planning.

And I'm sure, you know, there are also moments that surprise them as they're drafting, but the real difference in my mind between plotters and panzers is where that creativity happens more naturally and where in the process they are able to maximize that creativity. Like I said, I love revision. It's why I'm a developmental editor. I'm really, really good at seeing where something is and then figuring out how to make it better. I am less good at

just trying to construct something great from the start. And so again, it's just how we all work differently and it all works. The problem happens when people assume that their brain works the same way as someone else's. So for example, you might have a friend who says, well, of course I write an outline. I would never be able to just throw away 50,000 words. And they assume that no one else can throw away those 50,000 words because they couldn't.

You can't imagine crafting a character just from bullet points because you're not able to and you assume that your plotter friend is just being formulaic, that their characters are just cardboard cut out stereotypes. We assume that because we don't think a certain way, someone else has the same limitations and it's just not true. We know this in other areas of our lives. We know that people have different learning styles, different learning preferences. We know

that you can have a student who has an A in English and their best friend can have an F in that class. And then they switch, they go to math and the best friend has an A and that other friend has an F. We know that different people gravitate toward different skills, that different people have things that come more naturally to them than others. Why would writing be any different? Why are so many people out there trying to tell us that there's only one right way to write a book?

The answer is they're A, lying, B, convinced that everyone else's brain is the same as theirs, or trying to sell you something that's probably the big one is that if someone is telling you that their way is the only way to write a book and they're trying to sell you a system, my goodness, they are lying and they know they're lying because there are so many other people out there who are successful, who publish books

before that person was even born or published books before they produced their outline

think Save the Cat is a beautiful example. There are great insights in Save the Cat. There are great things to learn. But every single book that is referenced in Save the Cat existed before Save the Cat was written. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for the writer of Save the Cat to analyze that.

Blake Snyder is amazing. Jessica Brody, wrote, the Catwrites novel, is amazing. there are so many great insights to gain from those books, but this idea that it is the only way, the only method, the only one that works is wrong. And I don't think that those authors actually say in their books that it's the only way.

But I think people start to get too attached and they think that if I can't make Save the Cat work for me, then I'm just not cut out to be a writer. And if I can't make this system work, then I'm a failure. When really, if someone is telling you that there's one path to becoming a bestseller, they're lying.

because not all of their students are best sellers, just fundamentally. And if there was really one magic bullet path, then everybody would be making millions of dollars with their books because if it worked for every single person, everyone would just go buy that system and instantly become a bestseller overnight. That's not how it works. You will never hear me telling any writer that I can make them a bestseller. You will never hear me making that promise, whether as your editor, as a writing teacher

because it's just simply something I cannot guarantee. I am not out here selling a bestseller method. I am selling better. I am selling improving at your craft, however you approach it. This kind of turned into a snowbox moment, but I think it's really important to say because there are a lot of people out there who are not marketing their stuff ethically, who are saying, can make you a bestseller, who are selling the bestselling XYZ method, and that's not actually what they're doing, unfortunately. I wish it were that easy. I wish it were that easy, but it is not.

All right, let's talk about how to actually make this actionable. What can you actually do right now to move forward with this information?

First off, I want you to ask yourself, is the method you're using, is your current process actually working for you or is it working against you right now?

Like I said, on paper, I should be a plotter. I tried to be a plotter for a long time and I never finished drafts. I finished outlines, I finished world building templates, I finished character bios, but I never actually finished a draft of a book until I let all of that go and I pants my first draft and I finished 80,000 words in about three months. And I think honestly, part of why I am a pantser is because I'm so type A. When I tried to outline,

I got so hyper focused on the rules and trying to make it perfect. And I literally sat down with one of those like 150 world building questions and I tried to answer every single one with like a whole paragraph each. And it just, I was frozen, I was stuck, I couldn't move forward. And so I think again, because that is how my brain works, if you give me the worksheet, I want to fill out every single box. I needed to let go of that in order to actually write fiction. And

just because I didn't do the character bios in world building upfront, it doesn't mean I never did them. I just did them after I already had a draft because I think for me I needed to see my character in action first. need to just start getting a sense of who they were. Then I could go deeper. I could go into the specifics. I could start answering specific questions but

I had to experiment, I had to try something different first before I could figure out what worked for me.

And that's what I want to encourage you to do. Really think about, are you making the kind of progress that you want? And I don't mean that you are writing at a certain pace or that you are, you know, finishing books in my own minute. Do you feel good about what you're accomplishing? Do you feel like you are moving forward? Do you feel like what you are doing is actually helping you become a better writer? Is what you're doing helping you finish books? And if the answer is no, is it time to try something else?

And you have to be careful here I'm not saying that your writing needs to happen on a certain timeline or in a certain way, but really think about is the process you have right now serving you or could you benefit from experimenting and trying something new? The other thing I want to encourage you to do is don't get hung up on what you think writing should look like. There are so many ideas out there that are just harmful.

you have probably been told to write every day, write at the same time every day, write in the same place every day. Or, you know, there are people out there who are having like 5 a.m. writing clubs, and those are all great until we try to tell everyone that they need to do that. And I think also, again, people attach this moral value to the process that if you don't write every day, you're lazier and motivated, you don't really want this, you don't really want to get published. Or if you are not

making writing your priority first thing in morning, then you just don't want it enough. And that's so unrealistic.

You need to figure out what works for your life. So if you have been beating yourself up because you're not doing what you should do. Should is of course in air quotes here. If you have been beating yourself up because you're not writing the way you should be, stop. Let go of that. There is no should. There is only what you can actually do.

Do not let this idea of what you should be doing get in the way of what you could be doing if you gave yourself more flexibility, if you focus on what actually works for you. Stop trying to force yourself to outline. Stop trying to force yourself to write every day. Stop trying to wake up at 430 a.m. because you think that writing in the morning is the only way to do it. You can write great words wherever

you are whenever you have time. there's no one right way. So my next step for you is to start experimenting, start changing things up, trying things out to figure out what works for you. And as you're doing that, there are three things that I really want you to keep in mind. First of all, just be realistic about your constraints. Constraints are not inherently bad.

You are not a bad person or a less worthy writer because you do not have the flexibility to spend five hours a day at your desk and complete solitude. If you have kids or a demanding job or a health condition that makes it harder for

energy or focus, do not fret about what you don't have. And I know that there's so much easier to say than it is to actually do. But the sooner you can let go of what

isn't possible and focus on what is the better. 10 minutes of writing is better than 10 minutes of beating yourself up for not having 30. whatever time you have, use it for the actual writing. And even if it is not as much as you want or as focused as you want,

it's better than wasting that time beating yourself up. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or the good enough, or the better than nothing.

Then as you were writing, experiment with different methods. Try pantsing, try plotting, try writing from picture prompts, written prompts. Try out different things and see what sparks your creativity because it might surprise you.

Try writing in different places, at different times, in different spaces, whatever works for you. Try writing in different mediums. Maybe you've only been typing. Maybe you could try handwriting. Maybe you could try dictating into your phone.

There are so many different ways to get the words down and it doesn't have to look a certain way, it doesn't have to sound a certain way, as long as the words are getting on the page, that's what really matters. I also recommend paying attention to the quality of your writing time. is a qualitative measure. We are not talking about word count or how much time you're actually spending, just

Pay attention to when you're more productive. When does it feel easier? When does it feel lighter? When do you feel more creative? Notice what those times are that are more productive and adjust accordingly. For example, when I was still teaching, I never wrote on Mondays. Didn't matter if it was a Monday holiday. This was true during COVID when we had a four-day work week. I never wrote on Mondays because Monday for me just wasn't a day that I was productive. And I started to notice that I would sit down on Monday and I would just waste time. I would feel bad about it.

So instead of continuing to try to force myself to have a productive Monday writing schedule that wasn't happening, I just canceled Monday and all of a sudden I doubled my output on Tuesdays. I skipped the day that wasn't productive and then the rest of my writing days went better. you do not have to write every day just because you hear on the internet that you should be, if that doesn't work for you, great, find what does. Maybe you do best when you have one long writing sprint a week, but you'll never know.

if you don't experiment and try and find out.

I do also recommend listening to what other writers do. Not so that you can find the magic bullet, the process that you're going to copy completely, but I think it's important to listen to a bunch of different writers talking about their process. Listen to a bunch of different voices. Start stealing little bits and pieces. That's how you discover what to experiment with, by listening to other writers. Hear their process, and then take what works for you, leave the rest. Try it out. If it doesn't work,

Don't put a value judgment on it. Just move on. I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the How Writers Write podcast. In addition to that one man who was very, very adamant that you have to outline, there are countless other interviews with writers talking about their process, how they create books. And you can learn so much from listening to how different people work, how different people write. And again, start experimenting, start testing their methods, take what works, leave the rest.

And make sure listening to a variety of sources. Don't just listen to all traditionally published authors. Listen to interviews with indies. Listen to people who write outside of your genre. Listen to interviews with a bunch of different writers. You can also read those interviews, find them in other places. Look expansively so that you can actually find different methods, different processes to experiment with. Otherwise, you're probably just going to hear the same old thing. The other thing to keep in mind is that

your process may not remain static. You will change, your life will change, your writing will change, and something that has worked in the past may not work in the future. You might be a pantser right now, but you might have a project that you just need to outline. You might be someone who is a die-hard plotter, and you might just realize that actually you need to spend some time experimenting your draft with a bunch of prompts. Just because your process worked.

for one book or has been working does not mean it's going to work forever. And that's okay. The goal is not to have a perfect process. That is not your job as a writer. Your job as a writer is to create great books that your readers love. Your readers don't care if you write on Mondays. Your readers don't care if you write for 45 minutes or 10, as long as they eventually get a book in their hands that they can enjoy. So, don't get hung up on the process.

Do not spend the next year of your life crafting a perfect writing ritual with the super special pen that you can only get at one store that takes you two hours to drive to. That is not the point. And I think if we get too attached to the ritual, then that can be harmful too, because then it becomes a crutch and then, you know, it becomes more about the process than the product. And that's not what we want. It's just about figuring out how do I work best?

can I work in a way that feels good, that is efficient, not always easy, but that the process is not hampering or making my life harder. That's your goal. And again, we are always working toward that destination of a great book our readers love. The process isn't the point. It's about how we get to a book that readers can enjoy.

right. If this episode has you feeling some type of way, I would love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram at Olivia Helps Writers.

If you want to come yell at me about the importance of outlining, if you have a process you love that you would like to share with someone else because you're so proud of yourself for discovering it, come let me know. DM me on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. I would absolutely love to connect and talk about the writing process because every writer is unique and I love hearing about how other people work. And as I've said at the end of the last two episodes, this show is still brand new.

If you enjoy this show, if there's something here that you think is worth sharing with other writers, please, please, please leave a review, share this episode with a friend, post about it on your social media. Anything that you can do to help get the word out, I would very much appreciate. My dream is for the show to reach as many writers as possible, to help as many writers as possible. And I would just love it if you could help me do that by sharing this show with someone who needs it.

All right, thank you so, much for listening to another episode of the Better Writer Podcast. a great rest of your day. Keep writing and keep getting better one word at a time. See ya.

Episode Two: Your High School English Teacher Lied - Let's Talk About It

Listen to episode two here.

Watch episode two here.

Newsflash: your high school English teacher lied to you about the writing process. How do I know? I was one of them! I spent six years teaching students to write the wrong way before I started writing fiction and realized that professional writers are doing things differently. Like, completely differently. Tune in for the six lies you likely learned in high school and how to keep them from hindering your progress in the future.

Links:

• Subscribe to the Better Writer Weekly newsletter here

• Learn more about my work here

Key Takeaways: 

• Everything your high school English teacher taught you about writing is a lie.

• You do not have to outline; there are multiple ways to write.

• Your first draft does not need to be perfect, but too many assignments are designed as if the first draft should be readable and coherent.

• Editing involves more than just correcting typos; it requires structural changes and re-envisioning everything about your story if needed.

• Collaboration is essential in writing even if it’s often discouraged or downplayed in the classroom.

• Grammar rules can be bent in creative writing; focus on storytelling.

• There is no single standard for writing; it varies by genre and audience.

• The reader's experience is the most important goal; if your story doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t work at all.

• Understanding your own writing process is crucial for success.

• Unlearning harmful writing habits can lead to better writing outcomes.

Transcript: 

I have bad news for you. Everything your high school English teacher taught you about writing is a lie. Yep, I am making a bold claim. I know it. Welcome to episode number two of the Better Writer podcast. Yeah, today I'm going to tell you every way you were taught to write in correctly. saying no shade to English teachers. I was one and that's how I know.

that what I was teaching, what I was taught and then passed on to my students does not apply to fiction and can be really harmful when we are trying to write publishable, sellable books. So let's talk about why that is.

First off, a little backstory.

was a high school English teacher for eight years. I taught in both Connecticut and Rhode Island at two different schools. And like all English teachers, I basically replicated what I had been taught in high school. There were some things that got updated. I think we are much more aware of accommodations and kind of making our classrooms accessible to all students nowadays. But generally speaking,

The frameworks that I was teaching, the methods that I had learned in high school, pretty much had not changed by the time I became a teacher. And I think that's especially true of how we teach writing. Generations of teachers have

pretty much the same things in writing workshops, and unfortunately, they are not helpful.

how I realized that.

The first four years of my teaching career, I was at a school in Connecticut where every student took two English classes. They had a literature class where they focused on reading and analyzing literature. And they had a composition class that was focused on writing. When I started, composition had just become seminar, so that balance was changing a little bit, but essentially they had a reading class and a writing class. I was in the literature department. So I did have students

write literary analysis essays that was part of the shift that was happening from composition to seminars, we had started teaching literary analysis essays. But writing was not the main focus of that class. It was something we did as part of reading, not something we did for its own sake. Then four years into my teaching career, COVID hit. That is when I uprooted my life. I came to Rhode Island. I started teaching at a different school. I actually started with them online.

do not recommend that, it was awful. But I loved that school and one of the things I loved about it is that I could basically teach whatever I wanted. I also had the opportunity to teach my own elective. And at that time I had just started writing fiction really seriously, I had...

basically made it my whole personality kind of overnight. And so was like, ⁓ great, I'm gonna teach creative writing. for the first time, I was teaching English class where I was responsible for teaching both reading and writing. I was also now teaching a creative writing class to students. And I had just started really seriously trying to write fiction and try, I was trying to write at a publishable level.

All of those things converged at the same time and I realized that everything I was teaching my students about writing was the complete opposite of what I was learning as a student of fiction writing in my personal life. Again, I was teaching what I had been taught to do in high school. I was replicating all of those normal high school English things that we do.

And none of it, absolutely none of it, was reflected in the way that I was seeing professional published writers approach their fiction writing. And I think a lot of us writers, we eventually end up unlearning these things, but I don't think anyone is really naming why we need to unlearn them in the first place. And when I became an editor, I saw this even more, that very similar mistakes are happening.

And I think they all go back to how we are being taught to approach the writing process in school. and the fact that no one is really naming the ways in which fiction is just completely different from what we have been asked to do in academic or professional writing in the past. So I have identified six lies that are being taught in school.

are likely affecting your writing if you have not been in the game long enough to kind of unlearn them naturally. And so I'm hopeful that this is going to illuminate some of what makes fiction so difficult to write when it doesn't need to be. Because I think if you can get

mindset and start to see how fiction is different, that doesn't mean you're gonna master the techniques overnight. But I do think it really gives you a boost in just being able to see

what you should be doing and how it's different from ways you have written in the past.

Quick caveat. I do want to give the preface that I am an American. I Taught in American schools. I was educated in American schools. I suspect that a lot of what I experienced is True in other countries especially because my high school was an IB school international baccalaureate So my education is my more internationally focused than most but I do want to say that I am a product of the US public education system and so

This might not translate to your context perfectly, but I think a lot of it will. Okay, let's dive in. The first lie is a big one, and this is going be controversial. Lie number one is that you have to outline. I know that this is still controversial in the fiction writing world, but I will die on this hill. You do not have to outline.

you do not have to outline. There are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal. But in school, we are often taught that the writing process is one size fits all and that we all need to go through the same steps the same way.

This is the lie that I think I feel most guilty about when I think about my own teaching practice because I was the same as most English teachers. I had a very strict process that I made every student go through. We start with the outline. You turn in your outline for feedback. We move on to the rough draft. Everyone has to turn in a rough draft mostly so I can see you have something. Then you do the final. There's no leeway. It's all the same deadlines, the same process, et cetera.

And I would have students who would sit there staring at their outline, whether it was on paper or digital or whatever, they would sit there and they would sit at the outline and they would get nothing done. And then either they just never turned in an essay at all, or they would, you know, finally on the last day of the assignment, I would tell them, oh, fine, skip the outline, write an essay, just do it, get them done. And then, you know, they would turn in something that was subpar because they did it in the last day before the assignment when we'd had, you know, weeks to work on it.

and I think this is probably, if we're honest with ourselves, typical of what happens in a lot of classrooms. And you may have had this done to you as a student in a

Because again, I had been taught that you outline, that's what you do. I outline when I'm writing nonfiction, whether that's an academic essay or, you know, anything like that. But when I started really writing fiction,

I discovered that I'm a panzer. The first book that I ever finished, got to the end of the draft, I did not outline. I just started writing, started making stuff up as I went along, and that was the very first book that I actually finished. And that epiphany changed my entire conception of the writing process, and I realized...

that I had been doing such a disservice to those students who were just sitting there staring at their outlines, not getting anything done, because I assumed, like I'd been taught, that they were just doing it wrong. They just weren't following directions. They were lazy. They were unmotivated.

So the first school year, after I had this realization, I came back and I decided to run an experiment. I gave my students three different sets of deadlines to choose from for our first running assignment. I had a plotter track where students would spend more time outlining. So those students would turn an outline. They had more time to do it. Then they had less time to draft and less time to revise. I had a pantser track for kids who wanted to skip the outline completely.

but they had to turn in two separate rough drafts. So they did a rough rough draft first, then a less rough draft before going on to the final. Then I had an in-between track. Those students turned in outline, but they did it earlier than the plotters. So they would then have more time drafting and more time revising. At the end of that unit, when students were able to pick their own deadlines, pick their own writing process, every single student turned in the assignment.

That was the first time that had ever happened in my entire career. And I was not a new teacher at that point. This was year six for me. having taught multiple writing assignments per year every year. That was the first time I ever had a 100 % turn in rate and 100 % turned in by the deadline.

If you work outside of education, that might not sound very special to you, but if you are a teacher, if there are any teachers listening, you know how exceptional that actually is, especially considering that this was fall of 2021 and these were 10th graders. So these are students who spent their entire ninth grade year at home. This was their first writing assignment, their first year actually going to school in person as a high school student.

Like we even still had masks on. So the fact that everyone turned in that essay really was incredible. And what that experience taught me is that the difference between plotters and pantsers is not a myth. There are actual differences in how people approach the writing process and all of those processes can work. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that every kid wrote an amazing paper. I'm not gonna tell you that everyone did it

perfectly, but I can say that I had A's in the plotter group, I had A's in the pantser group, and I had A's in the in-between group. the method that a student used did not determine the final outcome. Their skill as a writer in other aspects determined the final outcome. Their ability to take feedback and apply it.

determines the final outcome. So anyone who tells you that a pantser is just lazy, they're not disciplined enough to outline, they're wrong. They are wrong. You can succeed as a pantser, you can succeed as a plotter. And the idea that there is only one way to approach the writing process,

is a lie. It's a lie. And again, I feel really bad about perpetuating that myth in my classroom, but I didn't know any better because I think there's just so much noise out there. So much goes into perpetuating this myth. And teachers are teaching kids to outline. Teachers are teaching kids that there is only one way to approach the writing process. There's not. And I think so many people are hampered by this when they start writing fiction because they don't know how to figure out their own writing process.

because they never had a chance to explore that in school. I can go on and on about this and maybe there will be another episode about that actually. That will be episode three. So stick around because I'm gonna talk more about this plotter versus pants or divide. right, line number two. Is that your first draft should be readable or coherent or even polished? This one I think is more insidious. It's not something that is being actively said by any teacher.

Maybe it is. I would say for the most part, it's probably not. But it is baked into the structure of so many assignments that are being given in school. For example, students are often given an exit ticket.

Maybe the word exit ticket didn't exist when you were in school. I don't remember hearing it. I think it's more of new thing. But basically, it's like a question you answer at the end of the day to demonstrate whether you've learned the content. And I think the idea that like you have two minutes to scribble on an answer and it's supposed to represent a coherent thought, it's just kind of unrealistic. Like you're supposed to write a whole paragraph that makes sense. I know for myself, I was often told as a teacher that I should be

grading exit tickets for quality, both quality of thought and sometimes quality of writing. So again, a student might have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, less than that to write a full paragraph that then gets graded for quality. The implicit message is that thing you scribbled out at the end of class should be readable, should be gradable, should represent the quality of your thinking and work when

That's not really a realistic expectation, especially for someone who is still learning to write. We also have in-class essays. The SAT essay, when it still existed, is, you you're told, well, you know, they're gonna judge it like a first draft, but that means that your first draft should be judgeable, that your first draft should be readable enough that you can get a grade for it, that a high-stakes assessment can be based on what you wrote.

in under an hour. You know, I think even on a larger scale, if you have an essay that you wrote over a few days, a few weeks, even then,

Usually what happens is you write the essay, you turn it in, it gets graded, and that's it. You don't go back to it, you don't rethink it. the implicit message there is that once you finish a piece of writing, it's set, it's done, the grade is set in stone, it's locked into the gradebook. I know more and more schools are kind of offering revision opportunities now, but I think that message is still implicitly there that

Writing is something that happens once and then you walk away, that's it. And again, I think in class essays I think are particularly problematic, which is why I refuse to do them after my second year of teaching. That's a whole other story. But this idea that the first draft that you vomit out should be readable is really dangerous because I think a lot of people freeze. They think that their first draft has to be more than it is.

They think that their first draft has to be stronger than what's really required. Your first draft, its only job really is to exist. don't get me wrong, if you are a clean writer, that's totally fine. That is something to celebrate. But if you're not, that doesn't mean you failed. It just means that you are going to need to do some work in revision to make sure that your story ends up being what you want it to be. But that doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong. But you were probably penalized for having a messy first draft.

when you had to write an in-class essay or on the SAT. it's a damaging narrative. It's a narrative that isn't being explicitly taught, but it is baked into so many assignments and so many things that we are doing in schools. Teach students that your first draft should be readable, should be coherent, should represent your best ideas when that is not a realistic expectation for a first draft. And the sooner you can realize that that messaging was wrong,

the better off you will be. So I hope that you can start to unlearn that starting today.

Alright, that brings me to lie number three, which is the idea that editing means pulling out a red pen and looking for typos. And you might have gone to a school that maybe taught a little bit more editing than this. Maybe you were looking for missing commas in addition to those typos. But oftentimes I notice that people don't really understand what revision means. They think revision is just

cleaning sentences, making sure that everything sounds right. When really, we should worry about those sentence level things last. That is the absolute final step in your revisions. And that's especially true when you are talking about a novel. Maybe when you're talking about one paragraph, you're not gonna be making big structural changes. Okay, fine, But people try to take that same mindset

to a novel and it just does not translate. When we are talking about a novel, and I would argue this is also true of many essays, we need to think about the structure. We need to think, you know, for a story you're gonna be thinking about character arcs. You need to think about the plot, your chapter order, point of view. You might end up needing to massively rewrite entire sections of your story.

And that's just something that we're not often asked to do in a classroom setting. You might get a bad grade, but you probably don't have the chance to completely start from scratch and get a new grade. So people just aren't used to this concept of, wrote the thing, it didn't work. I'm gonna completely redo it in a new way. It's a foreign way of thinking for a lot of people, which makes it really difficult to approach the revision process because it's something that we...

often associate with that we did something wrong. I'm revising because it's bad. I'm revising because I failed. But in actuality, you're revising to bring your story closer to your vision. You're revising because your first draft was never meant to be perfect. It's really hard, if not impossible, to make your first draft perfect. And therefore, you keep refining and iterating and getting closer and closer to your goal.

And this lack of revision also ties in to lie number four, which is this idea that you have to work alone. For this one, I do want to note, as a high school teacher, getting students to do their own work is an ongoing challenge and a really important goal. So it is very important for us to keep kids from plagiarizing, copying off each other, et cetera. However, what that sometimes turns into is pretending that the writing process can happen completely

completely in isolation. We teach students that they should not work together at all. They should not let anyone read their essays because they might copy and then you both fail. mean, I've definitely shared those horror stories with students that like don't share your essay with anyone because if they turn it in, you could both get kicked out of college. which is true. It is true. But we tend to overdo it and suggest that

You should never share your work with anyone else. It's just you, you alone. All I want to see is what you can do with your brain. And again, there is a time and a place for that. But people who are actually writing and publishing professionally know that the process is incredibly collaborative. Writing fiction for someone else to read and buy requires you to make sure that your story is actually working for someone else.

We cannot, cannot create publishable books on our own. We need feedback. I'm not saying that you necessarily need professional help, but you do need to have someone else read your book so you can make sure that it makes sense to the reader. So you can make sure that your message, your intentions are coming across on the page in the way you wanted them to.

Another side to this problem is that people sometimes become afraid of feedback because in the classroom feedback is punitive or it feels that way. As in you've already gotten a bad grade or not the grades you wanted and the feedback is only telling you what you did wrong. And even if you're student who got

good grades on papers, often the feedback was like, okay, this was fine, but next time do X, Y, Z to be even better. And again, I'm not at all criticizing teachers because you have such limited time. There is not enough time to go through and comment on every single thing that a student did right. And so often the more efficient thing to do, the thing that saves you from spending your entire life grading is just trying to be quick to the point, here's what needs to be better, maybe you have time for...

one positive comment, but then you have to move on. And oftentimes also that feedback is coming at the end of the process. The assignment is done. It has already been graded.

That feedback is then meant to help you on the next assignment, And problem is that, it doesn't actually do anything for you in the moment because the paper is done, you can't improve this score, and the next assignment is going to be completely different, and some of those comments might not actually translate into what you're trying to do next. So a lot of people don't have experience getting good

in the moment feedback on their writing, which makes it difficult when you're trying to then write professionally to accept feedback, to take feedback in a way that doesn't shatter you or doesn't make you want to quit. And think again, a lot of it goes back to this idea that we feel like we're being graded again. We feel like we have gotten a bad grade on the paper rather than the reality that someone who gives you feedback when you are trying to get published is helping you get closer to your goals.

And that is something that I built into the process when I totally revamped my classroom. I actually started teaching students how to both give and receive feedback, starting with just having kids write a question.

for the people who are reviewing their essays. Because I think we don't always get in the habit of thinking about what do I actually want to know about my writing? That's a skill. Knowing what you need to work on, knowing what you need feedback on, that is a skill that oftentimes isn't being developed in classrooms. And we have to learn how to ask for feedback. We have to learn how to give instructions to the people critiquing us. Those are skills. So if you've ever felt like, don't know how to get good feedback. I don't know what I should be asking for or looking for. I don't know how to use these comments.

It's not because you're doing something wrong, it's because you've probably never learned how to ask for feedback, how to use it. There's a process and it's again, it's something that needs to be learned. All right, on to line number five. And this is another one that might be controversial, especially, I'm a little biased as a developmental editor. So if there are any copy editors out there, sorry, not sorry. But line number five is that grammar is God.

and that there are other very rigid rules that can never be bent, never be broken. Goodness, there are a lot of English teachers out there who love their grammatical rules or love the rules like you must use five active verbs in your first sentence and if you don't, you fail. I was not one of those people. My relationship to grammar is very intuitive, very informal. If I ever...

tried to count verbs in a student's paper, I would lose my mind. But, I think that makes sense, that's why I'm a developmental editor. I only worry about the story level stuff. I do not worry about grammar. But I think that there is an overemphasis on certain rules in education that ends up harming writers when they are trying to expand beyond academic writing. Now, I do want to be clear.

Grammatical rules do serve a purpose. They are a necessary part of communication. You can imagine if we had no standardization whatsoever, we would not be able to read each other's writing. So I am not arguing for no rules, no commas, no grammar. But fiction doesn't necessarily need to follow the rules as rigidly as academic or professional writing in other contexts.

There is room for creativity and art and what things sound like and fragmenting sentences if they make sense in context. And if we try to stick too closely to the idea of what good writing means, it can...

the overall experience that we end up giving our readers and lead to a weaker book.

I see that especially with people who are trying to be concise. Part of that comes from publishing itself and there are times when we do need to pay attention to specific word counts. But I also think part of the issue comes from this classroom mindset where you have exactly 500 words and if you go above or below, you get points taken off.

You have exactly two pages and you have to cram in a bunch of information and be as direct and to the point as possible. And I get it for the teachers out there, you have to put limits However, when we start writing fiction and if conciseness is our goal, if we are putting brevity above everything else, it's highly likely that you are stripping the magic out of your story.

because you will end up summarizing instead of showing. You are going to end up using generalities and vague descriptions instead of something that is precise and detailed. And you are likely to skip over a character's interior thoughts in favor of just getting to the point, and not really narrating the full scope of what's going on.

I do want to say I'm not telling you to ignore word count completely. However, I do believe that word count should not be the priority upfront. Get your entire story on the page first. Write in all of the scenes, show the specific setting details, introduce your characters, give us their thoughts on the page. Make sure you are showing your scenes and not summarizing things that readers are going to want to see firsthand.

start by getting the entire story on the page. Do not make being concise your entire goal, especially in your first draft because you can always cut things later. And I think it is easier to do that when you have made sure that the important things are on the page first. Then you can pare back at the sentence level. can, you know, we can figure out what is most essential after that. But I see a lot of people who underdevelop parts of their story.

because they are trying to just cut out the fluff, the extra stuff. When a lot of that extra, the descriptions, the emotion, the interiority is what makes fiction enjoyable to read. So you'd be really careful that you are putting the right mindset, the right goal at the forefront for the type of writing you're doing. If you take an academic or a classroom approach to writing and try to apply that to a novel, it's not going to work.

which ties in perfectly to our final lie. Lie number six is that there is one objective standard and that audience doesn't matter.

I think this is another one that is fairly insidious and that it's not necessarily directly stated, but it is built into the assignments we're given in school. For example, you are writing an essay. There is one rubric. There is one reader, the teacher, but the teacher doesn't really matter. All you're trying to do is demonstrate that you can follow the rules so you can get a grade. You're not

thinking about your teacher's reading experience. Unless maybe you're the kid who's like trying to distract the teacher with humor and get a better grade. But most people are not thinking about the teacher's experience as a reader because they're not told to. They're not thinking about whether or not their essay is enjoyable to read because again that's not the focus of the assignment. The focus is hit this very

specific standardized criteria and hopefully get the grade you want on this essay. When we writing fiction, the mindset has to completely change. There is not one rubric. There isn't one strict set of rules that applies to every book. There are some commonalities. There are things that apply across genres, but your ultimate goal is not to check a bunch of boxes. Your ultimate goal

is to create an experience for your readers that they enjoy. And that experience is going to be completely different depending on the genre you write. In fiction, the standards are incredibly subjective. There is no one size fits all because there are so many different genres, subgenres, age categories, interests, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You have to decide who you are writing for, what genre are you writing, what age group are you writing for, who do you want to read your book, and then you have to figure out what they want from you and how to deliver.

It would honestly be easier if there was one set standard we could all focus on and adhere to, but there isn't. It's just not how fiction works. Because what's good in a romance is different from what's good in literary fiction, is different from what's good in mystery. Again, there's overlap, there's commonalities, but ultimately, the people who read those genres are looking for different things.

even if people read across genres. I read very widely. I have a lot of different interests, but I don't go to a will trend mystery for the same experience that I would turn to one of the Bridgerton books or to a Brandon Sanderson book. Even a Dan Brown book, which mystery and thriller are often thrown together, but I'm actually not looking for the same experience from a thriller that I am from a mystery. So even though I am one person,

when I pull a specific type of book off my shelf, I'm looking for a specific type of experience. If a Will Trent book ended with a wedding between two main characters but never solved the mystery, I would be very upset. And I would be very upset if a Bridgerton book solved a murder but did not have a happy ending because I'm going to those books for two completely different experiences. And even though

A mystery might have a romance subplot or a romance might have a mystery subplot. If you do not deliver on the main core experience your readers are looking for, you have not succeeded. There is no objective standard. It varies based on what you're writing and who you are writing

And ultimately, the only one who gets to decide if you have succeeded is the reader.

And I that's so hard because it's your book, it's your baby, but once you decide to publish, the reader is king. And if you don't deliver, you don't get to go to the reader and say, but wait, my grammar is perfect. There's not a single typo. I used The Hero's Journey and I hit.

every save the cat beat in exactly the right spot, no one cares if you don't deliver on the experience that they're looking for. It doesn't matter how many boxes you checked or how technically perfect your story is, it has to deliver.

that's makes fiction so, so difficult to write because it is subjective. There isn't a neat and tidy set of rules to adhere to that say you did this right or wrong.

⁓ And I think so many of us are looking for that A+. We are looking for someone to hand us a rubric with everything checked off to say, did it, it's perfect, it's great, you passed the class. And that is just not how the world of professional writing and publishing works for fiction authors. I wish I could tell you that it was, but it's not. And I think once you free yourself from that mindset of, I'm trying to check a box, I'm trying to do it all right. Once you free yourself from that idea,

and start trying to figure out how can I give my readers the best day experience I can. That is when you are going to start moving forward and actually creating stories that people want to read. And hopefully that doesn't overwhelm you. Hopefully that gives you a little bit of hope that you can figure out how to do that. Now that you know what your actual goal is, I absolutely believe that you can make it happen

because now you know what you're actually aiming for.

All right, those were six lies that your high school English teacher told you about writing that may have been holding you back in your attempts to become a published writer. Hopefully today has been eye-opening. Maybe today made you a little bit angry. I don't know. I would love to hear from you either way. So if you have a strong reaction, positive, negative, or anywhere in between, hit me up on Instagram, let me know, DM me. I'm at at Olivia Helps Writers, and I would love to hear from

if you have been that person,

bringing academic or business writing habits into fiction, please, please do not despair. Do not think about, my goodness, I have made mistakes. It's okay. You get to move forward now with a new mindset and You can do this. I believe in you.

Thank you so, so much for listening to another episode of the Better Writer podcast. It is really an honor to be part of your day. And I could really use your help. This is still a new show. If it helped you, if you got anything out of it, please consider leaving a review, telling people what you like about the show or share it with a writer friend who needs to hear it.

⁓ or if you'd be willing, post about it on social media. I would really, really appreciate your support because my goal is to help as many writers as possible and that is only going to happen if they know where to find me. So thank you again for listening. Have a wonderful day and keep getting better one word at a time. See ya.

Episode One: Why Writing Fiction Still Matters in 2025

Listen to episode one here.

Watch episode one here.

Show Notes

In the very first episode of the Better Writer Podcast, I’m asking one very important question: Does writing fiction matter?

When AI has shown up to replace us and the world feels like it’s always in a state of crisis does it still make sense to sit down and write your stories? 

I believe it is. Here’s why.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Subscribe to the Better Writer Weekly newsletter here

• Learn more about my work here

• Read my blog post on harmful worldbuilding tropes here

• Check out the sources that I consulted in putting together this show:

  • Article: Does reading fiction make us better people?

  • Study: How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation

  • Study: Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds

  • Article: Why Sharing Stories Brings People Together

  • Article: Paul Slovic observes the ‘psychic numbing’ of COVID-19

  • Article: Why Your Brain Can’t Empathize with Large Tragedies

  • Books Mentioned (affiliate links):

    • Wired for Story

    • The Well of Tears

    • The Duke and I (Bridgerton #1)

Key Takeaways:

• Writing is essential even in a world dominated by AI.

• Diverse perspectives in literature are crucial for changing our world for the better - even if we don't see results right away.

• Fiction is an amazing coping mechanism and your book could be the thing that gets someone through the toughest part of their life.

• Stories can help readers navigate difficult emotions and experiences in a safe way that doesn't trigger the defensiveness that can keep people from connecting in real life.

• Writing can also empower you whether it's just in telling a story that matters to you or in accomplishing a difficult goal.

• Fiction has the power to foster empathy and understanding in the real world too.

• No matter who you are, you have a unique story that matters.

Transcript

Please note, this transcript was automatically generated and lightly edited. I apologize in advance for any errors that may have come through. 

Welcome to episode number one of the Better Writer podcast. I am just so honored and grateful that you're here spending part of your day with me as I talk about writing. It's one of my favorite things to talk about in the world and I'm just so excited to share this podcast with you. My dream is for this podcast to be inspirational, educational, and I just hope that this is going to help you become a better writer, whatever that means to you.

All right, before we get started, I just wanted to say, if you want to hear even more from me, if you are looking for more inspiration, more craft advice, more information about how I work with writers and help them become better, then I also have a weekly newsletter, The Better Writer Weekly. It comes out every Tuesday afternoon, and you'll just get to hear a little bit from me. I usually share a mix of personal stories, writing advice, random insights into the things that are making my life a little bit better.

at the moment. And if you're interested in that, you can find a link to subscribe in the show notes. And of course, you can also go to my website,

I wanted to kick off the show by answering the question, why write? It's 2025, AI has arrived on the scene. It feels like everything is changing. So why bother writing when the robots are going to replace us and you can churn out a book in 20 seconds? It also just feels like a lot of things in the world are going wrong. Everything is burning down around us.

Why bother writing fiction in a world where children are being zip-tied on the street? Why write fiction while people we care about, maybe even you yourself, are being harmed by policy changes and natural disasters and all of these other things that we are just constantly inundated with in the news? It just feels like maybe this isn't the time, maybe writing doesn't matter anymore.

when all of these other things are happening. But I would argue that all of those things that are happening in the world are actually a reason to write and to keep creating fiction.

So if you have ever asked yourself that question, if you have ever wondered if the things you're working on still matter, today I want you to know that you are not wasting your time. You are not being foolish. You are doing something by writing a book. You are doing something that truly matters for the world. And I have three reasons why I think that is. First, I think the world needs new perspectives. Second, fiction is a way to cope.

When the world is falling apart, we need those stories more than ever. And finally, fiction can actually make people better and that power should not be discounted and should not be forgotten.

right, the first reason we need new perspectives and specifically we need your perspective. Let's talk about the AI elephant in the room. And I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on generative AI, but I think I have at least a basic understanding of how it works. And at a basic level, generative AI is a pattern recognition

machine. AI takes data that it has been trained on, it looks for patterns that are repeated,

and then it repackages and submits that information in the order in which it thinks we, the user, want to hear it. So if you ask ChatGBT, give me a workout plan for getting fit in six weeks. It's going to scour the internet, it's going to scour the data it was trained on, and then it is going to spit back its best.

approximation or estimation of what you want in a six week workout plan. now the problem with that, and I mean, there are a lot of problems with AI, namely, you know, a lot of that data

sourced, stolen from creators. But beyond that, even if all of that data were ethically sourced,

The data set that we have is inherently biased. Think about which voices throughout history have been celebrated and which have been silenced, it is not that long ago in our history that things were even more unequal than they are now, it was illegal.

for someone who looked like me to even learn to read or write in this country. So the data that we have is not representative of the diversity in our world and is not representative of all of the lived experiences in this world. And we need to keep adding to the narrative. We need to keep writing against those old, outdated, biased stories. That is true of racial diversity. When we're talking about gender, I mean, if we think about, you know,

It's been like not even 50 years since women could have their own bank accounts without permission from a man. I mean, those things are just not as historical as we sometimes like to pretend they are. If we think about the conversation around neurodivergence, those conversations were not happening when I was in school and I'm not that old. There are a lot of perspectives and insights that just were not around, are not represented in the data that we have.

which means AI was not trained on them. I am not saying that you should write a book so that AI can be trained on it and learn a new perspective. What I am saying is that if we just throw up our hands and say, well, the computer's doing it, so I'm just not gonna bother, then those stories are never going to be out there in the world. We need to keep telling our stories.

because that is how we are going to try to create a better world. And it might not work, it might be hard, but if we give up, it's definitely not going to happen. So I think the more that we can bring diverse perspectives into literature, the more we can normalize diverse perspectives with our stories, that is going to very slowly start to change the conversation. It's going to change the assumptions, change the norms, because

Let's be real, that's how a lot of us learn about the world by reading, whether we're doing that intentionally, seeking out information or not.

I consider myself to be very, very fortunate to work with authors who are doing this all the time. And I don't just mean people who are writing realistic fiction. That is not the only place where stereotypes show up. And it is not the only place where we can write against those narratives

romance. And that is a great opportunity to A, start

undoing some of those racist tropes that are baked into fantasy. I wrote a blog post about this and I will link to it in the show notes, but a lot of the fantasy tropes that we take for granted are based on racial and anti-semitic biases and we need to be able to acknowledge that and then start writing differently so we aren't replicating those systems going forward. Again, you might not be able to change the world overnight with one book, but if we give up, if we stop telling our stories, then no one is going to represent us.

going forward into the future. And the stories that already exist aren't necessarily going to help us cope with what comes next. So we need to keep writing, keep exploring the issues we're facing now so we have stories that resonate with the current. Which brings me to reason number two, why fiction still matters.

fiction helps us cope. I work almost exclusively with genre fiction, mostly fantasy, fantasy romance, but I will delve into mystery, thriller, all that kind of stuff. And I am also someone who left a job in public service to work with writers and work with books full time. And sometimes I have had that little thought in the back of my head of, you know, did I make a mistake?

I went from a job that very clearly helps people. I went from a job where I was serving students and families every day, and now I read books all day. I've had moments where I've questioned myself and wondered, am I actually doing something that matters now that I'm an editor?

especially when I work with genres that you might consider unserious. For those who can't see me on

unserious is in air quotes there. I have realized that those books do matter. Genre fiction does matter. I've already touched on this idea that fantasy can be used to address real world issues through fiction, and I think that's really powerful. I think using fantasy can be a great way to take an issue that is just too controversial.

to really talk about in our real world and address it. But even if it doesn't do that, even if you're not addressing a real world issue, even if your book is just light and fun, it may be the thing that gets someone through the hardest part of their life. That might be the thing that helps a teacher cope at the end of their workday so they can keep going back and serving students the next day. And I have experienced that in my own life.

I can still remember very vividly that I was reading The Well of Tears by Cecilia Darten-Thorton when I went to New Mexico to visit my grandfather while he was in hospice the last time that I was ever going to see him. I was in middle school. I would say I was probably a highly sensitive child is what you might call it nowadays. But I, you know, I wasn't...

dealing well. I still don't really like hospitals. I don't really like dealing with death and dying, even though it's a part of life. But what I had in that moment was that book. And I still very, very much remember pretty much carrying it with me wherever I went. It was a mass market paperback, so the perfect size for just throwing in a purse or your pocket or whatever. And that helped me. And that's why I still remember it is because it helped me cope.

And it is pretty incredible that I have not actually read another book by that author. But almost 20 years later, I still have a very vivid recollection of that one story that was with me at a particularly difficult time in my life. And I still do this. If I am stressed or overwhelmed, I am going to reach for one of my comfort books.

Anne Bishop is one that I pretty much always turn to if I am, you know, not happy going through something. I will be reading another Anne Bishop book and it's going to help. I also did that during COVID. During the pandemic, I flew through all eight of the Bridgerton books. I'm usually someone who needs a break in between books in a series, I also have a tendency to never finish a series as well.

But I flew through that entire series maybe in a year and a half because I just kept going back to those stories to escape from the reality of the pandemic. I was a teacher during COVID. I was teaching online. It was absolutely miserable. And that series of books helped me get through it, helped me not turn off the computer and quit teaching immediately as soon as we started having to teach online. And that's powerful.

The first Bridgerton book was published in 2000, a full 20 years before the pandemic happened. Julia Quinn did not write that story, so a high school teacher could cope with a global health crisis. But that is exactly what that book did, again, two decades after it came out.

And that, I think, is something to celebrate. It may seem so small, but it could be the biggest thing in the world to someone when they are going through something and just need to be able to escape for a few minutes of their day. And I also want to say you don't need to be writing something that is lighthearted or fun or happy for you to have that impact on someone. I also got really obsessed with The Witcher during that same time period.

And even though the show is super dark, it pretty much could not be further from Bridgerton in terms of content. It still gives us hope that there are people out there who are fighting to overcome the darkness and maybe just maybe they will succeed. And I think that is still the appeal. I think of darker fiction. It's not about the darkness. It's about the hope. Those who are willing to take a stand, even if they're imperfect and maybe especially if they're imperfect. And that is a source of comfort.

When there are dark times in reality and they feel insurmountable, rather than wallowing in that, we want to see the dark world with the heroes who are going to save us from it. So in either case, if you are writing a story, whether it explores darkness and helps someone see that they are not alone in whatever

going through, or if you are writing a book that takes people out of that and shows them that a happy ending is possible no matter what is going on in the world,

you are doing something for those readers that they are not going to get somewhere else. You are doing something powerful for those readers and that should be celebrated. On the flip side, you as a writer can also benefit. Writing can be a way to cope for you as well. And I think that could be in telling your story, telling a story that's meaningful to you, or it could just be

in the accomplishment and the empowerment that comes from setting a big, difficult goal and then following it through. Again, I have experienced that as well. When I started my first book, it was again in the pandemic, I could not control what was happening in the world. I could not control the COVID numbers here in Rhode Island, which were awful for a while. I could not make sure that all of my students had a stable home environment to learn in.

I could not control whether they came to class or turned their camera on or actually participated. I could not control so many things. But when I logged out for the day, I could start writing and I could control my word count. I wasn't necessarily aiming to write the best thing in the world at that point, but I was at least in control of what I produced.

It was just something small that I could control, that I could keep track of, and that I could keep moving forward with. And then obviously that spiraled into me totally uprooting my life, but that's a different story. I have also found that fiction is such a great way to explore the questions that we are trying to answer in our own lives. For myself, my first book explores themes of religion and how religion is used to control women, to try to

tell them what it is to be a good person in ways that it doesn't necessarily do that for men. I also started exploring questions of what it means to have children, because that was a big question I was asking at the time when I started is, do I even want children? Do I want to bring children into this world? I didn't come away with an answer, but just the act of exploring and writing and creating a world in which I could explore those questions without any...

real-world ramifications, because when you create a character, you don't have to pay child support if you abandon them later. And so you get to start imagining different possibilities. You can explore different possibilities safely in a way that just isn't... We can't write all of our possible futures and live them out in the real world, but we can write them in fiction and then explore what happens next.

It can be such a great way to explore and examine the questions that don't have easy answers. Another thing that I ended up exploring in my book is this idea of religion being exploited in order to gain political power, which, you know, not at all relevant to our modern times, is it? But, no, there's no easy way to address that in society. There's an easy way to undo the harm

That is caused by abusing religion for political power, but it's something that I can explore in fiction and I get to control whether the good guys win or not in my books. I may not be able to control the outcome in our world, but I can control the outcome in my story. And I think that is a great way, again, to cope with what is going on, to show people a different pathway, to show people that there is still hope, even if it's only coming out in that

fantasy context. It may not be part of our real world right now, hope is important. Imagining a different possibility is important, and that is something that we get to do as fiction writers.

There's a reason why people have been writing, reading, seeking out stories for entertainment for thousands and thousands of years. Stories sustain us. They help us cope. They help us deal with real life and keep doing the work to make the real world better. And if we don't have stories, then it just gets so much harder to live and enjoy. And I think, again, you might be writing the most lighthearted book in the world, but it

be having a real impact on someone's day. don't ever discount your stories just because they're fiction, just because it's romance or fantasy or whatever it is. You don't know the impact that you're having on someone's life and quality of life and you never know. It could be making a big difference in someone's day and you won't know what that is until you get your book out there and start sharing it with readers.

And then finally, my third reason, fiction can actually make us better people. And this fits so perfectly with my theme in the Better Writer podcast, but there is actual scientific evidence that people who read fiction are better people. So I am going to actually give you some evidence here. Okay, according to a study published by the National Library of Medicine, the study was called, How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy?

an experimental investigation on the role of emotional transportation. It's very long title, but the researchers found that

After reading a short story, the readers became more empathetic and those effects lasted for an entire week after they read the story. So just think about that. You read one short story, maybe it takes half an hour, whatever it is, for an entire week, their behavior changed and became more empathetic.

And it's not just that these people were reading. That effect was not observed when people were reading nonfiction. So it was only when they were reading a story they could have read an article that was on a very similar topic. But that empathetic impact only came from fiction. And the researchers theorize that people actually feel more deeply when they're reading fiction because it is providing a safe place for them to feel that emotion. We have a tendency to kind of distance ourselves from

Nonfiction, if you're reading or you're watching the news and you're hearing all these terrible things happening in the world, there's kind of this implicit obligation, like I should be doing something. So we tend to kind of hold back and that doesn't happen with fiction because in fiction, the person experiencing this terrible thing is not real. There's nothing we can do to help them because they do not exist, which then allows us to feel more deeply, to react more.

It's also generally easier for us to be emotionally impacted when we're reading the story of one person compared to when we are hearing about a general tragedy or a large-scale tragedy. That's because of something called psychic numbing. And I'm going to link to all of the sources that I found in preparing for this podcast in the show notes.

Basically, when we are told about a major catastrophe, whether it is a natural disaster or something that's affecting a large group of people, our brains have a really hard time comprehending tragedy on that scale. It is much easier for us to understand and empathize with one person's tragedy versus something that's happening on a societal level or to a very large group of people. So again,

That is what fiction does. We often have one character's perspective, or at least one character's perspective at a time. We are seeing their personal experience. We are seeing their emotions. And so because that story is focusing us on one person, it's much easier to have empathy for that one character than if we were trying to empathize with an entire group's situation. In another study, researchers also found that people are more likely to suspend disbelief

when they're confronted with a fictional narrative. So it kind of goes back to what I was mentioning earlier, saying we can use fantasy as a way to talk about real world issues without people getting super defensive. And I think that is what's in play here, that when it's fiction, we're less likely to start asking those what about questions. Like, oh, you well, you said that that person said something racist to you, but what if they were just having a bad day?

or, you got passed over for a promotion, are you sure it's because they're discriminating against your disability or maybe they just found a better candidate? If we're reading fiction and we're reading a fictional account of someone experiencing those same things, those defensive mechanisms are less likely to crop up, which again allows us to feel more empathy, which may not automatically translate to big large-scale change in the real world.

but it starts to lay the groundwork.

Because just acknowledging that this fictional experience is bad, that's opening a door. Another study in the Journal of Research in Personality also found that fiction reading was associated with greater sociability overall.

Nonfiction was actually associated with less sociability. They theorized that understanding and comprehending characters in fiction parallels understanding people in real life.

⁓ I don't know about you, but I really feel like we need more of that in the world. We need more people who are able to be empathetic and understanding and better at reading other people so that we can try to connect. Again, is this going to change the world overnight? I don't think so. Obviously, it hasn't already. We already have a lot of people reading, but it could at least help. And I think if we had more people reading more fiction, we definitely could potentially find ourselves in a better world.

Another study found that people who read novels are better than average at reading emotions. Again, any way we look at it, fiction has a real impact on the people who read it, and that impact translates to their lives. And I think I've seen this manifest. My interactions with the bookish community in general has been so overwhelmingly positive, and I think that this is why.

People change for the better when they read a lot of fiction and that's magical. Now the challenge becomes how do we bring more people in the door? It's by making sure that there are lots of different books out there that we are celebrating all genres because it does not matter what kind of fiction you're reading. It's this fiction in general that has this impact.

So I feel like I have been ranting for a little bit, but this is something that really gets me excited because I think it's just so powerful. If you think about the fact that you can type words into a computer, someone else, months down the road, years from now, they could be thousands of miles away from you. Someone else reads those words and an image that only existed in your brain suddenly hops over to their brain.

you get to have an impact on someone that you may never meet or interact with. It could happen long after you've left this world because your story will remain after you. And I think that's just so powerful and something that we take for granted that we have this ability to do that. Every year I used to start the school year with an article in Psychology Today called Why Sharing Stories Brings People Together. And that article talked about a study done at Princeton where they put people in an MRI scanner and then had them listen to a story.

And they found that the brains of the listeners synchronized with the brain of the storyteller. So part of the storyteller's brain would light up, the exact same area of the brain would light up in the listener's heads. And I just think that is just so cool. Then it's not just that you're giving someone an emotional experience. It's not just that you are sharing a perspective. You are literally taking over someone's brain.

Because even though that story was focused on oral storytelling, the same thing happens when we read. I'm going to read you a quote from Lisa Cron's book Wired for Story. she says, the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes and movement of real life are

activated when we are engrossed in a compelling narrative. That's what accounts for the vivid mental images and the visceral reactions we feel when we can't stop reading. Okay, that's magic. It's absolutely magic that someone is reading your words and their brain chemistry is changing in a way that we can physically see on an MRI. Think about it. If someone is in that machine getting scanned, we would see the impact of your writing.

on their brain in real time.

mind boggling and it's so cool. Maybe I'm just a nerd, probably am, but that power is objectively incredible. And I think it's something that we should not take lightly, that we should appreciate and honor in our work. And that kind of brings me to why I edit and why I do what I do for writers.

because in the quote from Wired for Story, our brain is activated when we're engrossed in a compelling narrative. The studies that I mentioned earlier had a common theme: they found people became more empathetic if they were emotionally transported by a story. So all of this magical

brain hijacking power that I've mentioned, this ability to change people for the better, to make them feel what you want them to feel, to transplant images from your brain to theirs. Those powers only work if your story is actually engaging to your readers.

A poorly written book is not going to change someone's life. And I know that sounds really harsh. And I don't mean for that to shut you down or make you doubt yourself. But it is just the reality that if you want your book to have this power, if you want your book to change someone's life or make them more empathetic or simply take them out of their crappy day, it has to be good. Good is not one objective standard. I want to make that very, very clear.

But you have to write a book that is compelling for your target audience. If you want to write romance, you have to write a good romance. If you want to write fantasy, you have to write a good fantasy. Otherwise, you are not going to have this power. And as an editor, I help people harness the magic. I help them take all of their weird and wonderful ideas, all the things that they are super excited about. I help them take the story that they want to share with the world.

and I help them produce it in a way that is going to be compelling to readers.

bridge the gap between vision and execution so that you can accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish with your book and...

I have been so incredibly lucky. I have gotten to work with some amazing writers who have incredible stories to tell and I am so excited that I get to help them make sure their story resonates because I am working with a lot of writers who are imagining fantasy that are

different from the norm that are going to start undoing some of the harm that fantasy has caused in the past. I'm so excited to do that because if those books don't work on a technical level, then those writers are never going to have the opportunity to share that story and change the narrative. And I think that is why I edit. I edit so that people who have really powerful stories to tell can share them with the world and change readers' lives.

And that's also why I chose the name, The Better Writer Podcast, because better, I think, is not just about the technique, it's not just about the craft, it's about creating books that make the world better, that make people's lives better. And I'm really excited to keep doing that. I'm excited to help you as a podcast listener do that. Even if you never hire me as an editor, I hope that I can help you get closer to your goals just by listening to the show, and I'm excited to be part of your journey. So.

To recap, if you are listening to this podcast and you have ever doubted whether your story matters, I'm here to tell you that it does. No matter who you are, you have a unique perspective. No one has had the unique set of experiences that you have had, and that means you have a story to tell. If you have ever

worried that your story doesn't matter because you're writing a romance that is light and fluffy and fun. If you have ever worried that your fantasy isn't important or that your mystery isn't important because it's not literary fiction, it's not going to win the Booker Prize, your story matters because it could help someone get through something difficult. It could help someone get past a hard day at work. And that has value.

Finally, just know that even if you're writing fiction, even if your story is totally removed from the real world, fiction can make people more empathetic. Reading fiction can turn us into better people, which means your book could be having a real world impact, even if it's indirect and something you don't get to see. So no matter how you look at it, your writing matters, making your writing great matters, working on it matters, and I hope you will keep going and keep striving to write the best book you are capable of writing and that you will keep working to share your story with the world because we absolutely need it.

And I will be over here rooting for you to write better books and to change the world one reader at a time. All right. Thank you so, so much for listening to the very first episode of the Better Writer podcast. If you've stuck around to the end, I'm so grateful and I hope you'll stick around for the next episode. This is a brand new show and I could really use your help getting the word out. So as many writers as possible can find it. My dream is to help as many people with the show as possible.

So first off, if you could please leave a review wherever you were listening to the show, I would be so grateful. Reviews help me get found by other writers and I would really value your feedback, your opinion. Let me know. Do you like the show? Do you hate it? Whatever you want to say, I appreciate you. Second, if you have a writer friend who could really benefit from this message today, someone who is doubting the value of what they're doing, please share this with them. Send them the link. that would be super helpful and you'll get to be the hero because you shared it with them. And then finally, if you are willing to, even bigger than that, snap a screenshot on your phone, share it in your stories on Instagram or post wherever you tend to hang out. Just let people know that you're listening to the show, that you enjoyed it and that you think they should check it out. I would really appreciate you helping me get the word out to as many people as possible.

Thank you again for listening. Have a wonderful day. Keep writing. Keep getting better one word at a time. I'll see you next time