Sometimes people ask me what piece of
writing advice I would give if I could only give one. Ten years as a
professional in the publishing industry, and I’m only allowed to pick one?
That’s such a hard question!
And yet every time, I come back to the
same thought: you do you.
Don’t get me wrong. Studying craft and
improving your writing mechanics are both very important. The freelance editor
in me implores all new writers to dig deeply into fiction craft books, glean
wisdom from those who have walked through the publishing fires before you, and
sit at the feet of brilliant artists to better understand why what they do
works.
But after you’ve honed the tools in your
toolkit and built yourself a solid writerly foundation, you have to tell
stories in the unique way only you can.
God created a very specific you. He could
have given you any personality, any set of gifts, any imagination, any artistic
passion, but he chose the ones you have. All of these unique factors combine to
form you, the writer. You, the artist. Only you can tell a story from
that space. So why squander that special, God-crafted niche trying to tell
stories like anyone else?
I spent far too many years trying to make
my voice sound like a “fantasy voice.” I thought my stories needed to sound
like C.S. Lewis’s or J.R.R. Tolkien’s. It took writing a YA contemporary novel
with no fantasy elements to discover who I actually am as a writer—to find that
space where my passion for fantastical stories was being poured out in a way
that was uniquely me. The Story Peddler was the first fantasy novel I
wrote following this discovery. And it was the novel that finally got
contracted.
Embrace the specific you God made and delight in your uniqueness. God certainly does. via @LinzyAFranklin #SeriouslyWrite #amwriting
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Lindsay A. Franklin is a best-selling author, freelance editor, and homeschooling mom of three. She would wear pajama pants all the time if it were socially acceptable. Lindsay lives in her native San Diego with her scruffy-looking nerf-herder husband, their precious geeklings, three demanding thunder pillows (a.k.a. cats), and a stuffed marsupial named Wombatman.
