Writing Fiction – What to Write and Why
Writing for Pleasure or Writing to be Published?
May 12, 2009
It is difficult to know what to write about, whether fact or fiction. You need to ask yourself the reasons why you are writing, and you need to be honest and truthful to yourself. It is no use telling yourself that you’re writing because you enjoy it, when really for want to become rich and famous.
Writing for Pleasure
If the answer is genuinely that you are writing for the enjoyment and pleasure that writng gives you, then you can continue to write exactly whatever you like for as long as you continue to feel happy about it.
If you want to write, then do so. If you feel passionately about something, then write about it. If your imagination is running riot, then don’t let anything stop you. It is true that if you know your subject / topic then your knowledge and passion will come across in your writing.
Writing for Profit / Writing as a Career
If you are looking to market your writing to an agent or publisher and make some money, or even a career out of writing, then you need to seriously consider what genre / subjects you are going to write about before you start. This way you can increase the odds in your favour.
Writing trends are notoriously difficult to spot. You may think that writing about teachers and schools is really selling well, but by the time you have finished your writing this may be very unpopular, and doctors may be the new trend (unless you’re the fastest writer in the world -then you may stand a chance). But you still need to look at the trends.
If you look at the market trends and discover that your favourite pastime, or a novel idea you have had in your head for a while is exactly what the literary market needs, then you're in the perfect situation...get writing straight away.
If you decide to write about an unfamiliar subject, then make sure that you do plenty of research. However, it is surprising how well people write about previously unknown subjects. Writers can write about countries, or set novels in countries that they haven’t even visited, just by doing plenty of research. But make sure that the quality of your work does not suffer as a result of your change of genre / topic.
Research
The best kind of research to do is reading, making sure that you are not too tires or being distracted (families can be very distracting). You need to research into the types of books / poems that people are reading. You need to look at what you could do, or include in your writing to make it seem new and original to catch the reader’s attention.
You will also need to research the kinds of markets that agents and publishers deal with, and what their requirements (and rules) are. They may have precise word lengths that must be adhered to, or they may only accept writing on certain subjects.
Make sure before you start writing, that you are writing something worthy of being read - read magazines, attend talks and seminars aimed at writers, don’t leave any stone unturned.
Only when you have done your research will you know what subject you are going to write about, and if you don’t succeed in being in the right place at the right time, then still keep writing. Never throw your writing away. It may not be ideal for the market at the exact moment you finish writing it, but if you keep it to one side, and keep submitting it, you never know what will happen in the future.
