Is writing to be published a bad thing?

Hey!

Can you write for success? What is that success for you?

One major goal people have is to be a published author. Forget being a bestseller, most of us find getting picked up by a publishing house hard enough. We strive to write our best work in the hopes of pleasing an agent and our writing career moving forward. Is this a suitable goal to have?

I don't mean "Is it attainable?" What I am alluding to is the controversy over whether wanting to be published has a detrimental effect on our work.

✍️"Write for yourself"

This advice is commonly told to us writers who stress about that first goal. We should focus on writing for ourselves rather than pleasing an audience that we don't know yet. There is some truth to this, but sadly there are also negative connotations to the advice.

Sometimes, when people say to "write for yourself," what they mean is to "stop worrying and just write what you want." This is good. You don't know the audience, and trying to write for one will end up leaving you in the dust as trends change quickly – and writing a novel is rather slow.

However, others use the phrase as a way to tell people to slow down with their writing and focus on writing their best. If I only ever right one book because I have been told to take my time, I believe that to be detrimental.

This represents one shot at writing an ending, one shot at writing a protagonist etc. Writing more helps you practice these. For me, slowing down isn't an option here.

💬A change in wording

In my opinion, there is a better way to phrase this advice:

Understand your audience, but don't write for them.

By this, I mean that knowing what kind of audience you are writing for can help through the entire process. However, don't see a trend that people like and think "I must write about that because that is what will get me published."

Doing so will show. If you aren't enjoying what you write, how can you expect others to?

So writing for yourself is a good thing. You just have to understand what your goal is and be conscious of it. If you write for a hobby then writing for just yourself or other family members is perfect.

For wanting to be published, you have to consider your audience somewhat but don't lose that spark that made you want to write in the first place.

That's all from me today,
Fin :)