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As someone who built a YouTube channel providing writing advice, I can't believe I'm saying this, but…writing advice often isn't all that helpful.

For every person who says you should write every day, you'll find another who says that will only lead to burnout. For every person who swears by the Save the Cat method, you'll find another who says it's overly rigid and prescriptive. For every person who claims you should fast draft your novel, you'll find another who says that technique doesn't work.

That’s not to say that all of these pieces of writing advice aren't legitimate — if they resonate with you and work for your creative process, they can be very helpful. But what a lot of writing advice gets wrong is the fact that each individual writing process is as unique as our own fingerprints.

So, if you find yourself overwhelmed or lost trying to navigate this sea of contradicting and sometimes unhelpful writing advice, today I'm going to give you the real stuff — the actual writing advice that I know is going to make you a better writer and a stronger storyteller based on my decade of editing experience and background in the publishing industry. If you continue to do these three things over time, I guarantee you will grow in your craft.

1. Consume All the Stories You Can

We learn how to tell more effective, emotionally resonant stories from consuming stories on our own and noting what we respond positively and negatively to.

We all have our individual tastes and stories that we naturally gravitate to; l'm a sucker for locked room mysteries, while my husband loves underdog stories in biographies and memoirs. Every single story you consume offers a valuable lesson you can then apply to your own work — and yes, that includes the stories that you vehemently dislike. In fact, understanding what you hate about a story is just as valuable as knowing what you love about another one.

So what do I mean when I say consume stories? First and foremost, read. After all, this is the medium that you've chosen to deliver your own story in. Reading is so, so essential to becoming a stronger writer. You don't have to be overly prescriptive with what you read; you can read within your genre or outside of it, you can read in the same format that you're writing in or outside of it. Stories that are similar to yours and different from yours can be beneficial in helping you understand storytelling from different angles.

This idea about consuming stories extends beyond reading as well. Watching TV shows or movies counts, as does sitting down to watch a play. These are activities we might do for leisure and we might not be actively thinking about our own storytelling, but they are beneficial to our craft as well. Engaging with each of these stories across these different mediums is going to teach you something about the art of crafting a good story, which is just as important, if not more important, than knowing how to string together a beautiful sentence technically.

That said, if you do plan to be published and sell your book to readers, I do recommend reading recently published books within your genre as part of your mission to consume as many stories as you can. I posted on X and Threads a few weeks ago about this and got some responses from people who said that this would lead to creating cookie cutter stories that all sound the same, but reading recently published books within your genre isn't about copying what other authors are doing at all. It’s about studying and understanding the publishing landscape that you will be entering. And don't underestimate the incredible talent in our contemporary literary community — there is so much to learn from them in addition to the literary greats from decades past.

2. Get Quality Feedback

This one is near and dear to my heart because I am a book editor by trade and deeply value the editorial process. From being the editor of my high school newspaper to creative writing workshops in college to pursuing a career in book publishing and editing, I've always been super passionate about collaborating on stories.

Learning how to be open to and interpret constructive feedback is essential to being a strong writer. After all, you presumably aren't writing this story just for yourself but to touch other readers emotionally. To do that, you must understand how your writing is coming across to someone other than you and where you can improve it to achieve your intended emotional effect.

I'm not going to lie to you — getting quality feedback can be exhilarating but also challenging. Some of it will make perfect sense to you, which is the best kind. Some of it might hurt, and some of it you might disagree with, but this feedback is going to teach you so much more than generalized writing advice that you read online because it's going to be tailored to your specific writing and story.

But be very careful, selective and strategic in asking for feedback. Feedback is only as good as the person providing it. Do they have the necessary skills to give you the type of constructive and honest feedback you need? You also want to make sure that you’re in the right stage of the drafting process to get constructive feedback because getting feedback too early or too late can be counterproductive.

For example, as a developmental editor, my services tend to be the most valuable to authors who have a completed draft ready and who have done some amount of revision work on their own. That's where I can come in and help them see the blind spots in their story and help them take it to the next level and achieve all of the things that they want to.

3. Return to the Page

Finally, the last piece of real writing advice is both the easiest and the hardest to implement: return to the page. Once you learn from consuming all the stories you can and getting quality feedback, it's time for you to put those lessons into action by turning to the page, over and over and over again. I promise you will find your creative process and your unique voice, but only if you keep writing.

I see a lot of writers get discouraged when their writing isn't where they want it to be on the first try, but this romantic notion that good writers spit out a perfect story on their first draft is completely false. Most first drafts are messy, clunky and unpolished — that's how they're supposed to be.

Allow yourself to just get the raw words on the page and remember that a huge part of the writing process is revising what's already been written. Embrace revision as something to look forward to rather than something to fear. Understand that writing is a lifelong skill — it's not something you can learn and then check it off your list. It’s a muscle that will only get stronger if you continue to train and flex it. But like any training, take it at your own pace. If writing every day works for you, then do that. But if you need to take breaks from writing or even a vacation from writing, then do that.

Ultimately, however you write, whatever gets you to the page, is the right way to write — no matter what any conventional writing advice tells you.

Think of these three tips as the “lather, rinse and repeat” of writing advice: consume stories, get feedback and return to the page. Doing this over and over and over again will undoubtedly make you a stronger writer.

Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!