In these boots, I walk with impunity.

Write to one particular friend.

Elti Meshau | Unsplash

I’ve never liked giving writing advice. Not after I realized that most of it had already been said better and by someone else. I don’t mind telling people what I do, and I don’t mind making suggestions to people when they ask. Aside from that, I avoid telling people how to write as much as I can, because in so doing I risk, at best, being boorish in my pretense toward wisdom in an area where I know I haven’t finished my education. And at worst I risk participating in this “how-to” culture of tip-mongering that endangers the burgeoning confidence of so many young people.

Either way, a lot of what would fit into either category has been said before.

That being said, in a hypothetical scenario where I have become some sort of significant writer, and someone asks me to impart some advice to young writers everywhere, I do have an answer. I have a singular, overarching principle that works for me, buried beneath the hundred thousand hours of practice and hundred thousand other lessons all mingling to help me toward whatever quality I may or may not display as a writer, I have a very nearly pithy and, in my view, entirely universal thing that I can do that I can tell everyone that I do that has only improved my writing from the moment that I adopted it.

I choose to set it down here so that I can practice saying it. I need to practice saying it for my own sake. Like anything small and important, it’s a thing liable to be forgot without some attention.

Here’s the scenario.

Someone asks me, hey, guy, what advice would you give to a writer just getting started.

I would look at them, and I would say this:

Write to someone. Some real someone. Think of a real person, probably someone you have met and spoken with, and write as if they will be the only person who will read what you write. Think about making that person get it. Think about affecting that one person. Might not be the same someone for every project or piece or part of every piece and project. Might be, though. But think about a person, and talk to that one person.

That’s my one piece of advice.

I have a bunch of what you might call literary context that I could use to explain why I think this advice works. I could explain that audience focus helps with focusing concept and language and that as language and concept becomes more focused the story tends to become more universal. I could talk about how hard it can be to inject a little human soul into writing, and that the process of talking directly to someone helps with that. I could talk about how bearing one particular person in mind, when I know what they might say when I get too wordy or off the main thread or when I maybe begin to pull my punches, and imagining what they might say while reading over my shoulder while I type, how that can change my decisions about what I write.

I could go into detail about all that.

But those have been my experiences. I don’t know that they would apply to anyone else.

I do know that writing ought to be read. I do know that a writer who writes to someone in particular, rather than no one or just to the page, engages in that exchange.

Which might be bad. But it might not. I don’t know. It’s worked for me.

)

Oliver “Shiny” Blakemore

Written by

The best part of being a mime is never having to say I’m sorry.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade