On Writing
From my professors
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I have only been on Medium for two weeks now. Before that, I was completely oblivious to the site, although I’d read a few articles published on Medium here and there. I have been liking my experience on this site quite a bit, however, I have noticed several hard-to-miss trends here. And hundreds upon hundreds of writing advice, some of which are quite aggressive and demotivating as well.
I am a Literature student, I studied creative writing, philosophy, and political science at the university too. I mostly write on these things, and considering I am in a research university, we have a rigorous writing-betterment tools: workshops, heavy feedback, published academics’ advice, et cetera. So although I am new to the site I am not new to writing, more importantly, not new to regular writing.
Here are some of the things I have learned from my writing journey so far from my professors, but also some things that I want to bring up that are Medium-specific:
1. The Thing About Niches
Most of the articles on Medium that talk of niches have a very profit-oriented vision. Niche does not just mean a sphere of culture/ideas you want to write about, but it means a sphere that will get you traction.
There are a few problems with this, but the main one being that your niche, the sphere of culture/ideas, should also be one that you want to know about rather than just write on. Knowing, reading, consuming things in your niche is so much more important than writing in it.
2. Experiences
One of my favorite advises I got from my professor was that to become better at writing I have to become better at living.
By ‘become better at living’ he did not mean stability, self-care, security or anything of that sort. He meant that one has to know how to take away from the experiences, from everyday living, from conversations, and to enjoy doing it. The feeling of curiosity will transfer into your work and effort, and thus, into your writing too.
3. What do You Want to Know?
Regardless of what kind of writing it is that you’re doing, make it a point to include at least one new thing: one thing that you yourself are not fully aware of, that you have to read and search about. Ask yourself, what is it that I want to know further?
This will do a couple of things to instantly better your piece:
- you will be more involved in your own writing now, and this is important; if you’re writing something you already know everything about, chances are it is because you want to write it for the sake of sending it out to the internet
- your curiosity will pass over to the reader
- you will learn something you’re writing about
- you will spend more time with your written piece, which is always good
4. “If you find your piece ‘simple’, it is probably not worth reading.”
This may sound harsh. One of my professors announced this in the class two nights before our final research papers were due. But this advise works like a charm.
