3 Reasons Why Non-Fiction Storytellers Should Avoid Being Strategic to Avoid Analysis Paralysis
Beginner storytellers need to approach their learning with brute force
As a beginner, I find it hard to resist the “need” to go from Level 0 to Level 10 — as soon as possible doing the least amount of effort.
I started the journey of online writing about 5 years ago. I started by scouring the internet for hacks, tips and tricks to avoid wasting my time on trial-and-error. That led me to consume more knowledge than to apply it. This includes buying courses, watching YouTube videos and signing up for multiple newsletters (because of their shiny lead magnets).
In other words, I was doing more reading (about things I should do and avoid) instead of writing. But guess what that made me?
A binge consumer of tips — not a better writer.
Today, the balance flipped!
I’m now doing more writing than consuming content. I finally realized that I learn a lot faster from doing. But that process took about 4 years! It’s one of those obvious truths in life that requires a lot of time-wasting before you fully understand it.
Now, I’m sure you don’t wanna waste 4 years to have that epiphany.
This is why I suggest you approach writing with brute force. It means: more “doing” (i.e. publish as much as it makes sense) than “consuming” (i.e. strategizing the best approach to get to Level 10 without lifting a finger).
Here are the reasons why taking the ‘brute force’ approach is more effective than being strategic (in the beginning):
- The more you do, the more you fail, and the more you get comfortable with failing.
- The more you fail, the more you learn what not to do next time, and the faster you’ll improve.
- The more you do, the more scenarios you become familiar with, and the easier it is to spot the pattern of what works and what doesn’t.
Now, this isn’t to say you should not listen to advice or dismiss the skill of strategizing. There’s a time for that — but it’s not when you are a beginner:
- The type of shoes you need to wear when running doesn’t matter when you’re just learning how to walk.
- Instead of worrying about calories and the best diet and all that, it’s much easier if you just avoid eating junk.
- Instead of niching down on a topic as a new writer, why not write about your current interests to a point where there’s not much more to talk about?
Got it?
It’s a little counter-intuitive, especially today when “working too hard” gets frowned upon by gurus who are offering quick-n-easy solutions. “Why waste time?” they ask, and it feels difficult to respond with, “I don’t know, but I wanna learn this on my own. So I can later look at the gaps in your solutions, then come up with my solution, and perhaps sell you on my solution instead”.
It sounds ballsy — but it’s the kind of confidence you need to attract more success on your journey as a non-fiction storyteller.
It all starts with publishing (without overthinking) — when you “attack” with brute force!
It thickens your skin against criticism
You are going to suck in the beginning. Period.
I view this phase of “I suck at writing” today as a rite of passage. The emotional pain when no one reads your work or it is rejected can be so painful it makes you want to quit. This is how the market filters out the dabblers — and keeps the ones who deserve attention.
But these little jabs of rejection and poor metrics are what toughen you up. Not only from criticism from others but also against your inner critic.
In the beginning, it’s very tough to communicate your ideas clearly. You are more likely going to be misunderstood which leads to rejection. And then you find yourself overediting, making sure you are not spamming the internet. When the creation process is filled with worries, it becomes difficult to publish your work.
I’ve had this recurring feeling of “I think I’m wasting my time here” to this day. But the longer I stayed on the journey, the more manageable it became. I don’t think it will ever go away — you just get better at managing it.
The more you publish, the longer you stick to the journey, the less painful things will be when things don’t work out.
It makes you a seer of storytelling traps
As a beginner, you don’t know what’s going to work despite all those ’10 Mistakes You Need to Avoid’ articles you consumed.
Most lessons are learned through application. This isn’t to say you dismiss other people’s mistakes. They can save you time. The problem is, you won’t fully understand why. Whoever is teaching the lesson understands it in full scale:
- The worry they’ve gone through to write their story
- The amount of thinking it took to clarify their message
- The challenges they had to go through
- The validations they received from sharing parts of it
Without those, it’s less likely the lesson they’re sharing will stick.
Let’s not forget that most lessons come from failures. The more you publish, the higher your chances of failing, and the better you are at identifying the storytelling “traps” that either lead to a long-winded explanation, going on a tangent, ranting or pretty much anything that leads to overediting.
In other words, the more you publish, the more mistakes you encounter, and the better you become at avoiding them.
It took me more than 189 articles to realize that most storytelling mistakes don’t come from how you approach it or the grammar or the idea.
Most are rooting from a lack of clarity…
It improves pattern recognition to make success more repeatable
Some lessons take a while for you to learn. I refer to the ones that require a lot of reflection. Those mistakes that make you go, “Wait! I remember! This happened before!”.
But it goes both ways: you also understand what works!
That story that caused a spike in your metrics, do you understand what caused it? Is this the first time it happened? If not, then, what do you think is the pattern between that story and all other stories you’ve written that caused a spike? Is it the topic? Or perhaps, the way it was written?
These questions can be difficult to answer if you only have a handful of stories you can reference.
But the more stories you put out there, the more data you gather, the clearer the patterns of both successes and failures in your story.
You need to know what works, so you can do more of it. Do it so often that it becomes a habit — to the point where you just do it naturally. This is exactly why it helps to approach writing with brute force:
The more you publish, and the more consistent the feedback you get, the more it feels like you’ve levelled up— not out of luck or being favoured by the algorithm.
Before you start pumping out your stories, remember this
Approaching writing with brute force can make you spammy or lead you in a direction where you are chasing metrics. That’s a big no-no. But if you’ve gone down that path, it’s time to remind yourself why you are writing a story in the first place:
- Are you writing for metrics?
- Are you writing to help others learn by sharing your insights?
The whole idea of approaching writing with brute force is to help you avoid overthinking.
Remember those 90-day or 5-day challenges you participated in?
They are designed to stop you from worrying about your ego and making assumptions that may never happen. The less you worry, the more you take action. Let the results of your actions speak for themselves instead of predicting them (with zero experience). The more you publish, the higher your chances of creating the overlap between what you enjoy writing about and what your audience wants you to write about.
Don’t overthink it. Publish.
