Want to Be a Better Writer?

Trust Your Reader

So, you want to be a better writer.

Every writer does, right?

Even bestselling authors can be dissatisfied with their writing skills and want to be better writers.

If we have the right mindset, we’ll constantly work to improve some aspects of our writing craft and grow better at it.

I thought I was a decent writer a decade ago, before I earned degrees in English and Creative Writing.

Before I had edited hundreds of manuscripts.

Before I had written thousands of blog posts.

I might have been a good writer then …

… but there was so much I didn’t know.

There is still so much I don’t know, and it’s healthy to have the perspective where you always want to be a better writer.

You Write Better When You Trust Your Reader

One important aspect of writing better fiction involves trusting your reader more.

In my editing work, and as a beta reader of many novels, I spot this problem a lot.

It’s a common concern of newer authors that their readers might not understand what they are trying to say, so they end up overexplaining rather than trusting the reader.