I feel like I need to preface this by saying that I am not a social media guru. I haven’t quite developed the skills to build my social media accounts into something wonderful, places where hundreds or thousands of people are waiting to see what I will post next just so they have the opportunity to engage with me. I haven’t developed those skills, admittedly, because I have no desire to. Social media seems a very shallow and insincere space, another version of high school where the prettiest people get the most stage time. I couldn’t compete in high school and I damn sure can’t compete now.
Because of this, I try to keep my social media circle or network, whatever you want to call it, small. I have 659 brilliant followers on Instagram where I put in the most effort, and 2,035 followers on Twitter, where I am still largely ignored thanks to the algorithm. Okay, so it isn’t entirely the algorithm’s fault. The people who post more will be seen more frequently. Days and sometimes a full week will pass between my visits to Twitter.
What then, you may ask, is the point of this post? Well, I suppose it’s more of a conversation starter. A topic that I am interested in seeing multiple perspectives of.
In 2020 I had a writing “friend” who I spoke with every day. I’m always resistant to new friendships, especially those that begin virtually, but this person grew on me. We developed, what I thought at the time was, a wonderful friendship. She even went as far as to tell me that I was her best writer friend. At that time, I felt the same about her. But, as is apt to happen, toward the end of our friendship, I began to notice little things about her personality, and she became more comfortable saying things that struck me as harsh or untoward. I didn’t make a production out of them because everyone communicates differently, and many people don’t realize when they’re being an ass. I know I certainly don’t.
Anyway, on Instagram, the land of pictures, I like to share photos of my life; what I’m reading, what I’m eating, where I visit, and, as you can imagine, my family. One day my friend and I were talking over text, and she said to me, “You share too many pictures of your family.”
Now, to be fair, she only shares things to do with writing or whatever other “writerly” endeavor she’s doing at the time on her Instagram. She’s very brand-focused, which is great. For her. I am also brand-focused, but part of my brand is transparency. What you see on my social media sites is who I am. I don’t fake positivity on days when I don’t feel positive, and I have a family, so they appear on my profile. A lot.
Let me be clear here, I didn’t take her words negatively. I took them as her trying to help me in her way. The thing is, as I told her, I don’t want a social media profile that’s only filled with promos of what I’m working on or the sporadic selfie with a big smile where I talk about being fabulous and going out on errands. I want people who come by my profile, whether they’re writers or readers, to feel like they’re looking at a friend’s account. I want them to know that my family is just as important to me as writing, that I despise exercise, and that I love vintage everything. I want them to see my little part of the world through my eyes and know that what they’re seeing is an accurate portrayal and not some staged version of life. I want them to know that I’m insecure and somedays I can’t find the strength to be positive. I want them to see these sides of me because those are the sides I want to see of the people I follow.
If I’m interested in you, I’ll be far more interested in your work.
Now, to the uber-serious, brand-focused individual, this may seem like a bad idea. After all, you’re selling things to people, whether it’s your stories, merch, or the idea that publishing is fun, you are a salesperson, so bringing too much of your personal life into the mix is dangerous. I disagree. As I said above, I want to know what my favorite writers are really like and I want my eventual readers to know what I’m really like. A great example to use here is Sally Hepworth (author of The Good Sister and The Secrets of Midwives). On her Instagram, she does frequent videos with her family. It isn’t strange at all to see her husband or children in her stories. I love this because it shows a side of her you don’t get to see in her writing. It makes her more relatable. It makes her a real person. A profile full of nothing but promos and merch doesn’t feel genuine to me. It doesn’t feel real. If I can’t put a face or a story to a name, what good is the name?
So, what say you? Do you think we can get too personal on social media profiles where we’re also showing our brand? Or do you think being personal is the first step to gaining genuine followers?
Updated: Dec 10, 2024
As writers, most of us begin in the same place without a single clue as to what we should do to write the story/book, get feedback, etc. When I started writing in the 1990s, I often found myself frustrated because I didn’t know how to get my stories out to the world. Looking back, I know that was a good thing, especially since my writing style wouldn’t be truly ready for another two decades. However, that twenty-year-old trying to get started in the big world of publishing had no idea how to go about it.
So, what did I do, you may ask? I asked people to do it for me.
As a now-professional writer, I can tell you that one of the most annoying things I see is a new writer asking me to do the work they should be doing. It’s easier than ever to find information nowadays. In the late 1990s, I didn’t have access to the internet. I didn’t even have a home computer until around 2000. I did all of my writing on a word processor my mother-in-law gifted me when I lamented over and over again how much more I could write if I didn’t have to do it by hand. Funnily enough, my mother-in-law also gifted us our first computer. A hand me down that served us well for more than six years. I was devastated when we finally had to say goodbye.
In fact, I think it still had my floppy disk copy of Oregon Trail stuck inside when it crapped out.
In the early 2000s, I put so many “feelers” out to other writers. How do I do this? How do I do that? To which I was always met with terse answers that left my baby writer's heart wounded. I didn’t realize then that I was asking another writer to take time out of their work to do mine.
That, my friends, is a no-no.
Never fear, this is why I’m here. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.
Without further delay, here are 7 things you should stop doing right now (if you're doing them).
1) Stop asking other writers to give you plot points. If you don’t know what to write about, that’s your problem. When I’m trying to figure out what to write about, I look to current events that intrigue me or past events that scurry across my mind from time to time. Think about what kind of story you would like to write, what kind of character you would like to write, and go from there. Never ask a fellow writer to give you the plot or stakes for your book.
2) Stop asking other writers to write your story for you. Even if it’s just a sentence or a paragraph, this is a huge no-no. Granted, you will find those on the internet willing to bust out a paragraph for you because they’re such brilliant writers they can’t help themselves, but, often, those writers are just as green as you are. Even if they don’t think they are. Trust me, if they’re writing stories for another writer and they’re not a ghostwriter, they’re green, green, green. Either that or egomaniacal. I think I’d rather be perceived as green.
3) Stop asking other writers to find agents for you. Recently, I saw a post on social media where the author stated they were finished with their book, and they would like for the people reading the post to tell them the best agents for them. Even gave a quick summary of the book and the genre. There are so many ways to find agents. Twitter, Manuscript Wish List, QueryTracker, Poets & Writers, etc. There is a measurable amount of work that goes into finding the right agent to represent you and you should never, ever ask another author to take time away from their projects and their agent quest to find one for you. It’s unprofessional and, to be quite honest, lazy.
4) Stop asking other writers to edit your work for free. I hadn’t seen this for a very long time. I suppose it’s because I’ve focused solely on the group page for the women’s writing group I’m part of. I expanded my horizons some months ago and joined a few other groups on social media. It didn’t take long to start seeing the “I need an editor, but I can’t pay” posts. Look, I get it. Editing isn’t cheap. I know because I do editing work. I know what I charge and that’s well below the average for the industry. I also get it because when I finished my first novel, I couldn’t afford an editor. I had a young family and a lot of bills and just couldn’t, in good conscience, spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on an edit. That was before many editors started accepting payment plans. So, I self-edited and published. The title has since been unpublished because I was nowhere near as good at self-editing as I am now. In short, it was a mess. Still, I didn’t dare ask another writer to edit my work for free. Why? Because I knew then what I know now. Editing takes a long time. Editing a full novel can take weeks, and it certainly takes dozens of hours. Especially if you get a line edit. That time has to be paid for. If you want someone to read your work for free, make writing friends, join a writing group, and then find a few critique partners. Also, learn how to self-edit. I don’t mean like you do now. When you can look at your work and not see your baby, you’re ready.
5) Stop asking other writers to be your mentor for free. This is another thing I see in social media groups. “I need a mentor, but I can’t pay.” I’ve never paid for a mentor. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with and studied with some very gifted writers who took me under their wings. Those relationships aren’t found by the equivalent of a cold call in a writing forum. This is a person you mesh with, someone who is interested in your talents who wants to help you develop them. If you want a free mentor, join a writing group, hang out with writers, go to school. There’s no guarantee you’ll find a mentor that way, but it works for some of us. You can also pay for mentor or coaching services if you have that luxury. There are many talented people to be employed, but never ask them to do this work for free. Would you hang out with a stranger and put hours and hours into making them better at something for free? Chances are, you wouldn’t, so why would you expect someone else to?
6) Stop asking other writers to find online resources for you. This is the twenty-first century. There is no reason why you can’t click away from the Facebook or Twitter window to type keywords for a resource into Google’s search bar. No reason at all. When you ask another writer to take time away from their work to find resources for you it shows that you’re unmotivated, entitled, and lazy. If you want to know how many books self-pubbed authors need to sell to appeal to an agent, go to your preferred search engine and type in, “self-pubbed sales to attract agents” or something of the sort. Don’t ask someone else to do it for you.
7) Stop asking other writers for critique if you have no intention of giving back. The critique process, like the workshop process, is give and take. You give a critique, you get a critique. Unless, of course, you work with the same critique partners, and you don’t have a current WIP to share. Still, you read their work and critique. It’s just good manners. This is the moment you can ask someone to read your work and give you an opinion without paying them with money. You pay with your thoughts on their work. And don’t half-ass this part. It is your promise to your partners that you will read their work as carefully as they read yours and you will provide them with a critique that is designed to help strengthen and improve their work. Otherwise, it’s just a group of people sitting around patting one another on the back. How is that helpful?
So, there you have it, seven things you should stop doing right now (if you're doing them). I know it’s difficult to figure out which way to go in this writing world. It’s a scary place until you begin to understand the landscape, and even then, it can still be pretty damn frightening. There are plenty of us here that are happy to lend a helping hand. We want to see you succeed, want to see your writing grow stronger and you become more confident. That being said, we don’t want to be treated like all we have is time for you. We choose to give our time and we expect common courtesy when we do.
This may sound harsh. Goodness knows, straight-talking sounded super harsh to me when I was starting out. But, in this day and age, when we carry our computers in our hands, it is unacceptable to ask someone else to do what you should be doing. You can ask for guidance and you can ask if someone knows a starting point, but that’s it.
The bottom line of these seven points is this: Stop asking other writers to do the hard work for you.
Additional Resources:
Browne, R. & King, D. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to edit yourself into print. William Morrow, 2004.
Dunham, Steve. The Editor's Companion: Editing Books, Magazines, and Online Publications. Writer's Digest Books, 2014
Martin, Tiffany Yates. Intuitive Editing: A Creative & Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. FoxPrint Ink, LLC, 2020
Book Review
A History of Wild Places
Atria Books, December 2021
https://www.amazon.com/History-Wild-Places-Novel/dp/1982164808
There are times when a book grabs you and holds you in place, keeping you entranced until the very end. This book was one such story.
Travis Wren finds missing people. It’s how he uses his gift. He brings the families of the missing hope because he no longer has any. Now, on the verge of disappearing into the Canadian wilderness, he’s been called again, hired by the parents of popular children’s author, Maggie St. James, to find her. After a tragedy followed the popularity of her Eloise and the Fox series, Maggie disappeared, her car found in a remote town in Northern California. It’s been five years and the family is desperate to find her. Travis doesn’t expect to find remnants of Maggie’s essence in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest, doesn’t expect to be pulled by her over a snowy logging path until his truck becomes lodged in the snow, and he doesn’t expect to disappear like Maggie, but that’s just what he does.
Calla, Theo, and Bee live in Pastoral, a community founded in the 1970s by people tired of living the western life. They longed for a freedom they would never have if they remained in civilization, so they abandoned it, disappeared into the forest. Calla and her sister, Bee, grew up in Pastoral, love living off the land, and they love living in the little community they’ve known their entire lives, but Calla's husband, Theo, longs for more, wishing he could cross the boundary to the road that he guards every night, wishes for the days before the trees began to die outside Pastoral, before the pox threatened their very existence.
A History of Wild Places is full of unreliable characters, people who are filled with terror from an encroaching enemy they can’t see, soothed and assured they will be alright by their leader, yet knowing that something is off in their little village. Who will cross the boundary to find out? Who will risk infection and certain death? Theo seems the most likely, especially since he’s been crossing the boundary for ages, and most definitely after he finds an abandoned truck belonging to one Travis Wren. But how will Calla feel about his disobeying and leaving the protective circle their 90 acres inhabits? Will she turn him in for possibly bringing the pox back to Pastoral? It isn’t long after Theo admits to his infraction that Calla begins to question things about Pastoral, especially when she finds clues to a greater mystery in their own backyard.
Shea Ernshaw writes beautiful prose. I, for one, am a fan of lyrical and melodic words that lull me into the comfort of a story. However, sometimes this method becomes tedious. Every action, every surrounding was described using languid language that was meant, I believe, to make the reader feel as in touch with the earth and the surroundings of Pastoral as the characters are. I’m all about thematic prose, but there comes a point when it seems like the language has become a game, a way for the author or reader to feel superior in some way. There’s also the repetition of “my husband” and “my wife”. After finishing the book, I think I know why this was done, but when I was in the thick of it, I just wanted them to refer to one another by their names.
All in all, I’m happy to have selected this as my December book of the month. It’s engaging, haunting, beautiful, and it keeps you off-balance a bit, kind of like the characters in the story.
I gave A History of Wild Places 5 stars. If you enjoy lyrical prose and unreliable narrators, you’re sure to appreciate and enjoy this book.
