Episode 479 Scott Adams: How to Become a Professional (or just better) Writer

Date: 2019-04-03 | Duration: 35:35

Topics

How to stimulate and develop your professional writing skills Or…just improve the quality of your writing in general

Please donate to support my YouTube channel:
https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays
I also fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com

> [!note] Rough Transcript
> 
> This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.

## Transcript

[0:03]

wind big bunch of Dilbert books I've written some fiction and I wanted to teach you how to be a professional writer in 20 minutes and my challenge is to give you 80% of what you would need to be a professional writer to get you started and you'll have to work a long time to get the other 20% but I'll get you started I'll start with some resources here are some resources for becoming a professional or even just a better writer uh number one a blog post which and by the way you can Google all of these titles and you can Google the blog post and it pops right up the day you became a better writer we'll give you tips on specifically how to write those tips are also in my book wind bigley in the appendix back here appendix B so if you want to see it in detail you can go there these are the books I recommend on the topic Stephen King wrote a book about how to be an author it's a great book and it's

[1:05]

be an author it's a great book and it's got some tips that I'm going to share with you in a minute there's a book called getting your book published for dummies written coincidentally by my actual publisher so I can I can verify that this is real good information and I believe I have a book blur a a blurb on the back of that book writers Market 2019 the date changes every year they update it that's a book you want to look at to find all the places to submit your material so it'll tell you where to submit to get published it'll tell you where to submit to agents book agents um publications of all kinds so that's the source this book writer Market is what made me a professional cartoonist um there's an there's a a similar book by the same folks called artist markets and I use that version but if you want to be a writer you want the writer Market uh then this last one here uh where I got a little bit erased is supposed to

[2:07]

little bit erased is supposed to say save the cat that's the best book to start to learn how to be a script writer save the cat save the cat refers to a particular technique in writing movies and TV so this one will get you started and gives you the structure of all movies and and Scripts so this is the Bible for beginning to be a writer for movies and TV now these are your sources but if you wanted to talk to somebody live and of course this is part of my reason for giving this lesson you could use an app that my company makes uh I'm a co-founder and it's called the interface by whenhub app uh I will be on it I've scheduled my time for right after this uh lesson and you can find me just download the app interface by whenhub you can find it in the app stores and you can jump on here and if

[3:08]

stores and you can jump on here and if you look at the bottom there's a little place you can schedule to talk to me live as soon as I'm done here on the topic of writing there are a number of other types of writers on here there script doctors or grant writer experts Etc so if you wanted to talk to a real life person and pay for the time use this app you see the amount that they're charging and you can be connected immediately for a video call but you don't have to exchange personal information the app keeps you Anonymous as much as you want to be anonymous all right so these are the main sources and now let's Jump Right
In to some writing tips uh writing tips are a little bit different for fiction versus non-fiction so I'll just talk about them separately and then together for fiction the best thing you want to do is read a lot of fiction because if you don't read a lot

[4:08]

fiction because if you don't read a lot of fiction you don't know how to make it you could probably pick up a college course and uh you know that'll give you some practice and some more tips but here are the big things here are the main things you need to learn to be a good writer you are interesting characters uh if you look at the Dilbert comic you can tell that all of the characters in The dilber a comic have a stereotypical trait that's really good for Comics but writing a novel for example you all you might want to give them some stereotypical traits but you probably want to make them more complicated all writing is about the characters so you have to create interesting characters I recommend creating characters that are based on people you know now sometimes I'll combine people I know into one person so that I'm writing about a real person it is way easier to imagine a real person and then write a character that's sort of based on your real person because you can hear that person talk you know what

[5:09]

can hear that person talk you know what they would do in a situation and then you can translate it to your character so start with interesting and real characters um it helps to be dangerous or provocative it helps in two ways it makes your story more interesting it gets the reader more involved it you know gets them more emotionally involved but importantly being dangerous or provocative might be the only way you can get attention as a new writer don't go so far that you're going to put yourself in serious trouble but the feeling you want the the reader to have is my gosh I can't believe this author got away with that or I can't believe this author is not going to get beat up when he gets home because you know things he said about his family they're they're going to get him for this so you should feel some sense of danger for the author if you do that you can get people's attention you can rise above the crowd a little bit and uh then you

[6:10]

the crowd a little bit and uh then you can use you can use that attention to you know find an agent find a place to publish Etc you want to leave curiosity in every chapter read any of the Harry Potter books to see the best way to do this at the end of every chapter you want the the reader to say I wonder who did that I I wonder that's going so try to build curiosity if you've got good characters and you're building curiosity you can get away with a lot of mistakes and it's still going to be fun to read you want to listen to how people talk in the real world people do not talk in the real world the way your first instinct might be to write dialogue because if you're writing dialogue you might say well I'll have somebody ask a question I'll have somebody answer a question and the real world people are very defective and even if you ask a question they will usually answer a different question or they will ask you a question like you

[7:10]

they will ask you a question like you hadn't even answered a question so keep in mind that people are deeply flawed and if you write dialogue for deeply flawed and especially selfish characters make all of your characters selfish make them act in character and they will be interesting and just pay attention to interesting people in your environment and say ah that would be a good character and just remember how they speak could come in handy all
right whether you're doing fiction or non-fiction um it's hard to get attention so you want to build up your social network any way you can because those become your initial buyers they become uh the attention that you can you can attract they become the people who criticize you writing which makes you better so you want to build up your social media following to be any kind of a writer in in this day and age the social media and the writing job are are

[8:11]

social media and the writing job are are really just part of the same thing these days for non-fiction here's a little uh tip that might apply more to non-fiction I think it applies to fiction as well your editor will uh definitely make uh suggestions to your first draft that you are not going to like and you will be sure that these are not good suggestions trust me when I tell you that the editors are better at this than you are they're reading it as readers you're you're writing it as the author you don't have the perspective they have and if your if your editor is even a little bit good they're going to ask you to make very painful changes but you should do it all right every time I've made a change an editor wanted I started by saying that's a terrible idea oh God the way I did it first is the only way to do it and then I think about it for a week and then I say damn it my editor is right again trust your editor they're

[9:13]

right again trust your editor they're almost always right now when you get to my level of of uh let's say uh writing uh my editor will take my opinion a little more seriously but when you're new at it you might want to let your editor Take the Lead all right write in simple sentences this is especially true for non-fiction non-fiction I think of as business writing writing a uh news article or writing humor these are all things which a simple businesslike sentence is perfect so you want to keep things simple the reason you do that is that people don't want big flowery interesting sentences which might be fine in fiction but is deadly in any kind of a non-fiction so you want to keep it simple here are the rules for keeping it simple write direct sentences never never say the ball was hit by the boy because that's a backward sentence

[10:14]

boy because that's a backward sentence start with the subject the boy and then tell me what he did well there's a boy and he hit the ball this is correct if I wrote this sentence the ball was hit by a boy you would totally understand the sentence there's no difference in understanding it but your brain would work harder because it had to turn it back around all right you can read words that are upside down if you try but nobody's going to write a book that they intend you to write ups to read upside down because it's too much processing so when you're writing for non-fiction you're trying to think of the the mental strain you're putting on the reader and you're trying to take it down to its minimum so simple short direct sentences and and get rid of the extra words I'm talking to you adverbs and adjectives if I were to write a non-fiction piece where I said it was very very warm outside I should get rid of the very and the Very one ver was too much two varies

[11:17]

the Very one ver was too much two varies way too much get rid of extra adjectives that the reader will not remember tomorrow cuz tomorrow they're going to remember well the author said it was warm they're not going to remember the word vary if you don't think they're going to remember that word and it doesn't have much of a change in the meaning get rid of it your reader will remember something like 10% of what you write for non-fiction so you want to make sure that the parts that they remember are the parts you want them to remember get rid of all the extra stuff um a little rule I use here is to imagine that every word is a $100 value to you if you take it out so somebody said to you I here's your sentence if you get rid of this adjective I'll give you $100 I'll I'll just reach in my pocket and I'll hand you $100 all you have to do is get rid of this extra word would you do it now if that word is important You' say no because I don't

[12:19]

important You' say no because I don't want to look like a fool the sentence would make no sense if I take that word out but if the sentence still makes sense without that word and that's usually an adjective or an adverb uh take the $100 it's a great tip would you take $100 to get rid of this word if the answer is yes get rid of it all right make your first sentence extra good you want you want people to be curious excited mad uh you want to provoke them you want to engage them in your first sentence or two I will spend as much time on the first sentence of a p pie writing it rewriting it rewriting it re rewriting it until it's great don't even write the second sentence until you can make a great first few sentences that's very important um somebody here is uh in the comments I'm seeing somebody's prompting me to say that you should write in a visual way

[13:20]

that you should write in a visual way that is correct if you can tell a story in pictures so that the person is Imagining the the scene your way ahead people will be more engaged they will remember it don't talk in Concepts because people don't understand Concepts they don't understand them when they read them and they don't remember them later but if you can turn that concept into an anecdote a story something with a picture maybe an analogy analogies are good for explaining new Concepts they're not good for persuasion then then that's good all right write for the reader not for yourself sounds obvious right it's one of the hardest things to learn you tend to write what you would like to read generally speaking you are not like the people who are reading it there's something about you that makes you a writer and the way you think is probably more unique than you think write for the people who are reading it if they have a lower level of Education write to that

[14:21]

lower level of Education write to that if they don't have a sense of humor don't put a joke in there but make sure you're writing to them not to yourself it's easier said than done uh a good idea is better than talent and what I mean by that is for and this is for non-fiction if you're not very good at writing and you're not great at forming even a sentence but your idea is really good you are still going to get published and I'll I'll tell you more about that in a minute but uh the Publications the the lower-end Publications let's say trade magazines local newspapers College newspapers or even a Blog they're they're starving for content if you have a new idea a fact that nobody's talked about a big idea something that's just a good idea you take that you write it up you submit it to whichever publication and that publication will say this writing is terrible but I love

[15:22]

say this writing is terrible but I love the idea and they will contact you and they'll say we will buy your writing if you'll let us edit it heavily you if you're smart say absolutely are you still going to pay me the same amount they will say yes we will pay you the same amount even though we're going to rewrite a lot of it so don't be perfect just have a good idea your editors can fix that for you um you want to find your voice when you read my writing in let's say this book would be a good example U one of my latests or actually my latest you'll feel like you're almost listening to me it takes a long time to find your voice but you want to write in a way that somebody knows the author this is for non-fiction at the same time they're getting the information now you don't have to do that if you're writing for a newspaper maybe you want to take your personality out of it a little bit but uh the the reader will enjoy it more if

[16:23]

uh the the reader will enjoy it more if they can imagine you saying it if if they can if they see you hear you know you by the words you put on the page then you're nailing it that's called a voice the reason that I got selected from obscurity to become a famous cartoonist is that one of the editors who I submitted my material to heard my voice that's the best way I can say it there was somebody who looked at my crude terrible Comics the very first ones I ever submitted they were poorly constructed in every sense but the editor could hear my voice and that's what she said when she called me it's like I I hear a voice and now that's very difficult to achieve and you got to work on that for a long time all right so those are your main tips um I'm going to talk about Stephen King's advice for working your way up the uh let's say the writer's ladder the career

[17:24]

let's say the writer's ladder the career ladder what you want to do is write something at the lowest level you can get it published to practice first of all you want to practice practice practice and then if you succeed at some lower level you have a portfolio something you can show to somebody at a higher level for example if you wrote something for your college paper you would have something to take to your local newspaper and say look College paper like me here's my best article if they like it they might ask you to write something so that's how you work your way up you could start a blog or or write on someone else's blog and then if you've got a good social media following or even if you just picked the right hashtag got a good idea got got a little uh viral action on your writing on your on your blog post then you have that to again take to a publisher take to a higher level um publication publishing things in trade magazines in other words uh some

[18:25]

magazines in other words uh some industry corporate uh idea is is way easier than almost any other kind of publishing they're starving for good ideas and they will help you rewrite it if it's not great they just want a good idea that's fits within their trade magazine and you have a very good chance of breaking in so you work your way up little by little uh by small successes so those are a few of the tips let me give you some more um you want to develop a writing system system and by that I mean there should be something that you do every day in a similar way that through trial and error allows you to write well here are some of the things you should think about most writers and and I would say every writer I've ever talked to Follows the same pattern they either get up super early and they work from It's Not Unusual for a professional writer to start at 4:00 a.m. and do most of their

[19:27]

start at 4:00 a.m. and do most of their work before 8 or 9 9: a.m that's very common part of that reason is that the phones are not ringing there's nobody else in the house who's awake to bother you and you can just focus on this thing it's also true that your energy and your brain depending if you're a morning person all right this is where the experimentation comes in for most people who are writers they are mourning people or they've made themselves mour people if if that's possible but the other the other way you can go is late at night and it tends to be a similar effect so you can either start at 4 in the morning or 5 or 6 in the morning early early or you also see writers who will start at maybe 10:00 at night the rest of the family's in bed it's all it's all their time and they can write until 2: a.m. so that's typical too what you rarely see is a professional writer who wants to write in the afternoon because your mind is not there the distractions are everywhere so make it a habit to get up

[20:27]

everywhere so make it a habit to get up early and even if it's just for practice all right uh make sure that when you're writing you have a comfortable place to sit that's like a professional serious chair and here's here's the weirdest little tip keep your feet flat on the ground now I know what you're going to say I don't like to sit that way you're going to say I like to lean back on the couch I like to put my feet up I like to cross my legs don't do it or at least experiment with this you will find that if you put yourself in the physical situation of being completely engaged meaning that your posture is good your feet are on the ground and you're looking at your computer you will be much more productive I've tried a billion times to work on my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch let me give you my impression of me as a writer sitting on the couch trying to

[21:30]

write 5 minutes out because what your body is doing will inform your mind what to do right if you put your if you put your body in an all work position you know this is not play this is work your your mind will respond if you put yourself in a comfortable put your feet up uh sit by the fireplace you can write for about five minutes and then you'll be out cold if you're like me your your brain will just melt you want to get natural light if you can uh I put my workpl right by a window some people like to work in the dark there's some personal preference so you do need to AB test things until you've got something going on you want to remove all distractions don't have a pet in the room pets are distracting don't be hungry make sure you eat make sure there are no noises you got to get rid of all of it and I mean you really have to get rid of all of it now now ironically people can write well and this is

[22:31]

people can write well and this is science has proven in a cafe situation so if there's sort of a background noise but you can't really hear anybody's specific conversation that's actually a really good place to write um it's sort of a for whatever reason it keeps you awake because you're in public but also is really easy to concentrate even with the background Rumble of noise so test that that's why a lot of people write it Starbucks Etc um I do most of my writing when I'm not at my keyboard meaning that if I'm in the shower I'm thinking about what I'm going to write if I go for a walk or I go to the gym I'm thinking about what I'm going to write the next time I am at my keyboard it is way better to sit at your keyboard with a 75% idea of where you're going than to sit at your keyboard and say all right what am I going to write looking at the blank page with no ideas that you already have is just painful don't do it if you sit on

[23:34]

just painful don't do it if you sit on your computer and it's 5 minutes and you got nothing get up you're not a writer that day you are not a writer that day just get up leave it alone walk away take a walk take a shower take a bath go to the gym think of some things to write about a general idea you don't have to have the sentences just know where you're going all right um you want to eat right exercise light exercise not exhausting exercise and get enough sleep if you do not do these things to take care of your body your body will be yelling at you while you're trying to write if you have not studiously and and and viciously gotten rid of every distraction that you can get in the outside world which includes how you feel your tiredness your hunger and all those things you got to get rid of all all those very important I've discovered that what I eat has a huge impact on my ability to write if I eat

[24:37]

impact on my ability to write if I eat let's say I ate a burrito I'm not doing any writing after that because the burrito the simple carbs just shut down my brain and all I want to do is like Mah Mah Mah uh but if I eat protein and I eat clean food you know stuff that's not bad for you um I'm in good shape energy is good all right here's another tip if you sit down to write and you cannot write something good you've got some ideas you know where you want to go you start writing and it's not good write it anyway let's say you sit at your keyboard you still have a general idea where you're going but you can't think of how to start just start just start writing write something bad to write something good it's one of the best pieces of advice you will ever get if you you can't write something good write something bad right away and and I've actually yelled at people sitting at a keyboard looking at it who needed to

[25:38]

keyboard looking at it who needed to write something it's like if you're sitting there you're not a writer these fingers need to be going if you're at the keyboard otherwise walk away walk away write and then fix it write and delete it write and then fix it write it 50 times wrong to get it right one time all right you're not a writer if you're not writing that's the most important rule um writers need to stimulate themselves and then go quiet stimulate and then go quiet the stimulation is usually from the outside world you want to be involved in something maybe you have a job that's that's your uh inspiration and in my case I had a day job for many years that became my inspiration for Dilbert at some of my books he have to go into the real world you have to travel you have to challenge yourself you have to do something you've never done before talk to some people you haven't talked to before you have to go out there and you

[26:38]

before you have to go out there and you got to stimulate the hell out of yourself and then when you filled your brain with that stimulation you got to go quiet remove everything remove all the distractions and then you can call on that stuff that you've stimulated in your brain um it's better to write what you know and if you're writing fiction of course that's not something you know because you're making up a whole story so you want to put parts of things you know as I told you before put characters in there that are at least components or Composites of people you know so you're always writing something you've seen something you know even though you created something new from those parts um I write about business and work and persuasion because these are areas I know writing about an area you don't know is only good if you're a reporter and you're learning it as you go all right um write to make your reader feel something physically

[27:39]

your reader feel something physically you want your reader to feel something physically I'll give you three examples this book was written to give you a tingle it's called God's debris I wrote it
it intentionally to make your to make you have Goosebumps and if you read reviews you'll see that I succeeded doesn't work for every person and you can't write anything that works for every person so just don't even imagine that but you're writing for a physical feeling this book causes people to go oh my God why didn't I already know that stuff before this changes everything I feel optimistic I feel uh enthusiastic those are physical feelings you could feel enthusiasm in your body not just your mind right when I write this book or this book The any of the Dilbert materials I'm writing so that you'll go

[28:40]

that you'll go ha I'm trying to make your body move I'm making you laugh I'm making you tingle I'm making you uh feel inspired all right if it's a horror horror book you're making somebody afraid think in terms of what you want their body to do if you can't make somebody's body change you're not a writer that's a harsh statement right but if you're not writing to make somebody's body change their body not just their mind their body you're not a writer all right um keep in mind that writing is a lot easier than rewriting and rewriting your own work is going to be 75% % of the work so think of it in those terms so it doesn't become a drag when you're you're doing endless rewrites if you think well that's the third time I've Rewritten that sentence I'm just going to be good with that now you're not a writer you

[29:42]

with that now you're not a writer you might have to write that sentence 25 times until you're happy with it then you're a writer rewriting is writing writing the first draft it's important but it doesn't get you there all right Let's uh I believe I have hit most of my points here um let me talk about getting published so getting published is easier than you think so that's rule number one however hard you think it is to become a professional writer weirdly it's one of the easier things to do if you can write if you can't write well it's hard to be a writer but if you can write it's pretty easy to get published somewhere and to get paid for it that's the first thing you need to know um if you want to get a an agent and by the way uh book publishers require agents not they don't

[30:44]

publishers require agents not they don't really require them but for all practical purposes they do so here's how it works the publisher um works with agents lots of different agents and they depend on those agents to bring them good books so the publisher doesn't want to be going out there and and looking for books right sometimes they do that if it's somebody famous you know so in my case for example Publishers seek me out because I you know I was the the the writer for Dilbert so people say well maybe he could write a book too so in my weird case they sought me out so the best way to write a book is to become famous for something unrelated if you can be famous for something anything then some publisher wants you to write a book and they can they might find you but if you have written something or want to write something and you want to get a get a agent who can get you a publisher the first thing you need to know is that the agents act as

[31:45]

need to know is that the agents act as sort of like your lawyer a little bit like a business manager but not really and a little bit like an agent so they they do a an important service typically they might take 15% of what you make but you depend on them to get from the publisher more than more than it costs to have a an agent so if the agent could not get you a deal that was at least 15% better than you could get yourself well you wouldn't be that happy with an agent however if your agent gets you a good deal or shops it to different Publishers and gets them bidding against each other you will you'll be very happy that you had an agent the agent will also help you with the contracts because they have their own ERS they have contracts that they've they've used before so they will negotiate with the publisher on your behalf very good stuff I have done books with agents um my recent ones and I've done books without agents because I was famous so I could I could skip that step

[32:46]

famous so I could I could skip that step uh the agents do add a lot so don't don't think that your your job is to not have an agent because they do add a lot now what you're really doing when you're trying to sell to to a publisher is sell to an agent so how do you find an agent The Source I told you about before the um the writer Market 2019 uh will have lists of agents who are looking for books and what kinds of books so that you'll know that your typ of writing fits this kind of an agent um you want to send them a few chapters maybe one chapter an agent will not read a whole book I mean they will if they get really interested but if you're just pitching to an agent think in terms of a few pages think in terms of a chapter with an outline for your book and by the way most of this will be um in the sources that I mentioned so the the books I mentioned will tell you more about this stuff so your goal is to find an agent

[33:47]

stuff so your goal is to find an agent if you're just starting out all right and those are your main tips um I don't know if I held this to under 20 minutes but that was my goal uh I will make sure that this is posted to uh YouTube you can search for that there at uh uh look for real coffee with Scott Adams real coffee with Scott Adams and this will get posted to YouTube within a day or so of showing up on Periscope you will also see this at the top of your of my Twitter feed and I put the uh the notes from what I just did I included them in the tweet that I just sent out before I did this and uh I would like to ask all of you to try out the interface by one Hub app my startup uh I'll be on this uh as soon as soon as I turn this off I will be live on here and I've got a scheduled time if anybody schedules

[34:49]

a scheduled time if anybody schedules that I will talk to them and give them professional writing advice uh I've set my price at $25 an hour but you could just to 15 minutes and uh there are other writers also on the app and you could get advice from them and it might be more specific to your type of writing um so try the interface by whenhub app please for this kind of advice or any kind of expert advice it's a generic expert platform for a immediate video call and people can people can charge as much as they want to so each expert puts a price on there and you can pay it or not all right uh that's all for today and I will talk to you again