How to R̴i̴t̴e̴ Wrong a Worstseller

In today’s society of ceaseless overachievers, I can’t help but feel a little left out every time I walk into a bookstore — it’s flooded with how-to-become-successful guides. I’ve never read one, so I can’t say how good they are… Can bestsellers really teach you how to write themselves?

But on a second thought, I’m pretty confident about doing without. I mean, I think I’ll manage to somehow break their immaculate track record anyway. So why spoil the fun??

Instead, without any qualifications or even experience to speak of whatsoever, I blatantly offer some tips of my own:

Forget Your Audience

Let’s face it: you can’t please everyone. Otherwise, you should be in sales. So why even bother trying? But if you insist, then you can at least try the first person. Know thyself — it’s possible. But don’t mistake it for being easy. And to be clear, it doesn’t just mean remembering your own name and date of birth (though that may be useful for renewing your passport). Instead, try reading the runes with your ego…

Ignore the Market

Advice following “know your readers” is typically “find your niche”. I’ve easily found mine: I can count my audience with just one hand — and still have most of my fingers left. Why not find your muse instead? Doesn’t matter if it’s an owl, the Northern Lights, or just Spotify! As long as you get voice enough inside to spook you, then you’re in business.

Embrace Tropes and Clichés

If you don’t know what tropes or clichés are, good news: you can skip this section outright. Chances are, you’re using them left-right-center hand-over-fist, and that’s the point. I mean, gurus treat them like toxic waste… so why learn them in the first place? That’s like teaching your kids all the swear words and then forbidding them to use any of them! But what if you’ve already been brainwashed to develop an allergy for them? Then I’m so sorry, so long to happily-ever-afters for you!

Forget Purple, Paint it Magenta

Those who say overwritten prose is pretentious apparently have never read The Bloody Chamber, The Picture of Dorian Gray, or even Lolita! Sometimes I wanna tell my muse to shut up when she pontificates, “Sirius Lee, when they do it, it’s called style; but when you do it, it’s just a mistake!” So instead, I ask her politely to hold my beer: “Watch me blunder with flair — make the page bleed lavender, sanguine, fuchsia, and everything else everywhere all at once!”

Dispose Grammoirs.. an ever Spell-cheekerz!

What’s the point of writing fantasy, if I can’t create an entire world on my own terms? Then I’d only be stuck in this one, and this one comes with meetings and deadlines. So for me, there’s only one rule — There are no rules… No, not even this one, because if it’s a rule, then I simply can’t follow it without breaking itself at the same time now, can I?

Read Wildly

I read a lot. Like sometimes, a dozen books at the same time. Not simultaneously all at once, of course, but why wait to finish one before starting another? You wouldn’t only start making new friends after an old one goes, right — “Sorry, you’re on the waitlist. Someone will get back to you when a vacancy opens…”?! In fact, whether you read for pleasure or pain, engage in a grown-up conversations like they’re your friends — except unlike real people, you can skip the boring parts without anyone pouting. Why, you can even ignore some of them altogether! After all there are over 150 million of them, so why lose the forest for the books?

Follow all these, and you might still write a bestseller — but only if you sell your soul. But then, at the very least, you’ll actually enjoy writing for its own sake.

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