H0W TH3 0TH3R UND3RST4NDS!

It depends on what you want.

If you want to follow exactly what a publisher is looking for, to be shaped by what the market expects, then follow the rules, the manuals, and the structures that have already proven to work. The Hero’s Journey, familiar narrative structures, formulas, recognizable genres. All of that can be useful.

But there is a difference between learning a tool and being controlled by it.

If you want to build your own style, allow yourself to write independently, without trying to impress anyone. No one ever reaches perfection. In the end, perhaps the only person you really need to impress is yourself.

The problem is that many people are afraid to write because they learned to be afraid of making mistakes first.

Before they even discover what they want to say, they are already thinking:

“Is this right?”

“Does this structure work?”

“Would a real writer write like this?”

“Will a teacher like it?”

“Will a critic think it is bad?”

“Would a publisher publish this?”

And before they realize it, they are no longer writing.

They are trying to anticipate someone else’s judgment.

They begin writing while looking over their shoulder.

It is difficult to create something when you are constantly imagining someone telling you that you are doing it wrong.

There is a literary bias about how writing should be done. There are techniques, structures, pacing, character development, points of view, dialogue, and countless tools that can improve a work. Courses can teach all of this, and they can be a great starting point.

But a tool should never become a prison.

I never took a writing course because whenever I started writing, people close to me, especially those connected to academia, would tell me that I should not write that way. That I needed to follow certain rules.

And there is an irony in that.

You can learn perfectly well how to write a book and still write a forgettable book.

Because writing correctly does not necessarily mean writing something that has something to say.

It is like following a road toward a destination.

You want to take a particular road. Then someone considered an expert tells you that the road is bad and that you should take another one instead. Maybe they are right. Maybe that road really is worse.

But there is one thing they cannot do for you:

walk it.

You have to discover what is on that road.

Maybe there are potholes.

Maybe there are obstacles.

Maybe you will get lost.

Maybe you will discover a landscape no one has described before.

Maybe you will realize that the road does not lead where you thought it would.

But you can only discover that by walking.

If someone constantly tells you which road to take, you may end up knowing the maps perfectly and never knowing the road.

And perhaps that is what makes so many people afraid to write.

They believe they need to be ready before they begin.

They need to know all the rules.

They need to master structure.

They need to know how to write dialogue.

They need to understand literature.

They need to have an extraordinary idea.

They need to know whether people will like it.

They need to write like someone who has already been published.

But no one starts knowing everything.

A person's first piece of writing should not carry the obligation of looking like their last.

Allow yourself to write badly.

Allow yourself to write strangely.

Allow yourself to exaggerate.

Allow yourself to break a structure.

Allow yourself to write a scene that perhaps no one understands.

Allow yourself to discover that an idea does not work.

Because even mistakes are part of the process.

If you try to eliminate every mistake before you write, you may also eliminate the thing that could have become your style.

My own mistakes are part of what I recognize as mine.

Sometimes, what someone else would call a mistake is precisely what gives a work its personality.

The problem is not learning.

The problem is believing that once you have learned the rules, you are no longer allowed to break them.

Specialized criticism can also be useful. But criticism is an interpretation, not a divine sentence. A critic has their own repertoire, references, preferences, and limitations. Many times, when something does not fit within what they know, the first reaction is to try to classify it.

And what cannot be classified can be treated as a flaw.

That is why there is a huge difference between:

“this does not work”

and

“this does not work within what I know.”

They are completely different things.

You do not have to ignore people who know what they are talking about.

But you also do not have to hand them the steering wheel of your creation.

Because, in the end, writing is a form of communication.

And communication is not simply:

“how I write.”

It is:

H0W TH3 0TH3R UND3RST4NDS!

You can write in the most technically correct way possible and still say absolutely nothing to someone.

You can write in a strange way and make someone stop, think, feel, or question something.

Language can change.

Form can change.

Structure can change.

But one question remains:

Did what you wanted to say reach the other person?

That is where writing stops being merely technique.

And begins to become communication.

So write.

Then learn.

Then rewrite.

Then criticize your own work.

Then listen to others.

But do not let the fear of doing it wrong prevent you from discovering how to write it right for you.

Because perhaps your style is precisely in the place someone once tried to correct.

And perhaps what you call a mistake today is exactly what someone will recognize as yours tomorrow.

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