How to be different without being too different as a writer.
Write something that people expect.
Follow the rules of genre gleaned by reading extensively in your genre. Have characters, stories, or settings that are familiar to the reader.
People need to connect with your story from the first line.
Once you have the reader invested in your story, it can show us something different.
- Your answer to a common problem
- Your plot twist
- The thing that sets you apart — your take — the thing that makes this piece worthwhile to read.
Moving too soon into what makes you special as a writer raises the barrier to entry for your readers.
Writing’s true value comes from readers.
If you write from far left field, it alienates the reader.
They never connect with what you written. Engagement isn’t there or the reader for that matter.
It doesn’t matter how well you’ve written something without readers.
Getting your foot in the door is getting harder by the day.
Anyone that wants a website can get one. Anyone can publish a book. Anyone can post a video on Youtube. The vast amount of content out there drowns out good content.
There needs to be something better about your piece.
Something that is relevant to the reader. It could be a character that they see themselves in. A place they’ve been before. Something they’ve done before.
Once they are hooked you can go your own way.
Things can’t change so much that you lose the readers trust, but you have some room.
Connect with your readers lived experience.
GK
Girish Karthikeyan 