Everyone is a writer these days. But not everyone is writing for the right reasons.
Too many do it for money, or to sound clever, or to build an audience (and sell things to them), or to get famous or get laid or simply because they like the sound of their own voice.
But before we write anything, we should always ask ourselves the one critical question: Do we have anything to say?
Anything important, that is. Something different, unique, special, that the world needs to hear. If we don’t, then we might want to consider keeping quiet for a while, thinking hard, learning more. Otherwise, all we do is add to the babble of noise.
And there’s too much babble, too much noise. Too many people offering their advice and making sure they sound like an ‘authority.’ And too many people churning out fiction that has all the sound and fury of a great story, but none of the depth, none of the turmoil. Nothing to say.
Which is to say, no theme. No truth to show or to put on display, to bring to life and dramatise. It’s all very well knowing how a story should be structured and how to write narrative prose and what effective dialogue sounds like. These things are important. But without meaning behind them, it’s all just more noise.
There are too many books, blog posts, articles and social media posts that use words, but say nothing. If you and I are going to write something, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must ask ourselves: do we have anything to say?