Some Thoughts On Your Writing Style And Finding Where You Can Shine.

Ariel wrote a post about how to get boosted. I'd like to point out a hidden gem in her post in case you missed it. Because most people missed it.

Ariel Meadow Stallings recently wrote a post called How Can I Get Boosted?

The subtitle is A clear answer from a Medium employee who actually knows (because friends don’t let friends get Medium advice from randos)

If anyone knows how the program works, it would be her. She created the program.

About three quarters way in, there’s a gem that sums up the whole thing. I’d like to jump straight to it. Because, no one highlighted it. No one commented on it.

Here:

…my goal with the Boost Nomination Pilot is for us to have a clear answer for writers who ask, "What's my path to being seen by Medium curation, and hopefully finding more readers?"

Here's the easy answer: Find an indie publication in the BNP that aligns with your style and start submitting.

Aligns with your style.

That’s the gold.

Too many writers try to fit themselves into spaces where they don’t fit. They want to write for a publication for all the wrong reasons. It’s really big. Or they like the person who runs it. Or their favorite writers are there. Wrong reasons.

There’s only one reason to write for a publication. It fits your style.

Look, adapting your voice to a publication is entirely possible. Professional writers and copywriters have to do it all the time. Writing for Glamour isn’t the same as writing for The Smithsonian. Know what I mean? Different voices.

If you can read five or seven different magazines, newspapers or publications and recognize the voice of the publication or corporation and write in that voice, I’m not talking to you. But that isn’t most people.

I can count on one hand the number of writers I can name off the top of my head that could write for any publication and shine. It’s not a coincidence that most of them are journalists by trade. They have learned to do that.

But most people? Their voice is consistent. And it doesn’t fit all publications.

I see this all the time in my own publications.

One of my publications is called On Reflection. The brief is pretty simple. I need to see reflection. I need to see the writer reflecting on something, whether it’s a concept like life or hope, or whether it’s reflecting on an event that happened.

I don’t have to like it. But I do need to see reflection present.

Some people don’t know what reflecting means. And that’s fine. Not everyone is reflective by nature. But they try to “fit” themselves into the publication and send a play by play of something that happened. Or a trauma dump. I have to reject it.

And I have to reject it because it’s not what I want for that publication.

It’s a lot of work to create and maintain a publication. The owner usually is striving to build a specific kind of space. A reading experience they are striving to create. It doesn’t do anyone any favors to submit work that doesn’t fit a publication.

Even if they accept it, it’s not going to do well.

Best example of that is another of my pubs. The Book Café. Again, the brief is simple. Write something interesting to avid readers. I don’t care if it’s about a book you loved or whether it’s a deep dive into Bukowski or McCarthy as a writer.

Avid readers are not going to enjoy a seventh grade book report much less one that would have gotten a C at best. Some people do not know what that means. That’s fine. It just means it’s not your thing. It’s not where you shine. I have to reject it.

Best tip I can give anyone writing on Medium is this…

Go to a publication. Add /latest to the url. Scroll down and look at the claps and responses. Look for the ones with the highest response. Do you fit there? If you don’t, then that’s not the place for you.

Here’s another. Can you tell me three publications you absolutely do not fit into? Because if you can’t, maybe you don’t even know or recognize your own style.

And another.

Go into your stats and sort your stories by earnings. Look at the top paid stories. You’ll see two things. One, you’ll see the writing that resonated with readers most. But also? You might see that a lot of your top stories are in a specific publication.

That’s not to say you can’t find more publications where you’ll do well and be able to expand your reach. It’s an indicator. What to look for. Publications like that one. With that feel. Once you start looking that way, you might be able to find the other writers who are doing well there. See where else they write.

The point is—as Ariel said—is finding publications that align with your style.

One more and I don’t really want to say it, but I think it needs saying.

If you cannot find a publication where your writing is one of the voices that shines, maybe you need to work on writing skills.

There’s no shame in that.

Margaret Atwood said storytelling is built in. We all come with it. And that’s true to the degree that we all have stories worth telling. Getting them out of us and into words people can’t devour fast enough, those are different things.

Writing skills is a different topic and if you’re interested, let me know in comments. It’s a topic I love. It lives next to my heart and I could write about that for a very long time and not get tired of it.

But if you can write? If you know in your gut your writing is good, the best thing you can do is find the right publication(s) for it. That’s not every publication and it shouldn’t be. Too many people look at publications as though Medium is one big pub crawl. Have a beer. Move on to the next. That’s one way. But it’s not the best way.

If you run a publication, I’d love to know your experience with fit. Do you get a whack of submissions that aren’t a good fit? What percentage? And if you’re a writer not a publication owner, have you found the places that align with your style?

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On Medium

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• No One Really Tells You The Hardest Part Of Getting Older

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