Some people have a knack for self-direction. Other people don’t. Some people are great at it in some areas of their lives and not in others.
If you are a person who has this knack, it seems natural and maybe even inevitable — of course this is how a person gets things done!
If you are a person who doesn’t have this knack, it seems weird and difficult and maybe even insurmountable — how on earth does anyone do that?
We often wish we were great at self-direction in areas where we aren’t. Unfortunately, kicking yourself for not being a self-director does not magically turn you into that person. It mostly makes you frustrated and angry. Frustration and anger do not make it any easier to self-direct!
Writing requires direction and focus. It takes energy, attention, and time to generate words on pages. There’s a sort of cultural myth that says that “real” writers automatically have the knack for self-direction. Certainly writers who do have this innate capacity — and can apply it to writing — have an advantage when it comes to accessing the direction and focus it takes to write.
But there are plenty of real writers — people who write wonderfully, who get published, who are read and loved by their readers — who aren’t masterful self-directors. If you are one of the many writers who is not a masterful self-director, the most useful question is NOT “How to I magically become one of those masterful self-directors?” but rather “Where can I get some external direction that works for me and helps me do what I want to do?”
This is a brief guide to the four basic ways that writers can seek external direction and structure to help propel them through the work of writing. It’s intended to help you choose which method might work best for you to get what you need in the direction and structure department: because “magic” is really almost never the answer.
The most literal way to get external direction for your writing is to take a class and have someone give you writing assignments! There are online and offline classes. Some are synchronous (you show up to a class and work through the material together) and some are asynchronous (you work through the class materials on your own schedule). The online courses I teach, such as The Practice Room, are examples of synchronous writing classes.
Pros: Lots of structure. Writing classes usually focus on a particular topic or genre of writing, they typically provide specific writing exercises, the class meets on a regular schedule, and there is an instructor whose job it is to give direction (and in some cases but not all, feedback). Synchronous classes in particular provide firm deadlines, and may include in-class writing exercises that provide even more specific structure about when you’ll write and what you’ll write about. Great for focusing on particular skills or learning about genres of interest to you. Limited schedule, which allows you to make a shorter-term commitment.
Cons: Lots of structure, but less flexibility to write according to what might pique your interest at a given moment in time. Writing exercises may or may not be ideally suited to your skill level or interests. What you’ll learn depends enormously on the instructor’s personal focus: if they are deeply focused on sentence-level writing, for example, you may not learn much about large-scale structures or plot. Depending on the class format and size, there may or may not be much opportunity for 1:1 feedback on your work.
Costs: variable
These occupy the middle ground between classes and unfacilitated writing groups. In a facilitated writing group, a group of writers, online or off, meets regularly for the purpose of sharing their work, supporting one another, and (often) engaging in mutual critique. There is a facilitator who helps provide purpose and structure, steers conversations, and ensures that the group’s activities adhere fairly closely to their intended purposes. The Bookbuilding Cohorts I run are an example of a facilitated writing group.
Pros: regular meetings mean regular expectations of producing writing, social connections to others doing the same thing helps reinforce that expectation and encourages you to actually get the writing done. A writing group may use prompts to write together, or factor shared writing time into the group activity in some way, which also gives you actual writing opportunities. Ongoing meetings offer the opportunity for ongoing, sustained relationships and critique. Facilitator input helps keep the group focused on an intended activity or area of concern, and, depending on the kind of facilitator and their level of involvement, could include writing assignments, prompts, or other assignment-type structures. Facilitators also may offer feedback on members’ work.
Cons: Facilitators vary, they approach facilitation in different ways and from different perspectives, and not all of them will be your cup of tea. Some are closer to teachers and are high-structure facilitators, some are lower-structure facilitators who mostly play traffic cop and make sure no one’s hogging the mic too much. The range of abilities and temperaments in the group itself will also vary. Whether you like other people as people and whether you benefit from being around them as writers can be two different things. A group of other writers you like a lot as people may or may not share your approaches, aspirations, interest in / capacity for giving useful feedback, or ability level.
Costs: variable
A group of writers, online or off, meets regularly for the purpose of sharing writing in progress, offering critique/support, and forming community with other writers.
Pros: regular meetings mean a regular expectation of producing some writing, so it gives that “assignment” to its members; social connections with other people who are committing themselves to producing written work encourages you to do it too. A writing group may use prompts to write together, or factor shared writing time into the group activity in some way, which also gives you actual writing opportunities. Ongoing meetings offer the opportunity for ongoing, sustained relationships and critique.
Cons: structure can be lacking, beyond “we get together and talk about writing.” Groups take on their own idiosyncratic dynamics depending on who’s in them, and those dynamics can be great or they can be greatly toxic or anywhere in between. Finding the right fit for you as a person and as a writer can sometimes be tricky and time consuming. When people find the right fit, though, it can be transformative.
As with other types of groups, whether you like other people as people and whether you benefit from being around them as writers can be two different things. A group of other writers you like a lot as people may or may not be the right fit for you as colleagues. It can be very difficult to find the right fit.
Another con may be that you aren’t really interested in spending a lot of time reading other people’s drafts at the present time, you really only want to focus on your own work. That’s not unreasonable. But that focus on you is not something a traditional writers’ group will give you.
Costs: typically free
Some coaches will work with small groups, but this work mostly happens one-on-one. The dynamic of a coaching environment is focused on the desires, projects, and progress of the writer(s) involved. The coach’s job is to help the writer(s) define and delineate their project more clearly, assess what needs to be done in order to get that project written, guide the process of writing the various parts and stages of the project, and provide feedback en route so that the writer does more productive and directly usable writing with less stress and angst and reinventing the wheel. I provide book/writing coaching on a 1:1 basis.
Pros: One-on-one attention and focus on you and your writing and the particular needs of both those things. The experience and perspective of a professional writer and advisor — who may or may not also have experience as an editor, publisher, professor, etc. — is available to you and your project. Your work plans can become highly customized and strategic thanks to the ability to bring close focus and extensive experience to bear. Writers who work with one-on-one coaches often build strong rapport where trust helps writers overcome individual obstacles having to do with their writing; the same strong rapport helps coaches think creatively and individually about how to make better writing more possible for the client.
People who work with writing coaches are far more likely to actually finish their projects than people who don’t, in part because of that 1:1 relationship and mentorship. People who work with writing coaches often also find that they waste less time experimenting with things that don’t work, so the overall process time of writing (especially with an entire book-length work) can be shortened. Coaches may also be able to provide support with things like writing book proposals, query letters for agents/publishers, and other “industry” tasks and issues.
Cons: Coaching is an intense process that involves a lot of work and responsibility. Because it is a 1:1 relationship (or at most 2-4 writers to 1 coach) there is nowhere to hide. If you haven’t done the work you agreed to do prior to that meeting, everyone knows!
Coaching is also far more likely to expose your vulnerabilities (emotional and otherwise) than other modes of getting external support, because they and their effects on your writing will be more visible. The process of working with a coach can be emotionally and intellectually demanding, but usually in ways that support the writing process and increase the quality of the work.
Costs: Can be expensive. Good coaches generally aren’t cheap and cheap coaches may not be much good. Many coaches offer package rates, for example, if you book 5 hours you will get a 5% discount off the total.
— Hanne Blank Boyd
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