How Writers Should Take Advice: Knowing When to Play It Safe and When to Take Risks

From Edie: Writers receive advice from every direction. Learn how to evaluate writing advice, know when to play it safe, and when taking a creative risk matters.

How Writers Should Take Advice: Knowing When to Play It Safe and When to Take Risks

by Tim Suddeth @TimSuddeth

Can you believe the snow we just got? For my area, it was the snow of the year, the decade, the century, a long time. This is the problem with trying to share a cool local story on media that goes all over the world. This is the coldest snow I can remember. Our snow usually starts with flakes, shifts to frozen rain, and ends with slush. Not only was this type of freezing snow not normal here, I haven’t seen it in my now 65 years. (Yes, today is that day. My sweet wife says that she now has a senior.)

We messaged a friend that it was 24 degrees and an expected two to three inches of snow was on its way. He responded that where he lives in Ohio, it was negative 33 and they had ten inches of snow already on the ground.

Negative 33? Me no understand.

My friends in Florida. You will always have your falling iguanas. 

Here in South Carolina, five flakes will close our schools. Two days before a winter storm even arrives, our stores are out of milk and bread. And since COVID, toilet paper.

Here, one or two inches will shut down our roads. My niece lives in Montana, where they measure their snow in feet, and it hangs around for months. When we start talking about our snow adventures, she just shakes her head.

While the snow was falling, I took a walk in our neighborhood. We are so fortunate to live where we can walk safely on our streets. I hadn’t seen but two utility trucks drive past since the snow started.

As I walked, a car passed, went to the top of the hill, then came back. The young lady (I’m 65. My young is very relative.) rolled down her window. “I just wanted to get out and see if I can drive in this. What do you think?”

What Writers Can Learn from a Snowstorm

One of the silliest things about the weathercasts is that anytime there’s bad weather, they put people outside in it to tell us to be smart and stay inside. Really? Why don’t they just stand by a window and point. “See sideways rain? Bad. Stay inside.”

Our weather channel had three new weather girls out in it. They kept repeating stay off the roads. I told the lady that we still had four more hours of snow coming and she should hunker down. Good practical and safe advice.

And it ate at me all the way home. Because like advice we all get in writing, the practical, safe, and smart advice may not pertain to us.

Sometimes A Writer Should Take Chances

I’m fortunate I can stay off the roads when necessary. But what if she needed to go to work? What if she had a sick or elderly relative to care for? Sometimes the safe and practical isn’t a good fit.

If writers only write safe, practical stories, think of all we would be missing. It’s often when a writer takes chances, tweaks the story structure, pushes the boundaries of a genre, that the thought-provoking story is revealed.

I spoke to my older brother that afternoon. He was worried about himself. Here was a snow that we can only dream of in our area, and he was happy watching it from beside a fire. In the past, he’d driven an hour into the mountains to take his two girls riding on snowy mountain roads.

Smart and safe? No. That would be watching it from inside holding a mug of coffee. Memorable. Definitely.

Don’t Miss New Opportunities

Advice in driving in snow, like advice for writing, is subjective. Whereas the majority of us was right to stay home and watch the snow from our warm homes, I will be very disappointed if my nephews weren’t out in it doing crazy stuff in their jeeps. A jeep isn’t a family car. They are made to help you find the line between silly and stupid, and survive.

As I’ve said, this type of snow doesn’t happen here often. Don’t miss the chance to have an adventure.

The same can be said for your writing. Wherever you are, writing your first article, starting a book or a new book, or seeking a publisher, you’ll only go this way once. Each of us are on a journey no one else has ever taken. It will have peaks and valleys, twists and turns that you never see coming.

But God ordained this adventure for you. And He created you and gifted you for it. And better, He doesn’t set us off, wave from the bank, and leave us to face the rapids on our own. He goes with us. So, enjoy the journey, the twists and turns. The whitewater. And as you go, watch for how He rubs off on you.

Now, that might make a great story.

TWEETABLE

How Writers Should Take Advice: Knowing When to Play It Safe and When to Take Risks from @TimSuddeth on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Tim Suddeth is a stay-at-home dad and butler for his wonderful, adult son with autism. He has written numerous blogs posts, short stories, and three novels waiting for publication. He is a frequent attendee at writers conferences, including the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference and a member of Word Weavers and ACFW. He lives near Greenville, SC where he shares a house with a bossy Shorky and three too-curious Persians. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter, as well as at www.timingreenville.com and www.openingamystery.com.