You Don’t Have to Move to a Yurt. Or Invent New Emotions
These are my creative writing tips for authors who fear being boring.
Who hasn’t sat there, hunched over their keyboard whispering “please be brilliant” at a blank page, while simultaneously googling “how to write a book for beginners?” It’s a big club.
The fear of being unoriginal is practically a membership card. We worry someone will read our pages and say, “What the …? I’ve already read this exact story six different times, just this morning while eating my cereal.” And that fear can freeze our fingers right above the keyboard, screaming that every idea has been done and probably done better by someone with a Pulitzer.
We all secretly want to write the next story that keeps readers up past their bedtime, muttering “just one more chapter” while ignoring their alarm clock, incoming notifications on their phone, or even a housefire. Every writer wants the novel writing process that results in something truly original explained in a way that doesn’t involve locking yourself in a cabin in the woods, seventeen abandoned Scrivener files, or cutting off an ear.
But originality isn’t about inventing a story that’s never existed. That’s impossible. Everything is a remix. What is possible? Writing something that only you could write. And making it unputdownable while you’re at it. Your job isn’t to reinvent storytelling. It’s to pour your particular brand of chaos and wonder into it.
Let me to explain, preferably with enough levity not to worsen your blood-cortisol level.
Your Brain Is Already a Factory of Ideas. (Weird Ones.)
People love to ask writers, “Where do you get your ideas?” as if there’s a secret warehouse where inspiration is kept between the flat-pack furniture and bulk quinoa.
The truth is ideas are everywhere. They’re like fruit flies. They show up uninvited, multiply fast, and die off faster than 19th c. novelists with consumption. The real challenge is not creating ideas but committing to one long enough that it grows into a story instead of a forgotten regret.
We’re all serial idea-daters. Monday: “This is a profound novel about grief.” And by Thursday: “Okay so what if I add … guinea pig assassins?”
Originality happens when you stick with an idea after it stops flirting with you. When you’ve seen it un-showered in its worst sweatpants. When it annoys you and you keep writing anyway. Commitment isn’t sexy. But it’s how you finish writing a boo. (That typo stays. It represents our pain.)
Ideas only become stories when they survive the boredom phase. When you’re not sure if it’s brilliant or garbage. When the honeymoon is over and you’re arguing about dirty dishes. Sit with the discomfort. That’s where originality waits, tapping its foot impatiently.
Your ideas don’t need to be extraordinary at first. They just need to survive Tuesday.
Find Your Voice. It’s the Weirdest, Best Part of You.
You already have something original. It’s your own voice. Unless you’re an AI. In which case: greetings, robot masters. When the time comes, please make my extermination quick and relatively painless.
Writers have inner monologues that never shut up and should probably be charged rent. For me, the loudest voice was my main character, Andy MacKay, half cynical, half broken, 100% intrusive thoughts. I tried writing respectable characters. You know, people who flossed and ate kale and didn’t have opinions about comma placement. But they were boring. Andy, meanwhile, had jokes. And trauma. And a gambling problem with punchlines.
So, before you Google “how to start writing a book” my suggestion is: listen to that little voice.
Your voice is the version of you that tells the uncomfortable truth. Not the Instagram version with perfect lighting. The gremlin that wonders why the supermarket yells “unexpected item in bagging area” when the only unexpected item is your self-esteem. That’s the voice readers crave.
Your voice is all the observations you usually swallow. It’s that dramatic inner commentary you hear when someone says “no offence” and then offends you immediately. It’s your childhood embarrassments, your oddly specific opinions about toast, your quiet rage at stickers that don’t peel off cleanly. Write like that person, not the polite one.
Stop Trying to Outsmart the Universe.
Writers often believe the only way to be original is to invent an ending no human has ever predicted. So we plot twists on twists until the story collapses under its own cleverness like a soufflé taking on Mike Tyson. Inside, we crave people taking to TikTok shouting “THIS ENDING RUINED MY LIFE 😭🔥 #masterpiece”
The truth is readers don’t care about novelty nearly as much as they care about emotional honesty. Tell the truth about:
• Wanting something desperately
• Messing up spectacularly
• Loving the wrong person
• Being brave while sweat-crying inside
Clever gets applause. Honest gets remembered.
There is nothing more original than a feeling expressed in a way only you can phrase it. Plot twists age fast. Emotion ages like wine. They’re complex, sharp, and occasionally explosive if bottled too long.
Steal. (Legally, and with Panache.)
Every writer steals. Shakespeare stole. Tarantino steals. Paul McCartney steals and then writes a bridge so good we thank him for the theft. Stories are built from tropes. So grab them. Twist them. Break them. Then tape them back together with your personal insecurities.
Write about the chosen one who wants a refund. Or enemies-who-become-lovers but one is waylaid in the usual clichéd emotional reconciliation because she’s stopped by collection agents. Or a detective who can solve any case except his own crippling case of athlete’s foot.
What makes it original is your spin. Your strange, specific spin.
Steal structure, steal tropes, steal archetypes. But make them wear your clothes. Preferably something with pockets. And remember: transformation is the key. If you steal from many, it’s research. If you steal from one, at least remember to change the names. And maybe the species.
Let Your Weird Flag Fly. (Even if It’s Wrinkled.)
You know the things you think are too strange to write? That’s your gift.
Writers notice tiny, unsettling details. Like the exact moment someone’s smile turns into a threat. We remember every emotionally devastating seating arrangement at every family dinner since 1998. Those aren’t flaws. They’re your ink. The more personal and specific your writing, the more universal it becomes. Isn’t that delightfully unfair?
Normal is forgettable. Weird is memorable. So let your freak flag billow.
If someone says “I’ve never read anything like this before,” that’s success. If they say it while backing away slowly, that’s art.
The Harshest, Nicest Truth
There are common mistakes new writers make, like waiting for genius, obsessing over originality. Or comparing Chapter 2 to someone else’s published career
But here’s some of the best writing advice I can offer. Don’t quit before your weird and honest story shows up. Someone out there needs the exact book in your head. The one only you can write. The one that keeps them company at 2AM. The one that makes them feel less alone in their own glorious weirdness.
Finish that draft. Make it messy. Make it yours. Then rewrite it until your sentences speak with your own, slightly-peculiar, gosh-you-hate-the-sound-of-it voice. Originality isn’t about being new. It’s about being true.
A sloppy finished draft beats a perfect idea you never wrote. Perfection is where ideas go to die. Usually buried under laundry and self-loathing. Give yourself permission to be imperfect now so you can impress yourself later.
Go. Write something unputdownable. Just one page at a time. Because if you don’t tell your story, someone else might try. And they’ll definitely get it completely wrong.
This essay is one of a collection of pieces documenting the bedlam involved in writing and self-publishing my ongoing genre fiction series: The Misjudgements of Andy MacKay, available on Amazon.