Write the Damned Story you Want to Write

By Andrew E. Kaufman

One of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make as an author happened early in my career. I had made the choice to jump genres—that is to say, going from being a perceived horror writer to a perceived thriller writer. I never saw myself as belonging to a particular genre. I just wrote what I wanted to write. I don’t think it was so much a matter of consciousness as a matter of instinct.

Then my audience began to grow, and then I started thinking from inside my head. I became worried that the change might force my readers away, that they might not follow me to the next book. Luckily, I trusted those instincts and the next book did significantly better than the last.

Fast forward to about three years later. Apparently, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. I was trying to decide whether to continue on with a series after the first two books and feeling a similar dilemma: once again, I was overthinking, trying to put my head on the readers’ shoulders instead of keeping it where it belonged. I was worried they would feel disappointed if I didn’t continue on with the story. In other words, I wasn’t following my instincts. A road that by now I’ve learned is always a bad one.

Then one day, while having lunch with a colleague, I explained my concerns, and she gave me what I now consider to be among the soundest advice I’ve ever received:

She said, “Don’t worry about all that. Write the damned story you want to write. Brand yourself, not your books—if you do that, it won’t matter what you write. Your audience will read it.”

It was one of those statements that instantly snaps into place, sticks there, and shorty thereafter, you understand it to be the plain and honest truth. I’ve always believed that, if you feel what you write, so will your readers. After all, it’s not necessarily what you write that matters most—it’s who you are as a writer, what inspires you, and if you stick with that, the rest always takes care of itself.

As with most authors I love, it doesn’t really matter what they write about or what genre their work falls under. It’s their execution and talent that draws me in each time I open one of their books. In those cases, I believe they followed their passion instead of their head, and as my colleague said, they wrote the damned story they wanted to write.

And with the publishing industry being as wobbly as it is, and with the concept of “what will sell” changing all the time, it makes sense that longevity is attained not by following trends or trying to guess what your readers want—it’s attained by trusting your instincts. Books change all the time—but the writer is a constant.

This time, I finally followed that advice, and the result has been one of the most rewarding and seamless writing experiences I’ve ever had. More than that, I’m having the best time, and each new day, I can’t wait to sit down and get back to work. This book is a complete departure from anything I’ve ever written up until now, but somehow it doesn’t matter to me.

Because I’m writing the damned story I want to write.

Andrew E. Kaufman, author of whatever inspires him.
www.andrewekaufman.com