In her blog post “Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers,” Lauren Passell offers 20 points of advice for aspiring writers to refer to that will help set them up to create quality pieces of writing. For each of the points Passell made, she provided a detailed description of what they entailed and how they could improve the writing experience and the final product.
One bit of advice that Passell mentioned that stood out to me was the first one- “First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience.” This is something that I have found to be difficult for me, especially during college. When faced with a writing assignment, I constantly consider how my professor would interpret the work I am submitting and worry about the grade I will receive, resulting in my writing rarely being written for me and only ever for the people reading it. By following this piece of advice from Passell, I would be able to write more personal pieces as I tell myself the story first and then alter it to be sufficient for others to read.
Another point that Passell made in her blog post that stood out to me was, “The research shouldn’t overshadow the story.” Like the idea of writing for myself first, I struggle with this in academic writing. Passell explained that research should be in the complete background of the pieces we write and that our personal perspectives and stories should be at the forefront of the pieces. By doing this, we as writers ensure that our voices and ideas do not get lost in the research and instead use research to enhance or challenge our perspectives.
Overall, Passell provided practical advice that writers of all ages and experience levels can benefit from; however, college students should hold her advice a bit closer. During college writing courses, it becomes routine to simply write for the sake of getting a grade, but we must remember that our voices are important, our sanity when writing is important, and that learning and growing as people and writers is important.
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