How To Be Authentic As A Writer

How can you be authentic as a writer? In this post, we tell you how to be authentic as a writer – with examples.

What Does Authentic Mean?

If you’re like me, then one of your favourite internet sites may very well be etymonline. The deliciousness of finding out the origins of a word, its original meaning, and how it evolved into the word, with its modern meaning, is almost as good as chocolate cake. According to that site, the mid-14^th century meaning of ‘authentic’ is slightly different to what it means today. Then, it was ‘authoritative, duly authorized’. Today, it means ‘known to be real and what somebody claims it is and not a copy’.

How To Be Authentic As A Writer

‘Authentic’ has become a bit of a buzz word. So what does it actually mean?

1. According to Hemingway, when it comes to being authentic as a writer ‘all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ While his angst and trauma fed his alcoholism and eventual tragic end, it was authentically him.
2. PG Wodehouse could not be said to have bled over his typewriter. He certainly wasn’t Hemingwayesque in anyway. And yet, like Hemingway, he put everything into his writing. Despite having had his home commandeered and being interned by the Nazis, and incorrectly being accused of treason by certain people in the UK, Wodehouse was, and remained, shy to the point of slight eccentricity, kindly, and well-meaning with no ‘violent emotions about anything’ all his life. His authenticity in his writing is a mirror of himself. It’s seen in his gently eccentric characters, (newts anyone?) humorous plots, and the utter Englishness of the tea and scones and cricket on the village green, albeit a green owned by the local lord of the manor variety.

Both Hemingway and Wodehouse and their work were completely different, and yet completely authentic to themselves.

How Can You Be Authentic As A Writer?

So how can you be authentic as a writer? Is there anything new that can said, even in fiction? The good news is that it doesn’t need to be new. It just needs to be ‘you’. As with the aforementioned website, Hemingway and Wodehouse, you are the origin of your work. Being true to that will be a great way to also being authentic.

For example, we recently wrote a blog about how to use memory in your writing. No one has the same memories as you. Your trip to the ER may have similar events and even possibly similar outcomes as other people, but how you experienced them is unique to you. That is what makes them authentic.

Your Writing Voice

First things first

It’s important to understand that your writing and your voice will:

1. Evolve.
2. Be influenced by what you read, hear, or see.
3. Differ depending on the genre in which you are writing at the time.
4. Depend on how self-conscious you are as you write.
5. Depend on your need for perfection in your first draft.

How Your Writing And Your Voice Will Evolve

Growing in wisdom and experience could produce very different work than that which you put on paper in high-school. Which is good. The trick is relaxing into that and letting that experience and understanding flow out of you. Even if you wrote like a genius at 16, what you write in later life will have more depth, more colour, and more humanity. Embrace that.

Writing Under The Influence

Ludwig is one of the few of the most recent crop of detective shows that is utterly authentic, and original. One feels that the writer of the show is either very like the titular quirky character or knows someone like that. Dig deep so that you don’t write stereotypes.

The best influence to write under is yourself – your history of actions taken by you, or against/for you, the history of your emotions, hopes, dreams, changes of plan, changes of likes and dislikes, that which makes you feel nostalgic, hopeful and scared. Put these into your characters and each one will be more alive on the page.

The Demands Of The Genre

How you write a Regency or Georgian romance vs a contemporary medical genre vs a horror story must be different, or you will lose your audience. Despite working hard to meet the genre’s needs, it is still possible, and necessary, to be authentic.

Hand over control to your characters, banish stereotypes, let your experience and the voices in your head guide you to get your plot, characters, and first draft down on the page.

Muzzle Your Inner Critic And Its Need For Primary Perfectionism

The inner critic works hand in hand with perfectionism. And both have a lot to answer for – one works hard at demoralising its victims, the other demands its own way. One of the best ways to be authentic is to ignore them both completely.

It’s important to understand that the inner critic is not the same as the inner editor. One can and should be silenced, ignored and banished completely.

The other, the inner editor, can and should only be employed once you have the first draft done. Even then it needs to be on a tight leash. Until you are at the grammar and spelling edit stage – the last of all the edits – it should only be allowed to suggest things. ‘Could your dialogue be tighter?’ for example. And then it should leave you alone to ponder that, and work on that suggestion if necessary.

Being self-conscious is more inner critic than inner editor. Self-consciousness is a trap. An inner editor on the other hand, is permission to ‘glow-up’ your story, to take the dare your first draft lays down – ‘Make me better. Go on. I dare you’ and create the best, and most authentic story you can.

The Last Word

If you’d like to write for children, young adults, or adults, why not sign up for one of the rich and in-depth courses that Writers Write offers to learn how to write the best book you possibly can.

by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

More Posts From Elaine

1. How To Use Contrast In Writing
2. What Is Memory? & How To Use Memory In Writing
3. How To Write Historically Correct Books Without Offending Modern Sensibilities
4. Books That Didn’t Age Well
5. Authors With Different Pen Names For Different Genres
6. Authors With One Pen Name Across Different Genres
7. Should You Use A Pen Name For Every Genre That You Write?
8. The Writers Write Snowflake Method Of Plotting A Book
9. How To Work With A Book Illustrator
10. 5 Reasons To Say Yes To Your Book

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