The Agony of Genius #28: Advice for New Authors

I have had the pleasure of being a guest on book talk podcasts of late, and a question that recurs is one I think bear posing again here: what advice do you, as in me, give to new authors?

It's a question I asked when I was just starting out as an author, and the answer I got was "Don't." I thought it revealed more about the respondent than it did about my reality, so I ignored it, and more than twenty books later, I am glad that I did.

If you're a new author, as in someone who has just realized that you have a story that you want the world to know, then you have cracked Hard Part #1. That's realizing that you have a story that you want to tell. We all have stories, but not everyone wants to believe that they should be told. Good on you for making that leap. You believe in yourself.

So what's next? You have a story that you want to tell, so now… you must tell it. In fact, it has never been easier to tell stories to the world than it is today. Just so long as it is you telling your story, and not AI.

Of course, the world is in turmoil by the challenges that AI poses on everything from the job market to artistic expression to the environmental cost of AI, but in publishing, we have a pretty clear path to seeing it for what it is: it's a robot masquerading as a human using plagiarized works to do so.

That's how AI learns, by being fed books and articles that are out there in the world, which it then digests and feeds back. So when you use it to write your story, somebody else's story is helping you via the bot, and that's not good for the world of human storytelling. Nor for the AI companies, who are currently being massively sued for plagiarism. Not to mention that you can't copyright a book written with AI, and our printer will not print an AI composed book either. Use it for research, no problem (save for the fact it's not always right), but do not put it in your manuscript. Publishers run manuscripts through AI detectors these days, to avoid lawsuits and reputational damage. If they find your work is AI produced, you have lost a publisher. So, take that on board, and honor the person who came up with the story. You.

Once you have your very own, original story that you want to tell, then you have to tell it. And that means confronting the blank page and filling it with words. Which to me is the fun part, as the words that you had not imagined will come out into your story, and take it in a whole new direction. This is part of the creative process, so it is to be embraced, but you can only embrace it if you do it.

Ask yourself: who is my story about? What is my story about? Why should anyone care? That's Hard Part #2. Answer those three questions and you are on your way. It may take you two weeks or two years, but once you have begun, then you have honored the story within you. And you will soon be writing The End.

Which, of course, is really just another beginning, for once you have told one story, then I am willing to bet that another one has bubbled up within you. It's the beauty of the story telling form, for once you have done it, you know that you can do it again. If you want to.

So, if you are a new author with a story to tell, then sit down and tell it. You have more venues than ever before in human history to publish that story, but until it is told, it is simply in your head. Get it out there and into our heads, and then see what happens next. Which is another story, to be sure.