How Each Writer Archetype Can Figure Out What to Write About
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Freelancing, Writing, Creativity, Productivity, Blogging

I taught a class today to writers who are part of the Ninja Writers Academy. That’s my online writing school and (no joke) the most amazing writing community I’ve ever been part of.

The class is called Monetizing Your Writing and today’s lesson was all about figuring out what you should be writing about.

A couple of things came up during that two hour Zoom call that I thought were with writing about here, for Ninja Writers who aren’t part of the Academy — and for you, if you’re not a Ninja Writer (yet!)

Writing for a Living is Different From Writing in Your Journal

This is true, even if you are a confessional writer or otherwise produce mainly personal essays.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write what you want. The beauty of blogging is that you can write on just about any topic. No niche is too obscure or narrow. I know a woman who makes a good living writing about growing succulents in Utah. And another one who writes exclusively about refurbishing 1960s travel trailers.

But here’s the thing: if you want to turn blogging into an income stream, you have to think about your readers. Who is showing up for your posts? Who is responding to them? And, here’s the biggie — how can you serve them?

Writing is a service industry.

If you only want to write exactly what you want, without letting your reader affect your output, that’s fine. Grab a journal. Or be okay with your blog being mostly for yourself.

But if you want to earn an income from your blog, then you need to consider the people you’re serving. What do they need today? How can you help them today? What would they be entertained by or informed by or otherwise touched by today?

Take Your Writer Archetype Into Account

As I was talking with these awesome writers and helping them figure out what they should be writing, it occurred to me that each of the five writer archetypes has a different way of approaching their work.

And each archetype might benefit from looking at their editorial planning through a specific lens. Here are my ideas.

Hesitater Writers

Hesitaters are learners. They’re researchers. They can get so caught up in their learning and their research that it starts to feel like writing to them — even if they aren’t actually producing anything.

These writers will benefit from making a plan that gives them structure and doesn’t push them so hard that they give up. Batching their work can be useful — the repetition, and relatively low stakes, of writing a bunch of titles, picking a bunch of photos, outlining a bunch of posts, etc. can bypass their natural tendency to procrastinate when it comes to actually publishing anything.

Try this if you’re a Hesitater: Batch your work on half a dozen blog posts. Don’t worry about publishing any of them. Just write all the titles, choose all the photos, write all the subheads, finish all the posts. Wait until you’ve finished them all before you start to publish them based on a timeline you assign yourself.

Skipper Writers

Skippers are writers who often need an assignment to be really happy. They feel successful when someone hires them. Blogging, then, doesn’t necessarily come naturally to them. Writing and not seeing an immediate ROI can be highly irritating.

These writers will benefit from really embracing the idea that they are the principle of a writing business. Writing that they aren’t being paid directly for runs the risk of starting to feel like a waste of time — even if there are other benefits to it, or that work might become more lucrative eventually.

Try this if you’re a Skipper: Make it a habit to read the news, blog posts, or some other source of information every morning — and choose something to respond to. Think about it like an Op Ed.

Spiller Writers

Spillers are writers who are, at their hearts, storytellers. For these writers, it hasn’t really happened if they haven’t written about it. The risk is they run is having their work can feel tone deaf, if it’s super focused on themselves and doesn’t take the larger world into consideration.

Spillers do really well when they let go of the idea that they have to teach anything (even though their readers often learn from them) or create art (even though their work is often gorgeous.) They benefit from having a way to remind themselves to let the reader and the world in.

Try this if you’re a Spiller: Pay attention to the comments you receive about your blog posts — questions people ask you, especially. If you are a new writer and don’t have comments to read, check out the comments on other people’s posts. Answer those questions with another post, focusing on using story as the driving force of your work.

Teacher Writers

Teachers are writers who are often bombarded with ideas and their life isn’t complete until they share them. These writers almost never struggle with productivity (other than the tendency to have great starts, but rare finishes) and can sometimes have prodigious output. Whenever I meet a writer who is writing all the blog posts every week, chances are good they are either a Spiller or a Teacher.

Teachers often do really well with some kind of plan to focus all of those ideas and all of that energy. Experiments are a natural for them — and so does having a long-range plan that excites them and that they can excite their readers about, too.

Try this if you’re a Teacher: Come up with a big, hairy goal that you are excited to work toward and that will take you some time (several months at least, a year or even three or five years works, too.) Make a plan to work toward that goal and write about it every week. Bring your reader along with you.

Artist Writers

Artists are writers who often have one really big idea at a time. They focus on it and work on it, serving their own muse and their desire to immerse in the art of their work. The craft is the thing for them.

Artists get to be rebels, because they are often less concerned about making money than other types of writers and they are okay with a smaller group of readers as long as those readers really appreciate the work. But they are also at a high risk for writer’s block and their perfectionism can grind their work to a halt.

Try this if you’re an Artist: Teach yourself to cultivate ideas by following James Altucher’s advice. Make it a habit to create a list of ten new blog post ideas every day. It’s okay if you’ll never write them or if they’re terrible. The point of this exercise is to prime your idea machine. You’ll create some good ideas. Separate those out and make a list of them.