If you’re a fiction writer and keep hearing people like me say GET A BLOG for god sake, then you might be taken aback and stuck. What the hell do you blog about? As an unpublished author no less.
The good thing is you don’t have to wait until you’re published. In fact, there are some benefits to starting the whole website shebang and blog BEFORE you get published. It looks good to any agents and publishing houses you approach with your queries.
Things to blog about as a fiction writer
Your genre
If you typically write within one genre, you could use this as your niche on your writer website. This is partly what I do with fantasy fiction but I have more recently branched out into writing not just about fantasy, for example, this post here.
Writing about your genre, what you’ve learned, what you like/dislike about the genre and tips you’ve picked up along the way will appeal to other writers in the same genre.
Believe it or not, other writers in the same genre as you aren’t your competition. They are your potential readers too. Fantasy writers love to read fantasy too. Rather than compete with each other, we should be supporting each other as writers.
Writing tips
There’s a bit of debate on this one. Some people say you should absolutely not give out any writing advice or tips if you’re not a published author yourself. I get where they’re coming from, but I still think unpublished writers can offer a lot. If you know your genre well and have advice or tips to offer as a fan of reading books in that genre, then why not share them? No one has to follow them.
As long as you’re not positioning yourself as the ultimate expert and have a little humility, I don’t think there’s any harm in sharing your thoughts and opinions on a genre – and let’s face it, all writing tips are opinion at the end of the day.
Personal reflections and opinions
If you want your website to have a personal blog, about your writing journey, thoughts about the wide world or anything in between, then I think that’s fine also. However, be warned that blogs that are very personal, unfocused and don’t provide help to the readers don’t tend to be read very widely.
People will generally read blog posts because they want to find something out that will help their lives. Your story about your favourite food won’t necessarily enrich their lives. It’s fine if readership isn’t your priority and you just want a platform to waffle freely, but if you want something more, seriously consider your angle with a personal blog.
Your writing process and progress
Following on from the previous point, personal blogs are fine if you want to keep people updated or just want to express yourself. However, unless you’re a well-known writer, your writing updates and progress probably aren’t going to appeal to a lot of people.
I would recommend writing about your writing process in between other posts about other things. That way you can mix up your posts and not just make everything about yourself, while also having some freedom to update people about your progress.
Reviews of books or movies
A lot of writers use their blog to express their take on whatever they’re reading at the time. You could post in depth reviews of books, poems or movies. These can end up getting a fair bit of attention if you manage to post them when interest in the story is high. For example, a lot of people posting reviews of the Game of Thrones finale, as soon as it aired because that’s when people were looking to read them.
These are just some of the main things that authors write, published or otherwise. A lot of people hesitate to blog when they’re unpublished, however, now is the perfect time to start and to learn more about blogging. That way, when you do have something published, you’ll already have an established website and audience.
Do you have ideas on what you should blog about as a fiction writer? Let us know what you want to or currently blog about in the comments!