 I don't know who you are. I cannot tell you how to be a better writer. I cannot tell you how to create brilliant stories. I cannot tell you if your idea is good enough to create a good story. I cannot tell you how you should develop your ideas. I cannot tell you how to write. I cannot tell you if it's better to plot and outline your stories, or if it's better to write by the seat of your pants and allow yourself to make adjustments along the way. I cannot tell you how to be a great writer because I don't know who you are. Only you know that. I know who I am. I know what works for me. I know how to write my own stories from my own imagination. Now that may sound strange to you considering that at least part of this channel's purpose is to deliver writing advice. But here's the thing about writing advice. This is going to come from anyone you ever talk to about how to write better. They can only help you from their own experiences. They can tell you how they successfully write. They can tell you how they successfully plot. They can tell you how they manage to create great stories. And you should listen to these people. Listen to me every once in a while. But the truth of the matter is that you have to find your own process because you are different than every other person in the world. And I don't mean this in the sense of, oh, you're unique, you're special and all these other things. No, you're really not. But you are going to find your own process. If you want to become special, you're going to have to actually sit down and write something. And then you're going to have to write something else. And then you're going to have to write something else. And each time you're going to hope that you get better. You're going to look at your past creations and you're going to see what worked, what didn't work, how you could improve them. And over time, one would hope that you get better at it. But there's nothing wrong with getting feedback from other people because other people can explain why something doesn't work for them. In order for a story to be successful, you have to think about what your audience wants and needs. But that only really counts if you care about being successful in front of an audience. Some people write just for themselves. Some people write just for their family or friends. If that's the case, then that's the only audience you have to worry about. And if it's just yourself, then you just write whatever you damn well please. What I want you to do, more than anything though, is to stop looking for approval. To stop sitting back, having an idea, and then feeling that resistance to write it. You have an idea. You want to write that idea as a story. You think it might be brilliant. But you're not sure. And so you go out and you seek people like me, or you seek people who are semi-successful elsewhere. And you ask them, is this a good idea? Should I write it? And when you do that, you are wasting your and their time. Now, always listen to advice. Always seek out advice. Never think that you have somehow become so good that you don't need other people's feedback. I am always learning new things as I write. But that's the thing. I have to put it down first. If I don't write it, it doesn't exist, and there's no way I can improve on it. When I first started on the SCP Wiki, when I was writing my very first pieces of flash fiction, they were real bad, friends. Real bad. But I kept working at it, and I got better and better and better. And now I feel confident enough in my ability to actually give advice to other people. But you know what? I'm still not thinking that I'm good enough to go without more improvement. Even if I don't get the advice of other people, I still look at my own works and try to find ways to improve every single time. But you're going to get this idea in your head, and it's going to be in the back of your mind. Never in the forefront, because of course, if you actually thought about it, you'd realize how silly it is. But you're going to have an idea that you want to write, and you're not going to do it, because you think you're not good enough as a writer yet. There's some trick. You're going to look and find a YouTube video. There's one thing you can change, or even just a dozen things you can change. And suddenly, you're going to be a better writer than you were yesterday. But the truth of the matter is that the only way you're ever going to be a better writer today than you were yesterday is if you sit down and write something, and you have to let go of that fear that you have that's in the back of your mind, that itching, clawing, gnawing sensation, that if you put it down on paper, if you write something finally, you pour your heart and soul into it, you take this brilliant idea you have, and you finally make something out of it, and it's bad. Now what? Now you think, you're going to be a bad writer, but if you don't put it down on paper, you can still live with the dream that maybe you're good. Well, guess what? If you don't put it down, you are a bad writer. That is what makes you a bad writer. Actually taking the plunge and writing it, even if it isn't very good, is the first step to becoming very good. Now this goes for all creative endeavors, mind you. Though I'm focusing on my own area of lack of expertise. If you want to be a writer, you have to continue to write, and then you have to improve. Take a look at any great author out there. The first popular work all the way to their last popular work, or even some of the stuff that maybe they published before they published their very first novels, or TV scripts, early stuff that people worked on. You'll see flaws everywhere, and then you'll see as they went along, as they evolved as writers, they became better and better and better, and slowly those flaws melted away. There's always going to be more, because the number of possible characters you can put into any particular work is borders on infinite as it gets longer and longer and longer. So there's always going to be mistakes you can make in your construction of your plot, in your construction of a particular scene, in a character's progression, or character's motivations. There could be setting issues that just really spoil the mood. And these are things you'll learn to recognize faster and faster on your own as you write. But you're never going to succeed if the first step in your process is to go out and find someone like myself, who you think is a good writer and asking them for approval before you ever start. Let go of the idea that you're going to be good in the beginning, except that being bad is not the worst thing in the world. And in fact, it is a brilliantly important part of becoming better. As long as you're able to do that, to look at your own works critically, to listen to the feedback of others, without letting it completely destroy your confidence, because that is another problem, you will become a better writer. Don't fall into the trap of actually making the leap finally. Then putting your work out there for an audience and then seeing an audience reject it and think, oh, this means I'm a bad writer, I should stop. Because that is very childlike thinking. The idea that you are only one thing and will never change. You're never going to learn to write by asking permission. You will learn to write by writing. And no teacher, no matter how successful, no matter how loud, no matter how insistent they are that their own practices and their own methodology is the right choice, is going to be able to turn you into a good writer. There is no trick. There is no question you can ask and finally get an answer. And then to suddenly click and become a good writer. There is only you and who you are and your process. Everything else is just extra. Anyway, that's it. If you like this kind of content, scroll down, hit the subscribe button. Yes, I will be delivering writing advice videos still. I'm not saying I won't. This is just about certain problems I've noticed in writers recently, especially some of the newer writers on my Discord server, who are seeking more approval than they are seeking advice. They just want to be like, I have an idea. Should I write it? It's the silliest question I ever get asked. But yeah, subscribe. There will be more writing advice videos, along with all the other kinds of content that I create. And if you want to support this content and seek out more help, more directly, you can always join my Patreon at patreon.com. There are tiers that allow me to give you feedback on your drafts for the SCP Wiki, co-authoring help, brainstorming and such. And you can always just pledge to support this content so other people have access to it. That's entirely up to you. Or perhaps you find my stuff particularly entertaining. Either way, go to patreon.com. Join them in helping bring this content to others and letting me know that I'm not alone out here. I'll see you all again on Tuesday.