If you must write, write in such fashion that the world cannot help but sit up and listen.

Individuality is an absolute requisite!

Professional writers write effectively by reason of their individuality. You can strive to become their equal—not by imitating them—but by developing your own individuality. Yet imitation is one of the amateur's most frequent faults. J.K. Rowling writes the famous "Harry Potter" books, and immediately an avalanche of imitations pour down on the publishers. Publishers, perhaps, reject ninety percent of these. The remaining ten percent are published and attain a flicker of success, but more often resulting in dead silence.

A writer cannot hope to become great by imitating greatness. A writer who wants to write horror because Stephen King writes them, or of romance because Nora Roberts writes them, cannot win the fame, recognition and rewards of King or Roberts.

Instead of following the pathway these authors have blazed, you must blaze your own trail. It may be only a side path, but even a side path is better than the beaten track.

Developing your own individuality calls for long and careful training—a training measured less by years than by experience. One writer may crowd the experience of fifty years into twenty-three, as Emily Dickens did; while another writer, in the full space of fifty years and more, attains scarcely the experience of a child. You need keen observation. If you look on the world with observant eyes, and you perceive tales which the world beckons for, the tale is worth telling.

Once you have a story to tell, you must learn the art of building—as much an art with words as it is with brick and wood. In so doing, remember that the standards of writing today differ vastly from the standards of previous decades; that the rule of years ago is not the rule of today. When the nineteenth century began, ornate phrasing was all the rage, and popular writers modeled their work to suit the prevailing fashion. The beginning of the twenty-first century finds ornate phrasing long since out of date. Today's readers insistently demand a story worth telling, and simply told.

The story of today calls for intense directness.

Your first words must strike the keynote of your story, gripping the reader's attention as with a grip of steel. You must hold that attention throughout, never swerving from the path you have laid down. And, when the end comes, your story must end.

Among the literary crimes of which an aspiring writer is most frequently guilty is that of rambling on for a couple more pages after he has ended his story. The writer has in mind some cherished elaborate words, as useless to his narrative as is a pen without ink. For the young writer to discard these bits of fine writing is like tearing out his very heart strings; yet, if he wants to write effectively, he inevitably needs to discard them.

Having learned the lesson of aiming direct for your destination without veering right or left, you must tread that track in a fashion all your own. Use your own words and phrases, not the words and phrases of others.

Learn quickly that you must develop your own writing style, not imitate the style of others. Weak imitations of writing styles—belonging to famous writers—will hamper you as long as you cling to them. The style which the world demands of you is individual, a mirror of yourself; and, till you have a style of your own, you have not completed your training. You must forget the idea that all you have to do to share in Stephen King's fame is to use King's phrases. You must enter on your task, ready and willing to stand alone.

Train yourself diligently in the use and meaning of words. Subtle differences and shades of meaning are things you should know. You should never hesitate for lack of the one word designed to convey your exact meaning.

You should aim to expand your vocabulary steadily to its outermost limits. For example, instead of using time-worn phrases, "he said" and "she said," you can train yourself to use other expressions, better fitted for your purpose. "Responded," " replied," "spoke up," " laughed," "flashed back,"—these all, and a hundred other expressions, convey the meaning of the word "said."

Then have your topic so completely in hand that it becomes an integral part of yourself. Look at the situation you are describing with the eyes of the character from whose viewpoint you describe it. For a moment be your own heroine or hero, sinking your own individuality in hers or his. Enter into the spirit of your story, till all else is forgotten; and, in this spirit, write.

At a later day you may want to study your "painting of words" drawn by your warm thoughts, adding a stroke here and a line there, a shadow in this corner and a touch of light in the foreground. But, in your first emotion of forming it, yours must be a life picture. The subject of your story must thrill you so much that you veritably live through all you depict, and, while you write, think of it alone.

Writing in this spirit, not straining after effect, will give your stories a unique writing style. With the right word always at your fingertips, your style will take care of itself, mirroring your own individuality. Then you will be a master, as J.K. Rowlings is; and young writers, blindly striving, will model their work on yours.

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