Opinions Are Like...

There's plenty of advice out there for new writers. It comes from all directions, good and bad, and can be either tremendously helpful or a major distraction. As a young William Shakespeare once famously wrote before achieving success as a playwright:

"I am bollocks deep in the opinions of others and nigh on ready to loseth my shite."

As a normal person thinking about writing a book, it is entirely appropriate to feel insecure about your ability to accomplish that task. It is no small undertaking. You might find yourself contemplating if you can do it, whether or not you should do it, or how you will proceed once you choose to do it. These are legitimate concerns that can paralyze an otherwise confident person.

Insecurity and general lack of experience with long-form writing leads us to books, blogs, conferences, writing groups, videos and newsletters, many of them sincerely well-intentioned, in an effort to find a roadmap leading us from the vague idea of writing something to actually choosing a specific thing to write about and getting it written. We enter chatrooms where hundreds of wannabe authors, middling self-published authors, failed authors (successful authors rarely frequent chatrooms) and angry trolls gleefully dole out their opinions in response to our whiny, cart-before-the-horse questions about plot, title, character names, cover art, distribution and pricing. The answers we receive don't always help because each resident of the online community has a unique opinion from his or her neighbor.

For example, let's say you've started a thread in the Writer's Cafe on Kindleboards asking for advice on narrative voice. The authoritative blowhard with three self-published sci-fi fantasy series (all with one-word titles on indistinguishable covers) prefers first person. The fantasy geek with three fan fiction Twilight novels that have grossed $173 collectively (yet each cost $300 to edit and $200 for cover art, not to mention all the paid marketing) prefers limited third person. The recently self-published first-time author who seems to know everything because the process is still so "fresh" prefers second person unreliable observer. And maybe, just maybe, you'll hear from the embittered traditionally published author whose traditionally published masterpiece has been collecting dust on the traditional bookstore shelves for the past three years who tells you your choice of narrative voice is irrelevant because life shits on your dreams and laughs at you.

In the end, only you can decide what kind of book you want to write and how it should be written. Does it help to seek opinions, advice and anecdotes from others who have already done what you hope to do? Of course it does. The important thing is not to waste too much of your precious time worrying about what other people think you should do, and how you should do it, when the best way to figure out what works for the story you want to tell is to experiment with different ways of telling it.

Brainstorm.

Outline.

Write.

Write some more.

Share it with friends.

Figure it out as you go.

Change the narrative voice if it isn't working. Change the setting and time period if they aren't working. Change all the stuff that isn't working! Delete bad ideas. Develop good ones. Erase dead-end characters from existence and give the one important thing they accomplished in your story to other characters that are more significant. There are a million ways to successfully tell a story and you might just find the millionth-plus-one.

Always remember, advice is important as a guide, but eventually you have to choose your own path forward. Only you can do justice to the story inside you.