3 Ways Writers Can Be the Real Deal in a World Full of Copycats

Photo by BBH Singapore on Unsplash

I’m tired of reading (and at times, writing) the same articles as everyone else.

Everyone wants to stand out, but so many of us go about chasing that desire by doing the same thing as everyone else.

And on some level, that’s OK. If you want to be a part of the system, odds are you’re going to have to play the game.

If you want to be a writer, you’re going to have to write and write a lot. You’re going to have to work through days and weeks of disinterest, not because content or quantity are king, but because it’s genuinely true that no one writes their best stuff on their first drafts.

You have to play the game long enough to get your foot in the door.

But beyond that — the rules are off.

Getting your foot in the door is the weeding out stage. It’s the voice of that college professor who on the first day of class told you to “look to your left and look to your right.” Which he then followed up by saying, “At the end of the semester, one of those two people won’t be in this class.”

Like that introduction to physics class, the majority of writers will never make it past that first hill.

If you don’t get stuck on the initial grind, you’ll get your foot in the door. But just because you made it inside doesn’t mean you are safe. In fact, this is where the other majority of writers will get stuck.

Once you’re inside, you suddenly have something to lose. You have a small following. You have some form of mild success. Better to not disrupt the process that got you here, right?

If you fall into that lane, you’ll never make it past the copycat stage and become truly unique.

If you want to break through and become the real deal, here are three ways you can do that.

1. Spend a Season Being a Copycat

Like I said above, everyone starts somewhere.

For most writers, that means spending a season for lack of better terms effectively copying from the people you look up to and respect the most.

Now, most people hear that and something within them shrivels up at the insinuation of copying someone’s work. Which is a good thing. If you don’t read that sentence and have a gut-check, get out of writing now.

But if the idea of being a copycat makes you pause, here’s what I mean when I say copy someone’s work.

I don’t mean take their words and use them as your own. I don’t mean become their best friend and adopt their every mannerism and use of tone and metaphor.

I mean study them.

Read their work. Read works by their friends and similarly-styled writers.

Dissect it. Once you’ve broken it down to the basics, take elements of what you admire and weave them into your own writing.

Experiment.

Give proper credit where credit is due. Never steal words. Steal habits. Steal methods. Steal processes of ideation.

Build yourself an arsenal of weapons, acquired, in part, from each of your favorite writers.

2. Be a Villain, Not a Hero

This is my number one piece of advice for writers to stand out, and it’s something I’ve been thinking on for a while now.

On first glance, you might balk at this suggestion. No one wants to be a villain. I can already hear your mind saying, “I’m not that mean,” or, “I don’t want people not to like me.”

But here’s why this advice works.

Heroes are boring.

No one needs another young 20-something coming in and sharing their millennial advice, claiming to be self-righteous with an expert opinion on the topic at hand. Heroes do all they can to come off as righteous.

As a human race, we are far more drawn to redemption than we are righteousness.

We need more villains. We need more writers who are willing to be real and vulnerable, to show their good and bad sides. We need writers who are willing to switch it up a bit and turn a circumstance on its head.

We need villains who will stir up curiosity, who will steal the crown jewels from the unbreakable vault, and who will write about it.

We don’t need more panic, more fear, or more aggression. We need real people, and the reality is, if you’re like me, you’re more like a villain anyways than a hero.

You just need to embrace it.

3. Ask as Many Questions as You Answer

The last way to become the real deal and avoid becoming a copycat is to ask just as many questions as you answer.

The higher up the podium you go, the more of an expert you become in your given area, and the more tempted you are to become nothing more than an answering machine.

You pre-record your message and play it after the beep for anyone and everyone who wants to know how you did it.

But that’s not what keeps you original.

Curiosity keeps you interesting. You don’t know everything. Don’t get tricked into believing that what you do know is more important than what you don’t.

The people who ask you questions are actually the people you need to continue to learn from.

So keep asking questions.

I recently hosted a guest speaker at an event. This man was 15 years my elder and is doing things far beyond my level of expertise. On our 30-minute drive from the airport back to his hotel, he had to have asked me 35 questions.

You know what I thought when I dropped him off that night? That guy is the real deal.

Stand Up and Stand Out

No one is going to make you stand out. For most of us, it’s time to get off our butts and get on our feet. It’s time to stand up, and as a result, stand out.

It is possible to make it to the top by doing the exact same thing as someone else. It’s rare but it is possible.

However, it’s not fulfilling. Never learning how to be yourself and leverage what you are uniquely able to contribute is a hollow life.

There’s no exact recipe for success, but a good framework is to start as a copycat, become a villain, and end as someone who asks great questions.