Where Should You Delegate Your Writing Time, Stories vs. Platform?

Does Your Platform Take Precedence?

With so much happening with our platform, blogging, and social media, it can feel like there is no time left for story writing. For me, I can go for weeks working on everything but my novel, a short story, or even a piece of flash fiction. 

Why does this happen? I believe novel writing gets pushed to the sidelines because it isn’t the most public part of our writing lives. For example, readers will miss your weekly blogpost more than they would miss your future book release being a week later. 

But is this the right way to view story writing? Should it take a backseat while we build our audience and platform? 

This is what we will be answering today, so if you’ve related to any of the above, get comfy and let’s get started! 

Your writing origin

Why did you decide to write?

For most of us fiction writers, the reason we began writing was because we fell in love with stories. We read stories, watched stories, and then wanted to write stories others would read. 

Now, why did you decide to build a platform?

Many of us decided to build a platform so we could share our stories with interested readers when we finished our story projects. See how it all comes back to stories? 

We started this journey to delve into the world of storytelling, so it seems illogical to forsake the story writing for our platform. 

While we can and do enjoy the blogging and connecting, the root of our writing started from stories. It is where our love began and passion grew, therefore, it is important to keep up. 

Blogging and marketing yourself is not a bad pursuit in the least—it is essential to our success—but not writing the stories that prompted you to write in the first place will make your passion burn slightly less bright.

Our platform is how we will find readers, but we still need to write the novels they will read, and—very importantly—we need to keep our story flame alive.

When we write stories we feel at home. It feels right. We must never give that up. 

By continuing the fiction side of our writing, we will not only be happier writers, but we will have even more love to shower upon our platform and readers. 

Make the time

This doesn’t mean the platform should be neglected, either. A great writing life balances the platform side with what we write behind the scenes. Neither should be forgotten. 

So how do we fit in time for both? We make time. 

There is no magic trick to gaining an hour of time. Sometimes this means cutting out your social media or tv watching, other times its being hyper focused on each task so you finish faster. 

If you have done all the above, you may need to go back to making story writing a priority.

Save even ten minutes in your day to read a book on your craft, do a writing exercise, or write a section of prose or dialogue. Unleash the joy of storytelling and take pleasure again in the creation of characters, world building, and the crafting of perfect sentences. 

It may feel wrong at first foregoing work on your website to focus on a story, but once you let yourself indulge, the pleasure you’ll have will renew your love and passion for this beautiful writing life. 

Never let the outside pressures keep you from telling your story. You need to write it, your readers need to read it, and all that can only happen if you take the time to do what you love. 

Write your story 

Stories are in a fiction writer’s blood. It is how we express our deepest hopes and pain. It’s how we connect with others. 

Never neglect storytelling. Keep building the platform, but don’t sacrifice the story you’ve dreamed of writing. Remember why you started this journey by keeping the goal of publishing in your mind’s eye. 

I’m saying this as much to you as a reminder to myself: Make the time to write your story. You won’t regret it. 

Featured photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash