A writer sits down to work — not to write, but to check. Notifications. Reach. Engagement. Who liked what. Who didn’t. What performed. What sank without trace. And somewhere along the way, the work itself becomes secondary. Not abandoned. Just… crowded out.
This is rarely a conscious choice. It’s a slow erosion — and it’s one of the most under-examined risks in contemporary writing careers.
I see strong manuscripts stall every year because the author believes that being “well written” will do the heavy lifting. In today’s market — traditional or indie — it won’t.
There’s a persistent myth in writing circles that truth justifies everything. It doesn’t. Saying “it really happened” doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. It just shifts the question from accuracy to impact.
Algorithms reward speed, consistency, recognisable hooks, and emotional immediacy. Contemporary and general fiction — at their best — tend to do the opposite. They linger. They complicate. They ask readers to stay with discomfort instead of scrolling past it. This is where many writers start bending themselves out of shape.
The first five years of a fiction career are rarely glamorous. So let’s simplify this. Not into rigid rules, but into useful focus. If I were sitting across the table from you with a notebook and a flat white, this is what I’d suggest you prioritise — in roughly this order.
Editors don’t expect perfection. They expect intent. Understanding that difference can change how confidently you send your work out into the world.
If reading your work aloud makes you freeze, dissociate, stumble so badly you can’t hear the sentence and/or feel self-conscious instead of analytical, you’re not broken. You’re just wired differently. There are other ways to do it— ways that respect neurodivergent (ND) brains.
Creative confidence isn’t a fixed trait. It’s relational. It exists between you and the work, between repetition and recognition. When that relationship pauses, confidence doesn’t disappear — it just stops being reinforced.
Most writers think doubt means something is wrong. But in practice, doubt shows up most reliably in writers who care deeply about what they’re making. The ones who are paying attention.
If you’re feeling unsure about how much direction to give an illustrator — or what you’re even allowed to ask — you’re not alone. And no, this isn’t something “everyone else just knows”. It’s a skill. One most writers are never taught. So let’s talk about it properly.
Writing contemporary and general fiction can be quietly lonely. There’s no shared monster to defeat. No obvious genre rules to rally around. Often, the work is subtle, personal, observational — which makes it powerful, but harder to do together.
That’s where community prompts and group writing projects really shine.
In contemporary and general fiction, grammar is not a set of decorative rules. It is the architecture that allows meaning to stand. When it works well, readers don’t notice it at all. They simply move through the story without friction, confusion, or unnecessary effort.
