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Writers Don’t Get to Collaborate Like Musicians

I envy musicians. Not just because they play music and entertain millions of people. Not just because they can spend hours and hours doing something they love, breaking silence with something that’s beautiful or joyful. Not because they can create magic with their instruments. (OK, yes, that. I learned bass guitar for a year during the pandemic, but haven’t touched it for several months.)

I envy them for their collaboration and support. I am jealous of the way that just a few talented musicians can get together, play for a couple hours, and make something that no one has ever heard. I’m jealous of the way they can swap out people and make something even differenter than the thing they did before. (Yes, I know that’s not a word. That’s something I can do that musicians can’t.)

This week, I listened to Justin Richmond interview Johnny Mathis on the Broken Record podcast. My mom loved Johnny Mathis, and we listened to his Christmas albums every year when I was a kid, so I didn’t want to miss this one.

In the interview, Johnny — Mr. Mathis — talked about how when he first went to New York, he visited jazz clubs to watch musician friends perform and that they would often ask him to go up on stage and sing with them. Or how he worked with other musician friends on different projects, singing on their records, or inviting them to sing on his.

Mathis was able to perform with whomever and wherever he had the opportunity. And he was able to choose who he wanted to work with, and the result was something unique and beautiful and was enjoyed by people all around the world, like my mom. It was this collaboration and cooperation that made him one of the most popular singers and artists of the 20th century.

Raspberry Pie (That’s my son on the right).
A little closer to home, I watch my son play bass guitar in a few different bands around Central Florida. He gets asked to play fairly frequently because there’s a shortage of good bass players, and because they know he’ll do a good job for them.

At some of his performances, the band leader will sometimes ask a musician friend to join them on stage for a song or two. Or he’ll participate in an improv jazz session with some friends, and the performance will be so seamless, it’s as if they had practiced together for hours and hours.

I envy musicians for their collaboration and ability to just slip into someone else’s ensemble. As long as they know what they’re doing, it’s seamless, and you wouldn’t know they hadn’t always been there.

Music is all about relationships. Not just the notes between rhythm and melody, but in finding people you can mesh with and trust. As long as they’ve got the skills and you can depend on them, you can make some excellent music together. You can even record that and share it with the entire world, or play it in front of a live audience of one person or 50,000 people all at once.

Writers don’t get to collaborate

Writers don’t get to collaborate, not in that way. Writing is a solitary event. You do it alone, and no one is there to help. It’s hours and hours of writing and editing, but no one is looking over your shoulder to give advice. No one is typing on one half of the keyboard while you type on the other. No one is laying down a funky verb line while you dance around a noun melody with a staccato punctuation drum beat keeping the rhythm.

Right now, I’m sitting in a local coffee shop writing this, and no one is helping me. They’re off in their own little solo performances, tapping away at a laptop, looking at their phone, or reading a book. One guy next to me is writing in a small notebook. (God bless the pen-and-notebook people.)

Oh, sure, you can have editors or fellow writers pore over your work and make it better. But they pore over it alone, give it back to you, and then you go off by yourself and fix it. Then you can share it with the world, where it’s read by one person or 50,000 people all at once.

But you don’t receive real-time feedback as people read your book. You’ll never experience a room full of people all reading your book at the same time, cheering at the good parts or applauding at the end of each chapter.

Working together isn’t really collaboration. Not like musicians do.

There are three ways writers can work together on a project, but I wouldn’t call it true collaboration.

  • Split the project in half and work on it. Like, dividing up chapters of a book and writing them individually — like Kyle Lacy and I or Jason Falls and I did on our books. You may be working together, but it’s not an ensemble, it’s a group of individuals all working at different times.
  • Share a Google Doc and write in the same document at the same time. Jason and I did that in the first chapter of No Bullshit Social Media. We decided we hated it and never did it again. I would hate to try to do this with several writers at once.
  • Sit in a room full of other writers and shout out ideas while one person writes them all down. This is how writers rooms work, especially for comedies, and I would dearly love to be in one of those for a day. This is the closest to real collaboration, but even then, each line comes from a single person and is improved on by other individuals. Sure, they piggyback off each other, but they’re not making music.

But those opportunities are rare. Or, in the case of the Google Docs thing, terrible.

So writers are left to their own devices and can’t collaborate to make beautiful work in the same way musicians do. And for that, I envy them.

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What Kinds of Content Can You Create Based on Writers’ Archetypes

A few weeks ago, I (re)published a blog article called The Eight Writers’ Archetypes and the kinds of things they write. This breaks down the writing field beyond just fiction and non-fiction. It looks at the different areas where writers can work in education, news, politics, PR, marketing, and fiction.

Here’s a truncated version of the eight writers’ archetypes.

The 8 writer archetypes. Each one is a progression of the one that comes before it.
  1. Informer: These are the journalists and the news writers. They tell us the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the world.
  2. Analyst: What does the news mean? What can we infer from the latest political polls? What will the U.S. pandemic relief package do to the economic recovery? The political pundits, the economists, the financial gurus are all Analysts.
  3. Educator: Writers who convey knowledge to help others learn. It’s more than just being an Informer because their readers presumably already know how something works. The writer who writes to intentionally teach is an Educator.
  4. Chronicler: The Chronicler is the observer of the human condition. You find a lot of newspaper columnists here. They’re not quite news-tellers (Informers), but they don’t fit anywhere else. Historians are usually found among the Chroniclers.
  5. Advocate: The rabble-rouser with a pen. They observe the human condition, but they speak for those who have no voice to effect change. The Advocate brings awareness to a cause to get people to care about it and be informed.
  6. Persuader: One step beyond the Advocate, the Persuader gets people to take action on something, but not necessarily a social cause. Political speechwriters, people in ministry, and public relations people work here, but marketers do not.
  7. Merchant: The Merchant is a Persuader who gets people to spend money (i.e. Marketing). You could call this a subset of Persuader, but this is the only writing archetype where the primary focus is to get people to spend money.
  8. Entertainer: Writers of fiction, poetry, stage plays, screenplays. Anything you would read, watch, or hear for entertainment or escapism lives here.

I also said that it’s not uncommon for writers to bounce around between the different archetypes. For example, a typical writing week will see me bounce from Educator to Merchant to Entertainer to Chronicler, sometimes all in a day.

Others can mash a couple archetypes together. For example, an entertainer-merchant is someone who regularly writes short pulp novels strictly with an eye toward making money, not art. The Chronicler-Advocate observes the human condition in the hopes of changing it, like a columnist with a partisan publication. Even an Educator-Merchant is possible, with people teaching webinars and seminars on some topic, but in exchange for money. (We all need to make a living, yes?)

Can content marketing fit within the Writers’ Archetypes??

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer, it depends on what your goal is. Any of these eight archetypes’ “hats” can be worn when you’re trying to create regular content for your company’s website. Let me show you.

  1. Informer: How does your product work? What problems does it solve? Did you know you can do this with it? If nothing else, this content only serves to boost your SEO efforts, provided it’s interesting and well-written. (Don’t just put up flat bullshit content to bulk up your website.) Company history fits here, as does your About Us page. These are also important for your website, so don’t neglect them.
  2. Analyst: What’s going on in your industry? What does it mean for your customers? What’s happening in your company and what does that mean? We all ask “how does this affect me?” This is where you answer those questions. Show people your expertise by answering that question about your industry’s news.
  3. Educator: How do I do this better? How can I get better at my job? A lot of the content I write for this blog is educational because I’m actually teaching new content marketers about how to do their jobs better. Can you do that for your customers?
  4. Chronicler: This one is a little tougher. You could put case studies in here because they’re little mini-histories. “Company A had a problem that was costing them $X. Company B brought Company A a solution. It worked so well, it saved them $Y.” If you can answer the question “What happened and what does it mean?” it fits here.
  5. Advocate: This person is almost a non-profit Marketer. We want you to change your beliefs, at least long enough to give us money. Your stories are just like a Chronicler’s, but there’s a deeper lesson you want us to learn from it. Think of the nonprofit asking for money by introducing us to one particular person that they’ve helped in the past.
  6. Persuader: Content that gets us to take action, but maybe not spend money. Sign up for our newsletter, follow us on Twitter, write to your elected officials. These are all persuasive actions that don’t require us to spend money.
  7. Merchant: This is the “BUY THIS NOW” content. The advertising copy, the catalog copy, the sales messages. The Merchant content is written strictly to separate customers from their money.
  8. Entertainer: This is a tough one. Content marketing that is written strictly for entertainment purposes is few and far between. However, it can be done. This is where you find the unusual content pieces, like a comic book, radio play, podcast, or even a magazine. As Neil Gaiman said in 2012, “Make good art.” That’s what you should do, but no one said the art couldn’t make money too.

If you’re a writer or content creator of any type, you can branch over into another type and get your feet wet. Don’t pigeonhole yourself and think “I’m only a copywriter” or “I only make podcasts.” You can play in other areas because you already have the basic tools you need. Copywriters can write poetry and short stories. Podcasters can make audio theater or collaborate with a novelist and make audiobooks.

Expand beyond what you think you can create and find something new. Figure out ways to offer that kind of content on your website. Go beyond the dry old blogs about products and start offering a little more, even if it’s telling stories about past victories and customers you’ve helped. Make them entertaining and fun to read. Use those great writing skills to get more people to like what you have to say about your company.

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Eight Writer Archetypes: Which One Are You?

As writers and content marketers, most of us fit more than one writer archetype.

Not the kind of writer. I don’t mean classifying writers by fiction or nonfiction, business or technical, poet or PR flak, or even a specific genre. Rather, I’m referring to your tribe of fellow writers who do the same style of work you do, even if it’s for a different company, publication, or industry.

Carl Jung originally used the term archetype to refer to a collective pattern of thought present in every individual — self, shadow, animus, anima, and persona.

We have seen other archetypes in different books, plays, and movies throughout the centuries. Here are a few examples.

  • Hero: Luke Skywalker, Rey Skywalker, Diana Prince (Wonder Woman), Harry Potter.
  • Wise old man: Often the mentor in the Hero’s Journey. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dumbledore, Patches O’Houlihan.
  • Great mother: Cinderella’s fairy godmother, Queen Hippolyta, Minerva McGonagall.
  • Trickster: Deadpool, Loki, Bugs Bunny, Zaphod Beeblebrox.
  • Child: Peter Pan, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, Forrest Gump.
  • Devil: Voldemort, Darth Vader, Cinderella’s stepmother

And on and on. Basically, if you recognize these archetypes, then you know what an archetype is.

Writers can be collected into different archetypes as well. Different collective patterns of thought help us define who we are. We may not know it or put words to the ideas and motivations, but these collective patterns are what drive our work. You could almost say they’re the ultimate purpose that we’re feeling.

I’ve been thinking about writer archetypes and came up with my own classifications. Based on my own extensive research — I did three different Google searches — I can’t find anything else like it. (Which is odd because writers love to talk about this kind of thing.)

The Eight Writer Archetypes

So here are the eight Writer Archetypes I’ve come up with. Which one are you?

  • Informer: These are the journalists and the news writers. They tell us the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the world. If you read it in a newspaper or watched it on the news, you’re hearing from an Informer. Sportswriters and entertainment reporters are also Informers.
  • Analyst: What does the news mean? What can we infer from the latest political polls? What will the U.S. pandemic relief package do to the economic recovery? The political pundits, the economists, the financial gurus are all Analysts. The Informer gave you the latest Dow report, but it’s the Analyst who goes on CNBC and tells you why it’s good or bad. A news story will tell the latest job numbers, but the economist tells you whether that means the economy is up or down. Sports columnists are often Analysts.
  • Educator: Writers who convey knowledge to help others learn. It’s more than just being an Informer because their readers presumably already know how something works. Whether it’s a textbook, a technical manual, or even just a series of blog posts that teach you about trading cryptocurrency, the writer who writes to intentionally teach is an Educator. Many bloggers and business book authors live in this space, choosing to build their personal brand and expertise by teaching instead of selling directly.
  • Chronicler: The Chronicler is the observer of the human condition. You find a lot of newspaper columnists here. They’re not quite news-tellers (Informers), but they don’t fit anywhere else. Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel is one, as was Studs Terkel and his 45-year radio program. Historians are usually found among the Chronicler ranks, as are a few novelists and many creative nonfiction writers.
  • Advocate: The rabble-rouser with a pen. They observe the human condition, but they speak for those who have no voice to effect change. The Advocate brings awareness to a cause to get people to care about it and be informed. The Bilerico Project is an Advocate for the LGBT community, Our Human Family advocates for racial equality. (Disclosure: I write a monthly column for OHF and serve on their board.) You can even learn to be an activist writer at Bowling Green State University.
  • Persuader: One step beyond the Advocate, the Persuader works to get people to take action on something, but not necessarily a social cause. Political speechwriters are Persuaders, people in ministry are Persuaders, as is anyone who wants their reader to change their mind about a belief, opinion, or value. Public relations people work here, but marketers do not. That’s because a marketer is actually a. . .
  • Merchant: The Merchant is a Persuader who gets people to spend money. You could call this a subset of Persuader, but this is the only writing archetype where the primary focus is to get people to spend money. The other writers may hope to get money for what they do, but it’s not their function. Advertisers, grant writers, content marketers, and sales copywriters are Merchants.
  • Entertainer: Writers of fiction, poetry, stage plays, screenplays. Anything you would read, watch, or hear for entertainment or escapism lives here. You read a novel, watch a play or a TV show, or listen to a radio play written by the Entertainer. Many Entertainers can easily put one foot in the other archetypes — the Chronicler novelist, the Educator radio theater playwright, the Advocate stage playwright, but if they can only wear one hat, it’s the Entertainer’s.

As I imagined and developed these archetypes, I envisioned them on a wheel. Each writer archetype is a modified version of the one that came before it, and it sometimes dips into the next archetype. The Analyst builds on the work of the Informer, while the Educator teaches you to understand what the Analyst meant. The Chronicler educates people about life in another place, and the Advocate wants you to know how important that place is. And so on.

The 8 writer archetypes. Each one is a progression of the one that comes before it.

The Writer Archetypes are NOT a Process. And You’re Not Limited to Just One.

But, this is not a natural process of writing. You don’t start out as an Informer and move around the clock as time goes by, progressing from one role to the next. You can make the jump from archetype to archetype within a career, a year, or a single day.

There are plenty of journalists (Informer) who became novelists (Entertainer), or Educators who take the plunge into the marketing world (Merchant), especially as content marketing becomes more educational in nature. And, of course, there are plenty of people who stay in the same archetype their entire lives.

And in some cases, you may even be working under two or even three archetypes at the same time: For example, someone in content marketing could be an Analyst-Merchant. People who write (and teach) about social justice issues are Educator-Advocates. And I’m sure there are more than a few Entertainer-Chroniclers out there.

I’m still fleshing out this idea and trying to develop it further. If you have any thoughts, ideas, or recommendations, let me hear about them. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

(This post was originally written on March 14, 2013, and it has been edited, revised, and updated.)

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Five Ways to Make Your Written Content Suck

I’ve had an epiphany. Content marketers don’t really care if they create excellent written content. That’s the only explanation I can think of. Despite the mountains of classes, webinars, books, and “FIVE TIPPY-TOP MOSTEST IMPORTANT CONTENT MARKETING SECRETS IN ALL THE WORLD!!” blog posts, content marketers aren’t listening.

They seem to think, “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me. Not old Stevie*. I can keep pumping out dreck, because my stuff is different/better/important, and my readers are big fans/generously forgiving/mindless drones.” And they double down on their bad content like a politician after a racist campaign gaffe.

Maybe they actually want to be bad. Maybe that’s their goal: to produce something so execrably bad that you can’t help but read or watch it — the Sharknado of content marketing.

If that’s your goal, here are the five best ways you can make your content marketing suck out loud.

1. Use lots of jargon.

Gill’s Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon

Use words that sort of sound like English, but not entirely. Use words that end in -ize whenever possible. And turn verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs.

“We’re going to incentivize learners to dialogue with their classroom practitioners as a way to optimize learning methodologies.”

If you use words your readers can easily recognize and understand, you’re not trying hard enough.

2. Use adverbs and adjectives.

Because no one believes what you have to say, unless it’s really super amazing and awesome.

“Our bleeding-edge new Mapplethorpe app isn’t like the other 900 photo filter apps. It lets you take some of the bestest, most breathtaking, wondrous, aneurysm-inducing photos you’ve ever taken. Until we release version 1.5.”

This is especially useful if you’re writing a press release, because it tells the journalists your product isn’t like all those other products in all those other press releases. You mean it! You have real news!

Combine these previous two tips to crank your content’s Suck knob up to 11.

3. Publish your first draft.

Writers — real writers, that is — are never quite happy with their work. They’re always wasting time, rewriting and improving their work, trying to squeeze blood and tears out of every word.

Which means you shouldn’t waste your time doing that.

Just splooge out whatever pops into that fancy brain of yours, hit Publish, and bada-bing, bada-boom! Blog post!

This is especially useful for those content marketers who try to publish something every day. Your practice of writing all five blog posts in 90 minutes on a Sunday afternoon has been working perfectly for you. Keep up the good work.

4. Why use one word when five will do?

Journalists, especially newspaper reporters spend many long years honing their craft, learning to cut a lot of needless words from their written work trim the fat. So wWhy should you let all those extra words go to waste? They’re just lying around on the ground, waiting for someone just like you to pick them up and use them in their own work. Why can’t that someone it be you?

See all the mistakes I made there, all those fat juicy words I struck out? My sentences are usually spartan and simple, but this one was a ready-to-burst tick, until I ruined it.

One of the best ways to make your written content suck is to create a lot of it. Fill your articles with extra words. This way, you can write less, but their bloatedness adds to your weekly word count, and that’s all that really matters.

People are going to quit reading your stuff anyway, so why not make your message harder to find? Maybe they’ll stick around and search for it. It’ll be like a treasure hunt.

5. Why use one syllable when three will do?

Not only is it incumbent upon you, esteemed content marketer, to utilize an increased number of words, it’s imperative you leverage the greatest number of multi-syllabic words as possible.

Because if there’s one thing people love to do, it’s slog through a Master’s thesis answer to a simple question. If they ask you what time it is, explain how to build a watch. In German.

So retrieve your thesaurus and make extensive preparations to dazzle your readership with your encyclopedic knowledge concerning your lucrative speciality. I’m positive they will express their warmest gratitude to you.

* I’m not actually picking on content marketers named Stevie. I just needed a name to put in there. So if you’re named Stevie (or Steve), don’t worry, I’m not calling you out.

Photo credit: Joe Mabel (Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License)

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5 Secrets Writers Can Learn from Actors

One thing I love about being a creative professional is the kinship with my fellow creatives. We understand the life — the instability, the random free time, and the unreliable flow of money — and we share a knowing-yet-slightly-sad smile when we meet. We get each other.

I had a chance this past April to talk with actor David Schmittou when he was in Indianapolis, playing “The Man in the Chair” in Beef & Board Theatre’s The Drowsy Chaperone (you can read my review of it here).

I wasn’t sure what I wanted when we sat down. I just wanted to see what I could learn from someone who got to be “someone else” professionally. Actors get to lie about who they are; writers lie about everything else.

So David and I sat outside at Paradise Café for nearly two hours, talking about the creative life. He told me about acting, what it’s like to be a working actor, and many of the different roles he’s played. He told me lessons he’s learned from working with people or taking classes from some of the biggest names in the industry.

That got me to thinking about how the keys to good acting are similar to the keys to good writing. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, short stories or content marketing, good writers can learn from good actors.

I didn’t write anything down. I didn’t want to disrupt his flow. As if I moved, it would startle him, and he would realize what he was doing and stop. So I made sure to remember the important points, and wrote them down in the car.

These are a few of the ideas I got from two brilliant hours with David Schmittou.

1. Create and absorb as many tiny details as possible.

David Schmittou in Beef & Boards’ production of “The Drowsy Chaperone”
When you’re acting, these details will inform the way the character reacts in certain situations. It might even be a very tiny thing, like setting the needle on a record on stage in just the right place, even though no one is going to hear it, because that’s what we do in real life. Or making sure you put on side 1 in Act 1, and side 2 in Act 2. No one will see this, no one will know, but you will absorb it into your role, and it can have a powerful effect on your performance.

For Hemingway, details were crucial, even if you omitted most of them. That’s what he called The Iceberg Theory (the 1/8 of an iceberg that we see is supported by the 7/8 we don’t). If a writer knows a lot about a subject, he or she can leave certain things out, and the reader would still feel their presence. But if a writer doesn’t know a lot about a topic, and leaves certain things out, there’s a hollowness to the work.

An actor who only recites lines and offers up the barest of tiny details in their actions is wooden and not very memorable. A writer who does it is plain and uninteresting.

2. Live in the world of the play.

Don’t think of yourself as an actor on a stage, David said, be in that world. Absorb the character and imagine you’re him or her. Don’t think about after the show, don’t think about the argument you had with the director. Be present in that world, not this one. For David in The Drowsy Chaperone, he was in New York City, in his apartment, listening to his favorite record of his favorite musical, chasing away the blues.

For writers, especially fiction writers, this means being more than a story teller looking at their story as if they’re watching television. It means being in the world, notebook in hand, chronicling what you see, dodging bullets, storming the castle, and shooting at spaceships.

If you can immerse yourself in the world, you see more details, the experience becomes fuller, and you’re able to deliver a better performance/product to your audience.

3. Create a back story for your character.

Write scenes and short stories about characters. In his mind, David created a whole back story for the Man in the Chair, what he did for work, why he was single (“Since this was the 1970s, he had been married, but was unhappy, because he didn’t know what it meant to be gay,” David told me.)

Oftentimes, characters don’t come with back stories. They don’t have relationships spelled out. Did the Man in the Chair have friends? Why isn’t he with them? Does he get along with his mother? What kind of job does he have? Actors have to answer those questions themselves.

Writers, especially TV writers, will write create a “show bible,” which spells out character back stories, small details, likes and dislikes, and anything that might become important later on. They’ll write out scenes between characters that will never see the light of day, just to know how they would act and react.

If you can know why your characters are made the way they are, who influenced them, and why they like or don’t like other people, this becomes one of those very important iceberg details that shape your writing.

4. Base characters on yourself and other people.

David’s portrayal of the Man in the Chair was based on people he knew, and not past performances. He never even saw the play until he had already done the role once or twice. But he based the mannerisms and the back story on people in his life.

When Hemingway created characters for his stories, he modeled them after people he actually knew. He just changed their names. By using real people, he already had the back story written, he knew the tiny details, and he could more easily inhabit their world.

In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway said:

Goddamn it you took liberties with peoples’ pasts and futures that produced not people but damned marvellously faked case histories. . . You could write a fine book about Gerald and Sara for instance if you knew enough about them and they would not have any feeling, except passing, if it were true.

In essence, don’t make up people, because the characters will be fake. Instead, write about real people and make minor changes.

By using real people, you can create real characters who are emotionally rich and deep, not shallow caricatures or archetypes.

5. Listen carefully and react to the other actors.

Actors need to listen to their fellow actors on stage. Whether it’s traditional theatre or improv, listening is a crucial skill. You never know when an actor is going to make a mistake, say the wrong thing, or even change their mood or inflection of their next line. Actors have to be able to react to what was just said, not automatically say what they were going to say.

Sometimes fiction writers will “let the characters take over.” They let their characters act and react to what’s happening on the page. I’ve written stories where I have a basic idea of what should happen, only to have the two characters take the story in a completely different direction.

What’s really happening is the writers imagine how their characters would react in certain situations, and write that down instead. Rather than forcing actions and conversations to reach a certain end, the writer just holds on and goes along for the ride. This can only happen when writers live in the world of their story, create a back story for their characters, and base them on real people they know.

In the nonfiction world, sometimes “you” are the person you should listen to. Imagine yourself delivering your article as a speech, and write what you would say. Build on knowledge, feeding one idea into the next. If you can’t do step 2 without doing step 1 first, put the steps in the right order. This isn’t a mystery to be solved or a secret to be revealed. Listen to the way you would teach this knowledge, and write that.

When you get a chance to meet someone whose work inspires you, take it. When you get a chance to talk about the creative process with other creative people, take it. With a little lateral thinking, you never know what you might learn.

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Three Questions Marketing Agencies Should Ask (and One They Shouldn’t) When Hiring Writers

Hiring writers at marketing agencies can be a crapshoot if you’re not careful. There’s really no one path that makes someone suitable to be a writer. But too many times, agencies think they need someone who fits a specific mold.

When they find the mold-fitting writer, they find he or she just wasn’t quite what they were looking for. The problem is, a candidate may look good on paper, but when you get down to it, they’re not even close to being an acceptable fit.

Maybe they studied English grammar, but they suck at story telling. Maybe they’re a brilliant creative writer, but they know absolutely nothing about business. Or maybe they’re a trained journalist, but they specialize in news writing, which isn’t just dry, it’s Sahara arid.

And maybe the best available writer was turned away because they didn’t have the “correct” qualifications.

If you want to find the best possible writer for your marketing agency, here are three questions you should ask every candidate, and one you shouldn’t.

1. When did you first call yourself a writer?
This is a tricky question, because a real writer has struggled with this question for years. (It’s how you can tell the real writers from the poseurs.) And you have to ask it in this way — “when did you first call yourself a writer?” — because real writers have a story about their answer.

We’re not quite sure when we “have permission” to call ourselves writers. For some, it’s when they publish their first book; for others, it’s the first time they sold a story or article. But the point is there’s a journey and a realization that goes along with finally calling ourselves a writer. And if someone has that story, they’re a real writer.

People who call themselves a writer without giving it any thought don’t give writing any thought either.

Don’t worry if a candidate still struggles with calling themselves a writer. That’s a good sign, because it means they take their craft so seriously, and they want to do such a good job, they won’t just slap that label on themselves without proving themselves first.

(In my own business, when I hire freelance writers, this is the only question I really pay attention to. It’s a strategy that has served me well for six years.)

2. What do you do for personal enjoyment?
Regardless of whatever else they say, one of the things they list must be “reading.” If they don’t read for fun, they’re not serious about writing. Every good writer I know does two things: 1) they write every day, and 2) they read every day for fun. It’s a form of practice.

High-performance athletes often use visualization as a form of practice. They imagine certain plays, techniques, or moves, or they watch game film. To sports psychologists, visualization is a form of practice that’s almost as effective as the actual physical practice.

When writers read, it’s like Peyton Manning watching hours and hours of game film: we’re still practicing, we’re still learning, we’re still honing our craft. We’re not just putting words into our brain, we’re absorbing styles, techniques, and new ideas.

3. What kinds of things did you write in college/What kinds of things do you write outside of work?
You want your candidates to have extra writing experience, and not just in the classroom or for work. A recent grad may have worked on the school newspaper, literary magazine, or school comedy troupe. A veteran writer may have a regular column in a sport fishing magazine. But they need to have something else in their portfolio.

Even if they regularly submit work to literary magazines that gets rejected, that’s fine. You just want to know they believe enough in their craft that they put themselves out there with it. You want the person who loves writing so much, they do it as a hobby as well as a job.

A computer engineer once told me the only college grads he hired were those who also did tech — software, robotics, whatever — for fun at home. It meant they were continuing to learn, and didn’t just limit their knowledge to whatever came from the classroom. He said these people knew more about their jobs than those who only did their coursework.

And the question you should avoid. . .

4. Do you have a degree in English, Journalism, or Communication?
These are supposedly the three writing degrees, but having one doesn’t necessarily mean the person can even write. I knew someone who had a journalism degree, but was hands down possibly the worst — and slowest — writer I ever met.

Having a degree does not equal having the ability.

Having one of these degrees could even mean the candidate studied 18th century British literature, specialized in photojournalism, or studied interpersonal communication.

Having a degree does not even equal having the knowledge.

Meanwhile, I have a B.S. in Philosophy and an M.A. in Higher Education, but I have a writing career many trained writers would envy. Yet, some marketing agencies won’t give me a second look because I have the wrong degrees. Don’t let your HR department dictate the kinds of people you get to interview.

Writing is a skill that can be mastered without the benefit of training and “proper” education. Plenty of famous and outstanding writers learned how to write without having a degree in the Big Three. They did it by reading a lot, writing as often as they could for as many publications as possible, and overcoming the struggle of whether to call themselves a writer.

If your marketing agency — a place that most likely prides itself on creativity and thinking outside the box — is looking for a new writer, ask these three questions (and skip the 4th) and you’ll find the best writer for the job.