If you’re an aspiring writer and often find yourself wondering how to take the next step with your writing or maybe you want more guidance on what that next step might be, then, the chances are, you could benefit from having a writing mentor - whether it’s for poetry, prose or drama.

How does it work? 

A writing mentor will be a published writer you pay to have a session with to gain their expertise and feedback on your writing. You agree on a schedule but usually mentors meet with mentees about once a month, depending on the schedule or goal that is being pursued. If there is a writer you like, it may well be that they take on mentees for a fee (more and more writers do this now) or if they don’t have that information publicly available, you could always drop them a line and ask them politely whether they’re open to that. However, ideally, you want to work with someone who is an experienced mentor and know how to get the best out of you and your writing. Most writers will have a section of their website which explains their approach and terms. You can check mine out here, read testimonials from clients I’ve worked with and browse my mentoring subscription plans here, whatever stage you’re at with your work. 

So, here are my 7 reasons why getting a writing mentor can help your work:

1. Improve your writing

The first benefit is that working with a published writer will improve your technique and give you new ways of thinking about what’s possible with your writing. You may not even be aware of the technical improvements you can make to your work, or of the ways in which you could make a subtle change to, say, the tense of your writing which will have a transformative impact on it. 

2. Boost your confidence

Working with a published writer will help you to start seeing yourself as a writer, and that writing is as much about a process and journey as opposed to any unreachable destination. Having regular meetings with a mentor, sharing your work with them (which in itself is a daunting thing to do) can really start to make you build up your self-esteem as a writer, and more importantly, give you a way into the conversation involved in the writing process.

3. Define goals and work towards them

While some people may want a mentor to meet with infrequently and show work to every now and again, the best way to make the most out of a mentor is by setting a goal for your writing, which helps to focus the relationship and give it a strong sense of purpose. For example, it might be that you want to write a short story within six months, and then edit it, with a view to entering a competition by the end of that year. The mentor will help you work towards this with a step-by-step plan, giving you their critical insights all the way through. 

4. Save time

The writer’s life is a solitary one, but its nature, however getting critical feedback on your writing is essential in order to improve. By working with a published writer, someone who has already made a multitude of mistakes and can give you shortcuts where possible to better writing. Even if there are no shortcuts to becoming a better writer, working with a published writer can definitely help in many respect, particularly when it comes to editing your work efficiently.

5. Form good writing habits

Writing is so much about habit, about sitting down to the desk and ploughing on, and allowing the ideas a chance to surface. Meeting with a mentor regularly means that you have to have work to show them, which will force you to make time to sit down and write. So, simply by planning a meeting with a mentor, you’re already setting yourself a deadline.

6. Become more accountable

Life is busy and we can all get a bit flaky when it comes to deadlines, particularly if it’s non-urgent and not related to a professional capacity. If you feel like you’d benefit from a more disciplined approach, though, you might want to start thinking about getting a mentor, who will set deadlines for you and make you accountable for your time. So, getting a mentor, then, isn’t just about making you a more accomplished writer, but it’s also about making you a more disciplined one. The habit of writing is hard to gain, but easily lost - you have to keep it up, and a mentor, in this respect, can be your cheerleader.

7. Get published

Do you want to get your writing published? Of course you do - all aspiring writers want that. But how can you make that happen? A mentor will be able to give you very clear guidance on what stage you are at with your writing and what you need to do next to get closer to publication. They can advise you on which prizes to enter, or which journals your work might have a better chance of being published in. More importantly, they will tell you clearly what you need to do with your writing in order to get it into shape to impress publishers. 

So, what are you waiting for?

 If you’re serious about improving your writing, start looking for a mentor who will only be happy to help. Speaking as a mentor, myself, there’s no better feeling than seeing a mentee get their first publication and knowing you’ve played a small part in encouraging them to take their first steps into publication. 

Andrew is available for 1-2-1 mentoring online. Browse his mentoring subscription services here or get in touch with him to start planning your project.