David Sedaris’s Top 13 Writing Tips
David Sedaris has sold over 12 million books in 27 different languages. You’ve likely seen his oddly named essay collections prominently displayed on the shelves of your local bookstore: Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, among others.
Sedaris is a gifted storyteller who writes with comedic flair. He recently shared his top writing tips in a MasterClass on storytelling and humor.
If you haven’t yet spent the $180/year for a MasterClass subscription, you can find Sedaris’s top 13 writing tips here:
1. Turn your worst experiences into your best stories
“You’re so privileged to be a writer. Normal people, something bad happens to them and there’s nothing they can do with it except feel bad or complain or press charges.” -David Sedaris
Sad stories, dashed dreams, and memorable mistakes are ammunition for writers. Any experience can be converted into a story, and rough experiences often make the best stories.
Sedaris says he goes out of his way to say “yes” to weird experiences that could end tragically: “I just figured, if I live, I can write about it. That’s how I’ve always thought.”
As a writer, failure is soil for growing heartfelt stories. Vulnerability is a powerful draw. Write down your biggest failures, then review the list to see which ones can be marshaled into relatable stories for your readers.
2. Watch for stories all around you
“If you’re tuned in, life feels like a story…Every now and then, your subject comes just right to you and sits in your lap, and if you’re awake, you think, ‘Wow, there it is, right there: the thing to write about.’” -David Sedaris
Many people think of writers as quiet homebodies, but often, the writers who are out doing interesting things are the ones who generate the best material for stories.
Sedaris explains that no stories will come “sit in your lap” if you’re sitting on the couch all day or gazing at your phone every time you’re outside.
Go experience the world. Become a keen observer of people and nature. Refuse to entertain yourself with your phone every time you wait in line to do something. Watch life unfold around you — while waiting at a stoplight, while standing in line at the coffee shop, while walking down the street. Then relay your observations in your writing.
3. Pay attention to others’ reactions
“When you’re talking to people, notice what people laugh at. If you tell a story and someone laughs and then they ask you some follow-up questions, that’s a pretty good indication that that might be a good thing to write about. Carry a notebook. Make note of those times.” -David Sedaris
Sedaris loves to read his work on stage because it enables him to see the audience’s reaction. He notes when people laugh (or don’t laugh), then fine-tunes each story further before his next reading. In other words, his work improves with every single reading.
Other writers achieve this same effect by sharing their stories with friends over coffee or dinner.
Find a way to get live feedback from readers. Then use that feedback to not only improve each specific story, but also to learn what types of jokes and stories most resonate with others.
4. Treat your subjects with respect
“It’s such a balancing act when you’re writing about a real person. Everybody has their secrets, and I do not want to expose anyone’s secrets…I don’t want to embarrass anybody. Whenever I write about someone in my family, I give it to them first and I say, ‘Is there anything you want me to change or get rid of?’ and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what they would object to.” -David Sedaris
David invited his sister Lisa to join him for one segment of his MasterClass. The two siblings talked about whether David ever crosses the line in his writing, and Lisa said even though David often exposes funny things about her that she hadn’t noticed before, she always feels cared for in his writing. She said it would be hard to be mad at him for anything he writes because he’s just making humorous observations about true things in her life.
“I don’t want to run into somebody who I’ve said horrible things about in print,” says Sedaris. “I don’t want to have to worry when I walk into a room that there’s gonna be somebody there angry. I don’t like to write about people who I don’t like until they die.”
Anyone who writes nonfiction will find themselves wondering how much to reveal about real people and events. That’s a natural consequence of being a writer, and you will sometimes make mistakes. Focus on telling an honest story and treating the person with respect.
5. Help people see themselves
“I feel like now people want more of a mirror. They want to see themselves in the book that they’re reading.” -David Sedaris
In the same way that David helps his sister Lisa see aspects of herself she hasn’t noticed before, every writer must help readers view themselves in a new way. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, you can help readers see a new side of humanity with every piece you write.
If you’re writing a novel, give your villain a sympathetic positive trait to make the character more complex and relatable. If you’re writing an article about leadership, share the emotions you felt when you lost your team’s trust. If you’re writing a profile piece on someone famous, introduce the reader to that person’s mother or best friend that can explain what they’re like in a more accessible way. Plant a piece of your readers inside every story you tell.
6. Laugh at yourself
“You can’t write humor and not be able to laugh at yourself…It’s not fair to laugh at everyone else and not laugh at yourself.” -David Sedaris
If you write humor, you’d better include a few jokes at your own expense. And even if you don’t write humor, you can also apply this principle to other forms of writing.
People don’t want to read self-help articles from a writer who isn’t willing to share personal struggles. They don’t want to read an op-ed from someone who won’t acknowledge the weaknesses of their own argument. Readers want to know that you’re willing to turn the critical lens upon yourself whenever that’s necessary.
Acknowledge your own failures. Don’t point the finger at anyone else without also examining your own struggles. Laugh at yourself.
7. Develop daily discipline
“The most important thing for you is to develop discipline for writing, is to set a time and sit down and stay at your desk for a certain amount of time and then up it and up it and up it…And you need to keep in mind that as long as you’re there and as long as you do it every day and as long as you read everything you can get your hands on, you are going to get better.” -David Sedaris
Every successful writer includes discipline in their formula for writing success. Although many writers have different benchmarks for the number of words they try to hit each day (you’ll hear everything from 500 words per day up to 10,000), everyone emphasizes the importance of consistency.
“I wrote every day for 15 years before my first book came out,” says Sedaris. “That seemed normal to me.”
Writing discipline is important. Find what that looks like for you, and slowly try to increase the amount of time you spend doing the rigorous, painstaking work of sitting at your writing desk.
8. Cut through the excuses
“You know, I’ve met so many people who say, ‘Well, I really want to write, but I work all day.’ So did I. You work all day, and then you come home and you write. If it means that much to you, you’re gonna find the time to do it. That’s never an excuse — to say that you don’t have the time.” -David Sedaris
Creative people tend to be talented procrastinators. Our limitless creative powers find countless excuses for why we can’t or shouldn’t write today.
But at the end of the day, all that really matters is the work. Everything else (updating your blog, marketing your work, chatting with other writers, checking your Medium stats, etc.) is window-dressing. It’s all worthless without the writing itself.
Treat yourself like a professional. Don’t tolerate the excuses any longer. If you’ve been wanting to write, then write. Writing won’t suddenly become easier tomorrow. That’s not how it works. Get to work.
9. Don’t half-ass it
“There are a lot of people out there who are happy to give 10 percent, but I don’t know any of them. I don’t know their names because they don’t have any books.” -David Sedaris
Oh snap. He went there. In his MasterClass, Sedaris talks about how many people come up to him at book tours talking about the novel they’re going to write. But ultimately, he doesn’t care about someone’s future novel. Neither should you.
All that matters is right now. Are you writing now? Are you working on something now? Or are you just doing the easy job of talking about a future project that you’ll never ultimately begin?
The only person who can hold you accountable is you. No one else will make you write. No one else will know whether you put in five minutes or five hours today on your book. But you are the only person who matters.
10. Forget about the publishing part
“Don’t confuse publishing with writing. They’re two completely different things. Let the world take care of the publishing part. That’s not your job.” -David Sedaris
No artist can control the world’s reception to their art. You may spend fifty hours on a poem that five people read. You may spend five years on a book that not a single publisher will purchase. That’s how it works.
Don’t focus on the publishing part right now. Focus on doing what you love. Focus on writing the absolute best piece that you can with the talents you’ve cultivated. Then go write the next one.
11. Allow yourself to imitate others
“I think also it’s really normal when you first start off as a writer that you imitate other writers. And that’s perfectly okay. It’s just normal. You do the same with visual art.” -David Sedaris
In college, Sedaris’s writing professor applauded one of Sedaris’s stories as being an excellent parody of Raymond Carver’s work. The problem was that Sedaris hadn’t set out to write a parody. He had unwittingly copied Carver’s writing style because he had been reading a lot of Carver’s work. But that’s sometimes what happens when you begin writing.
Neil Gaiman says, “After you’ve written 10,000 words, 30,000 words, 60,000 words, 150,000 words, a million words, you will have your voice, because your voice is the stuff you can’t help doing.”
Before you reach your million words, you will inevitably end up copying the style of other writers. For now, don’t worry about that. Focus on discipline and constant improvement. Your style will find you.
12. Cater to short attention spans
“You know, when you pick up a book, the author’s skill is making you turn the page from 273 to 274 because you want to know what happened next. People turn my pages because there’s 12 of them and they think, ‘Hmm, might as well!’” -David Sedaris
This type of self-deprecating and self-aware humor is classic Sedaris. But he has a point: readers have short attention spans.
A century ago, readers had the patience to read 1,000+ page books like War and Peace, Les Miserables, and Gone with the Wind. Since then, technological advancement, digital devices, social media, and nonstop entertainment have driven attention spans down. This tectonic shift has forced writers to adapt and become more punchy and direct.
Remember that your readers have many other options for entertainment. If you want to keep their attention, you must grab them out of the gate and not let go.
13. Relinquish your desire for perfection
“Feeling the need to be perfect doesn’t make you perfect. It just makes you paralyzed.” -David Sedaris
When you read the work of professional writers, it’s easy to get discouraged about your own abilities. Whenever you’re feeling down, remember that three things work in your favor as a writer:
- The more you write, the better you get.
- The very act of writing spurs thinking, meaning that you’re instantly smarter once your pen starts moving.
- Unlike many other creative ventures, you can edit out the crap, meaning that readers only see the beautiful finished product.
Your words will never be perfect when they first spill onto the page, but you can gradually shape them into something beautiful. For instance, Sedaris says that he edits every story 12–18 times before he hands it over to his editor. It’s still not perfect when he’s done, but it’s come a long way from the first draft.
Relinquish your need to be perfect. Just start writing. Put those imperfect words onto the imperfect page, then edit and edit and edit until it’s right.
If you enjoyed these tips, check out David Sedaris’s full MasterClass or support him by purchasing one of his many books.
Happy writing!
