How to Battle Self-Doubt as a Writer

This article may contain affiliate links. This means we might make a small commission on anything you buy through a link on this page. This comes at no extra cost to you. Commissions help us to run our free 7 Day Story Writing Challenges.

Article by: Amanda Fox, freelance writer at Globe Soup.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?  There will be a different answer for every writer, but I promise no one says, “My favorite thing is when I start doubting myself and then want to cry and/or throw stuff.”  At the end of the day, though, writer self-doubt is a very real thing that we should talk about.

So what does self-doubt actually mean?

Despite what it’s telling you, self-doubt does not mean that you suck at writing.

The voice of your self-doubt knows you very, very well, and it knows what buttons to push to send you spiraling into despair because, guess what, it’s you.  We all manifest our writer self-doubt in different ways.  For me, I fall back into the pre-writing phase: making mood boards and curating playlists and deep diving into the world and its cultures and legalities and myths and geologic features and ancient history that is in no way relevant to the plot and doing a 400 question survey as my MC and researching unsavory things until I end up on a government watch list and…

…and everything except actually writing.

Recognizing how you respond to self-doubt helps defeat it, but identifying your struggles is just part of the battle.  There are always going to be bad days.  It’s normal, I promise.  Think of your favorite writer.  They’ve had bad days, too.  To fight back against writer self-doubt, here are some common traps that might creep into your head and some simple exercises you can do right this very moment to silence them.

Trap #1: Comparison

You’re looking at a winning story on Globe Soup, and you start to think that you don’t deserve to be a writer or you don’t deserve to win anything ever because your writing is different from the winner’s.  We all have unique strengths and skillsets and talents and perspectives to bring to our writing, so you’re not going to sound like that other person.

When your brain starts shouting doubt at you, think about where those thoughts are coming from.  Do you feel that you don’t deserve to be a writer, that you didn’t deserve to win a contest, or that you don’t deserve good feedback?  Explore that path.

You might be surprised where those feelings come from.  Maybe you had someone tell you when you were younger that you’d never have any talent.  Maybe you have always thought that you need to turn your hobby into a side hustle, but that doesn’t bring you any joy.  It’s certainly worth a dive into the WHY of all those things, but I hope you also work on dismantling those walls.  Just because doing the thing that gives you life isn’t also paying your bills or winning you accolades doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to continue bleeding on the paper.

So try this as an exercise.  Write down the ways you compare yourself to others.  This can take a few days, but note any time you start feeling bad about your accomplishments.  Write down times you start feeling smug about your accomplishments, too, because those are still methods of comparison.

The point here is to look at your list of metrics and identify patterns.  What’s on your list that seems really silly from this perspective?  Why does it matter to you?  Are there any ways you compare yourself to others that are unnecessary or even cruel?  Now take that list and see how you can reword those comparisons to stop competing against others – and start competing against yourself!

Here’s an example:  You and a friend are both writers.  Your friend just sold a story to a magazine, but you’ve never sold a story before.  Maybe your initial reaction is to think you’re a failure – but I encourage you to reframe in the following two ways.  First: be happy for your friend!  Like you, they’ve worked hard, and I hope you are excited for them.  But second: how can you alter this comparison metric of published versus not published as a way to compete against yourself?  How about, “I’m not published YET” as a start?

Trap #2: Imposter Syndrome

A cousin to the trap of comparison, imposter syndrome is so real it may as well be tangible.

Recently, I had to write a short biography for an award I was winning (thank you, thank you), and the bios of the people who had won the award before were amazing!  So many accomplishments, so much talent, all these amazing human beings, and I’m over here like, “I have a dog, and sometimes I knit.”  In reality, I wasn’t really an outlier.  The things I did just seemed so normal to me that I had a hard time putting them into a context of being accomplishments.  I think that approach to our own list of deeds is nearly universal.  We generally don’t do things with the intention of bragging about how awesome we are, so it can be difficult to put that lens on our past.

Is your self-doubt convincing you that you’re not really a writer?  Pull up the latest thing you’re working on, whether that is with pen and paper or on your computer or etched into stone or scrawled on a wall, whatever medium you prefer.  When you look at the thing you’re working on, does it have writing?  Did you put that writing there?  You ARE a writer, even if sometimes it’s hard to remember.

To combat imposter syndrome, try this as an exercise.  Think “I’m a writer” at yourself.  Are you inspired?  If not, tell yourself out loud.  Look in a mirror and tell yourself.  Find the nearest human, whether you know them or not, and tell them.  Tell a pet.  Tell your friends at Globe Soup.  Call your old nemesis and tell them.  But most importantly, tell yourself.  Look at memes about writing, but not too long.  Only until you find one that says, “Wow, I feel that at a molecular level.”  Did you write that meme?  No?  Then you are not alone in how you feel!

Look, there’s no cure for Imposter Syndrome.  Not really.  There’s the positive self-talk, the concrete evidence that you aren’t actually an imposter, and a whole community of amazing folks who understand what you’re going through that you probably already like and respect. 

One important thing to remember: imposter syndrome WILL rear its ugly head (a face only a mother could love).  You can hit it with a stick, and it’ll go away for a while.  But if you accept that, yes, this feeling will come back, and no, it doesn’t mean you’re actually a fraud, then imposter syndrome is much easier to handle.

Trap #3: Rejection

You work hard.  You submit stories that you feel good about to contests, and then… you don’t win.  Maybe you don’t get an honorable mention or shortlisted or longlisted or literally any recognition at all.  Not gonna lie – that’s not a fun feeling, and it definitely won’t tell your self-doubt to shut up.

Another scenario: you work hard.  You submit stories that you feel good about to magazines or websites, and then crickets.  This is both sad and gross.  Tell people to stop sending you crickets (unless you are a lizard or you just really like crickets).  Or maybe you hear back from the magazine or website, and it’s a rejection.  Getting rejection letters is not anyone’s idea of a good time, and it’s even harder when you get a rejection that doesn’t explain the WHY, leaving you to wonder what was so wrong with your story.

But here’s the thing.

Submissions to contests and magazines and websites and agents – those are all judged by human beings.  You’ve read a published or winning story before that made you go, “Really?  This got picked?”  That’s because you, too, are a human being (shocker, I know), and humans have different tastes and opinions on what makes a good story.  This isn’t to say that getting a rejection or not placing isn’t hurtful.  It just means that, this time, your story simply wasn’t picked.

After a rejection or series of rejections, it’s normal to start wondering about the quality of the piece, but if you want to continue working on the story or shopping it around, do it!    Enlist a couple of feedback exchange partners in the Globe Soup community.  Check out a writing craft book, do some of the practical exercises, and see if there’s anything you can apply to make your story even 0.01% stronger.  Getting useful feedback and identifying teeny tiny changes is a wonderful feeling, and it can help soothe your self-doubt and put you back on your confident feet.

Try this as an exercise.  Find the nearest writer who is not you.  Walk up to them.  You can eat a bunch of garlic and get right up in their face.  Unprovoked, start telling them how much they suck at writing.  How they aren’t worth it.  How you would never read their stuff and don’t wish them success and also they should do something else with their time like [insert whatever hobby you think of first – beekeeping?].

But you’re never going to do that.  Why?

First, because you probably aren’t a jerk.  And second, because that’s not what writers do to other writers.  We encourage one another to keep working, to improve, to take risks, and to succeed by that person’s own measures of success.  Why wouldn’t you give yourself the same courtesy?

On a related topic, we need to talk about mean comments.  Those are another form of rejection, and, in my opinion, they hurt the most because not only did someone not like your work, they went out of their way to make sure you felt bad about it.  I used to write a webcomic back in the day (like WAAAAAAY back in the day), and every now and then, someone would pop in to tell me “KYS” or “this is terrible” or “you suck” or whatever.

I’m not going to pretend those things didn’t hurt my feelings, but I also had to consider the source.  There’s a quote I like that’s something to the effect of “don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t go to for advice” – I don’t know the original source, but it’s spot on.

I’m talking about unsolicited comments here, not comments from beta readers.  That being said, if you’re getting that kind of response from your beta reader, get a different beta reader because that person is rude.  There will be times you get criticism, and that’s okay.  It’s the nature of the beast, and that criticism will probably sting.  BUT!  With that feedback, you’ll get better – especially if you also receive positive comments that let you know what you’re doing right.

Check out opportunities in the Globe Soup community for feedback exchange.  You’ll end up finding amazing readers who give useful feedback, and you’ll be able to do the same for them (and read some really great writing while you’re at it).  And hey, maybe you can tell them that you’re only looking for positive feedback right now because you’re feeling down about your writing.  Look at those nice things, savor them, revel in them!  You deserve it!

Then, when you crash through that self-doubt brick wall like a Kool-Aid man, you can start looking for feedback of ALL varieties, fully ready to take on challenges and kick all the butts.

Amanda Fox is a Texas-based writer for funsies with an unrelated full-time job where she plans for, responds to, and helps her campus community recover from disaster situations. This gives her the opportunity to constantly imagine the worst case scenario and come up with creative ways to handle it, so it will likely come as no surprise that she greatly enjoys disaster fiction. Amanda has been writing since she was very young, following in the footsteps of her very talented older brother (Robert E. Harpold), and she has, at a conservative estimate, forty million story ideas rattling around in her brain. Some of Amanda's short stories have been published on Reedsy. She has not yet identified a genre to specialize in. When she is not being a hilariously introverted hermit, Amanda enjoys going on walkies with her ridiculous but adorable dog, reads obsessively, and tries her level best not to combust in the Texas heat.