If you’re aiming to get published, you should find a good writing mentor. Almost all professionals benefit from a mentoring relationship to develop their skills and in every other walk of life an apprenticeship is considered a wise idea.

In real life, most professional writers learn from other writers. Even writers with extensive experience and strong writing skills can benefit from new ideas from a writing coach and ongoing support.

In the literary world, most well-known published authors have studied with other writers and continue their writing journey with wise feedback from a trusted mentor over the course of their writing career.

The most difficult aspect to assess before you engage coaching services is the matter of coaching style. 

Not all coaches are equal. A good mentor enjoys book coaching, and not all do! Do they genuinely want to improve your writing or are they a frustrated writer who considers themselves an instructor and resents working with aspiring writers when they could be developing their own manuscript? A good coach likes coaching!

An aspiring writer will want to consider a potential writing mentor carefully to ensure your writing process benefits from an experienced writer who has navigated the publishing industry successfully, and has standing and recognition in the publishing industry.

A great writing coach is the best way to achieve your writing goals. One-on-one mentoring means you get dedicated help with your own work to go beyond what MFA programs or standard writing courses can offer to progress you with more speed and certainty towards that book deal. 

At The Novelry, our writing coaches are successful, recently published authors who enjoy being part of our writing community, and who positively enjoy working with aspiring authors. Between them our writing coaches have extensive experience across the full range of genres of fiction. They have hit the bestseller lists and been nominated for an won famous awards. A good mentor is someone who loves learning and who understands that they too, as a writer, are always learning; that way the one-on-one mentoring relationship becomes a mutually fulfilling and exciting experience, open to new ideas and feedback that flows naturally both ways. Our writing coaches are chosen for their collaborative coaching style. As an experienced writer, each and every one of them has chosen to work with aspiring writers because they enjoy it so much. They love not only to help others start writing but to help them develop their writing skills. 

So much more than an instructor, your writing coach at The Novelry will be cheering you on every step of the way, and will be thrilled and delighted as you tick off your writing goals, develop your skills, complete a first draft, submit your manuscript to literary agents and achieve your ambition to get a book deal. You’ll not only have a mentor you can return to again and again as you enter the book publishing process, you’ll have a friend and cheerleader in the writing community.

When considering potential mentors, we make it very easy for you to relax and trust that you’re going to find a writing coach who meets the highest standards of any mentor program for writers worldwide. Our writing coaches have been trained in our positive coaching method, and our writing mentor program is a big part of the reason we’re the world’s best-loved creative writing school.

I remember him saying... that writers were made as well as born... It was a great thing to have happen to me at that period of my life, to have someone who took me seriously enough... I knew something crucial was happening to me, something that mattered. He helped me to see how important it was to say exactly what I wanted to say and nothing else.

—Raymond Carver, on taking a Beginning Fiction Writing Course with John Gardner