The Importance of Studying Your Craft

There's a reason this week's posts have focused on the importance of studying one's craft. As I continue to wind down my business for the calendar year, and prepare for the milestones I've set for 2024, at the top of that list is to continue making my way through my craft book TBR.

In total, at the time of this article's publication, I'll have finished 143 books this year.

Of those, 45 have been nonfiction. (Fiction is my jam, and I won't pretend otherwise.)

And of those: a healthy 21 craft books, focused on either entrepreneurship and business, or the crafts of editing and writing.

It wasn't just my first developmental editing project that "forced" me to finally start picking up those books. There is an innate part of me that thrives on learning, on deepening my knowledge base regularly. When I speak to potential clients, when I make my social media content, when I send final deliverables off to authors, clients trust that I know what I'm talking about and can provide quality editing for their literary babies.

I spent 80% of my professional career in military technical documentation editing. This left me quite confident I had the mechanics of editing down maybe not perfectly, but well enough to confidently call myself an "expert." I could switch between the GPO Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style and back easily.

The further up the ladder of the book publishing process you get, though, the murkier things become, especially in the land of fiction. Storytelling principles haven't changed much over the past 36,000 years, especially the written story. Still, the more I understood the foundational principles, the more I wanted to improve my craft as a freelance editor.

The more I wanted to improve my craft, the more I realized just how important that action is to long-term success. Here's two things you can do to hone your own craft, no matter your industry.

Know Your Lane

Those 21 craft books break down as follows:

• Two business books
• Fifteen writing books
• Four editing books

I could continue to break those numbers down into subcategories, but I think I'm the only one who enjoys that much granularity. Nevertheless, you can see where my priorities were for this year. Even the four editing books I read were directly related to the craft of writing and developing stronger stories with more well-rounded characters and higher stakes. And the two business books were centered on how to create stronger relationships with authors as both clients and people.

If you know the focus of your business, the problem you're solving for your ideal clients, it becomes that much easier to focus your craft study to fit that focus.

Experiment with Craft Exercises

I count myself lucky in that I'm not only an editor but an author. I can and often do work from both sides of the storytelling process. I started writing flash-fiction stories based on prompts. With the prompts as the foundation, I applied the craft-book exercises to see how well I could make them work in less than 750 words. Whether editing or writing, the only way to get better is to edit and write on a regular basis. It's less about getting it just right and more about just getting it done.

When you can speak about that practical experience, about knowing how the different principles of your own industry work together (and even work against each other), you continue to build your own credibility and experience base. That's necessary if you want your own ideal clients to trust in you.

Some of my colleagues and friends preset their reading lists around the start of the year. I admire them for that, but it's not a tactic I could ever apply. I'm a proud mood reader, and I could never know for sure if I'd be in the mood to read any of books I originally listed.

In terms of my business and my craft, my only intention is to read two books a month specific to those categories. For every craft book I read, of course, three more get added to the list, but that's not the point. I've already got tangible client goals set for the first quarter, and my debut novel's second draft is staring me down from the future.

I will continue to chip away at my craft book TBR. I recommend you do the same, especially if you want to see long-term growth professionally and personally.

Shannon Scott is the founder and owner of Shannon S. Scott Editing Services, where they work tirelessly to deliver top-notch service through writing coaching, manuscript critiques, fiction developmental editing, and nonfiction line and copyediting. Shannon opened their business with the intention of working with self-publishing and independent authors in the LGBTQIA+ romance and mystery/suspense/thriller genre. They also are experienced in business, proposal, and technical documentation line and copyediting. Shannon offers free consultations for each of their editing services, so don't hesitate to contact them.