There’s a quiet tragedy that unfolds every day at keyboards around the world. Writers—aspiring, seasoned, or somewhere in between—sit down to create, but instead of reaching inward, they reach outward.
They write what they think will sell. What will trend. What will please the algorithm, the editor, the market.
They write for the wrong reasons.
And in doing so, they silence the very voice that made them want to write in the first place.
Writing for the wrong reasons is a seductive trap.
It often wears the mask of ambition, practicality, or even professionalism. “Write what sells,” the industry whispers. “Write what’s hot right now.”
And so, stories are born not from passion but from prediction. Not from the soul, but from spreadsheets.
The result? Work that may be technically sound, even successful—but hollow. Forgettable. Unloved by its own creator.
This isn’t a condemnation of commercial success. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your work to be read, to be recognised, to pay the bills.
But when those goals become the compass instead of the destination, the writing suffers.
The writer suffers. Because the truth is, the best stories—the ones that endure, that move people, that change lives—are not written to chase the world. They’re written to reveal it. To challenge it. To heal it.
At the heart of every great story is a truth the writer couldn’t ignore. A question they couldn’t stop asking. A wound they needed to understand.
These are the stories that live inside us, the ones that whisper in the quiet moments, that tug at our thoughts when we’re trying to sleep. They’re not always marketable. They’re not always easy. But they are necessary.
Writing the story that lives inside you is an act of courage.
It means risking rejection. It means being vulnerable. It means telling the truth, even when it’s messy, even when it’s not what people want to hear. But it’s also the only kind of writing that matters. Because when you write from that place—when you write what burns—you create something no one else can. You create something real.
The world doesn’t need more content. It doesn’t need more perfectly optimised, trend-chasing, algorithm-approved prose. It needs stories that matter.
Stories that reflect the complexity of being human. Stories that make people feel seen, or challenged, or less alone. And only you can write those stories. Not the version of you that’s trying to be the next bestseller. The real you. The one who’s lived, who’s lost, who’s still figuring it out.
Of course, writing from the heart doesn’t mean abandoning craft. Passion without discipline is just noise. But when craft is in service of truth—when structure and style are tools to better express what you need to say—then you’re not just writing well. You’re writing meaningfully.
It’s worth asking yourself: Why do I write? Is it to impress? To escape? To prove something? Or is it to connect? To explore? To say something that only I can say?
These questions aren’t easy. But they’re essential. Because if you don’t know why you’re writing, you’ll be at the mercy of every trend, every rejection, every voice that tells you you’re not good enough.
Writing the story you want to write doesn’t guarantee success. But it guarantees authenticity.
In a world drowning in noise, authenticity is rare. It’s valuable. It’s what readers crave, even if they don’t always know it. Think of the books, the essays, the poems that have stayed with you. Chances are, they weren’t written to please. They were written to express something urgent, something true.
There’s also a kind of freedom that comes with writing for the right reasons. When you stop trying to please everyone, you give yourself permission to take risks. To experiment. To fail. And in that space, you often find your voice. Not the voice you think you should have, but the one that’s been waiting for you to listen.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be strategic. It’s okay to think about the audience, to consider genre, to understand the market. But those things should serve your story—not the other way around.
Start with what you need to say. Then figure out how to say it in a way that others can hear.
And if you’re not sure what story lives inside you, that’s okay. Start by paying attention.
What makes you angry? What breaks your heart? What do you wish someone had told you when you were younger? What do you lie awake thinking about?
The answers to those questions are the seeds of your most powerful work.
It’s also important to remember that writing for the right reasons doesn’t mean writing is always joyful.
Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But even in the struggle, there’s meaning. There’s growth. There’s the quiet satisfaction of knowing you’re doing the work that matters—to you, and maybe to someone else.
In the end, writing is an act of faith. Faith that your voice matters. That your story matters. That someone, somewhere, needs to hear what you have to say. And that’s reason enough.
So write the story that scares you. The one that won’t let you go. The one that feels too big, too strange, too personal.
Write it not because it will sell, or trend, or go viral—but because it’s yours.
Because it’s true. Because the world doesn’t just need more stories. It needs yours.
And if you ever forget why you started, come back to this:
You are not a content machine. You are a storyteller. A truth-teller. A meaning-maker. And the only wrong reason to write is to be anyone else.
WRITING FOR THE RIGHT REASONS
