Relationships are something that everyone has experience with, but they also give us all trouble. We’ve all had times where we didn’t know what to say, and wished we could reach out to an expert for advice.
Relationship writers are those experts. They listen to people’s problems and offer solutions, all while remaining entertaining and informative for everyone else reading.
If it’s not a career you’ve considered before, giving people relationship advice can be wonderfully fulfilling. You get to help people out of some of the most dark and confusing parts of their life.
But how do you actually become a writer for relationship advice? This guide will go over some of the most important steps for how to become a writer, specialising in dating and relationships.
Hone your craft!
Being a good relationships writer means being a good writer, full stop.
Even if you have a piercing insight into the human soul, people won’t take you seriously if your prose isn’t compelling and confident.
If you’re new to writing in general, that means brushing up on your fundamental writing skills. You have to read widely, practice, and get a firm grasp on the rules of grammar and punctuation. Online courses at sites like Skillshare and Udemy are great resources for this.
Once you have some experience under your belt, it’s useful to think of dating advice columns as just another genre of writing. This means you can learn to write relationship advice in the same way you might learn to write detective novels or instruction manuals.
And how do you do that? Well, every great writer starts with imitation. Begin by studying how other writers tackle writing a dating column: it’s important to understand the conventions and style of a genre before you emulate it, and research makes any new field less mysterious.
Search out dating advice columns online. Find one and analyze it like you’re a scientist in the lab by asking yourself these questions:
- How do they address the reader?
- What tone do they use?
- Are they light and humorous? Or sober and straight to the point?
- What person do they write in? Do they say ‘I’?
- Is the language simple? Run a Flesch–Kincaid readability test and check the score.
Afterwards, think about which pieces you felt were most successful, and why. Which ones missed the mark, or seemed insincere? Write down a list of features every piece seems to have, like strong closing taglines or starting with a funny quip.
Use what you learn from this to start writing your own columns. Start off by writing examples to make sure you’ve got the feel of it down, then try picking up a problem from one of the columns you found. How would you respond to it?
Building up a portfolio of example columns like this is a great way to get familiar with how it feels to give relationship advice. Even better, it’s something concrete you can show to potential clients.
What makes good relationship advice?
As the name suggests, there’s one unique aspect to dating advice columns you won’t find in any other genre. Giving good advice isn’t easy, so let’s go over some useful tips.
Tell them what they want to hear
People often already know what they should do, but just can’t bring themselves to do it.
In these cases, they aren’t coming to an expert for new insight that will blow their mind. Your role is to provide validation and give them the confidence to do what’s necessary.
Put yourself in their shoes
You have to always emphasise with the person you’re writing to.
That doesn’t just mean understanding the position they’re in. It means imagining what it’s like to be them – what emotions they’re feeling, their anxiety and how they’re going to respond to what you say.
Once you do that, it’s a lot easier to give realistic and manageable advice. It’s easy to craft genius plans from your writing desk, but remember that people seek out advice because they’re stressed, scared or confused.
Don’t judge
There are 7.83 billion people on the planet, and they all have their own story. You’ll end up getting responses from people you don’t understand, or who you think made bad choices.
It’s not your place to judge the people who come to you for advice. Think of yourself as a doctor. What matters is that someone’s hurt, not how they got hurt. Your job is to analyze the situation and find a way to help them.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion, naturally. Sometimes people really do need to be told that their behaviour is flat-out wrong, and needs to stop. But that’s best done with clear-headed advice, not soapbox moralizing.
Write to the audience
You’re not just writing for one person. Thousands of people are (hopefully!) going to see your advice, and many will apply it to their own lives.
That means that if you want to build a following, your advice should be general enough for everyone to get something useful out of it. Of course, being specific isn’t a bad thing – otherwise you’ll just be writing platitudes, which don’t help anybody.
That said, boiling down complicated problems into timeless advice (communicate more, be honest, don’t be ashamed of your sexuality) is a great way to widen your readership while still giving effective advice.
Making yourself stand out
Producing good content is one thing, but getting people read it is another. How do you turn a talent for writing into money in your bank account?
There’s a lot that goes into building a writing career, from networking to research, but one of the most important parts is to be unique.
If you don’t stand out from other writers, people won’t have a reason to listen to you.
Readers want relationship advice from experts because they offer a perspective that’s different from their own. This might take the form of special qualifications – maybe you’re a registered counsellor or sex therapist.
But your own identity can also be a draw. Think of how Dan Savage built a career on bringing relationship advice to people who weren’t straight or cisgender. His own experience as a gay man enabled him to bring new perspectives to old issues, and bring new issues to light that no-one else was talking about.
An equally powerful option is to carve out a niche by focusing on a specific kind of relationship. Why box yourself in and focus on romantic ties, for example, when family relationships are often just as difficult to untangle?
You can even take inspiration from current events. What about specializing in relationship advice for long-distance couples during the year of COVID-19?
Following this guide is a great way to start making relationship advice a full-time career, but be prepared to put in plenty of work to make it happen.
If that discourages you, let’s leave off with some advice of our own, which applies just as well to relationships as writing about them:
Author Bio
Adrienne Carreau is a staff writer and columnist for Find Online Courses. There, she writes educational content and career guides about the creative arts, entrepreneurship and psychology.
