How to Discover Your Niche As a Writer
Write on a variety of subjects!
This might not be the common pep talk that starts with ‘know yourself, what is your passion? Who do you want to be in the future and all?…Then do this and that to discover your niche as a writer.’ This might be a deviation from that path we know too well.
To discover simply means to find out, to obtain sight or knowledge of something for the first time according to the dictionary. Basically, it just means to find out something.
Now, discovering does not mean that thing was not there, it shows that whatever was being sought for has always been there but it became visible at that point of discovery.
Most times we lose our property, let’s take the TV remote for an example, it suddenly goes missing and then we dedicate time to search for it. When we finally discover it under the sofa, that remote didn’t fly there suddenly to be discovered, it was there the whole time waiting for us to come and get it.
Now come back to your writing and niche, it is not something you discover perse, it is something you recognize which has been there all along but you never paid attention to it.
What this article will help you do is to hold it down.
I want to make an analogy and I hope it would help. Let’s go over to our educational and school setting. We all have to do general courses from primary, junior secondary and even the first year of senior secondary.
What you would notice is that the higher you climb, the more those general courses start narrowing down to specifics. Some subjects were left out in primary, some in junior secondary. In senior secondary, you are now moving towards your area of specialization, there are now subjects that you prefer more and then you take that particular line mainly the sciences or arts.
By the time you are getting to the university, you already have that one thing you want to study and you focus on it squarely.
Each level in some courses like Mass Communication also takes you down through some general courses before you get to your area of specialty and chose which you want – Graphics communication, Broadcasting, Reporting, Advertising, Public Relations, Film Theory or Photography. After that, you have to specialize in Masters and also in your Doctorate.
One good thing about this is that you have a general knowledge of all other things but then there’s one thing you know how to do best. After being the jack of all trades, you finally became master of one.
In writing, it might be difficult to tell you at this stage to just try and find your centre or write only about those things that you like or write from your purpose perspective.
What if you don’t know what you like? What if you’re not even aware of yourself or what you love doing or not doing? What if you don’t know where to write from?
In this vast sea of literary communication, discovering your niche is embedded in trying your feet in different parts of the waters before you get to your stronghold. How would you know if you don’t try out?
Write in a variety of niches please if you may. Doing this will expose you to the things you like and don’t like to write about and gradually you’ll find that safe haven for yourself which is your niche and it will help you gain momentum as a writer. Remember it has always been there, you may not recognize it but it is there.
Conclusion
After you have recognized it and you have become more self aware and purposeful, niche down and grow yourself to become a professional in that area. Do it consistently. Having a niche makes you stand out in the crowd and the more effective you will become.
