Experience is Key

If you were looking to apply for a teaching job with no experience, but found yourself up against a rival applicant who possessed twenty years experience in public and private sectors, well obviously, you could predict how the outcome would go.  Now think about this in closer terms.  Let's suppose you're applying to teach in a private school with ten years public school experience while another applicant has five years worth of public school experience along with five years worth of private school teaching experience.  You guessed it.  You came up short again.  Like any profession writers are often rewarded based off of experience.  So what's the best thing we can do as writers?  Vary up your work.  I predominantly write crime stories where the law is involved very little.  Why?  I like placing my characters in tense situations where safety is not guaranteed.  I like raising suspense on people who have little or no protection.  Plus involving the law is only interesting if you get all CSI with things.  Not really my thing.  Science and criminal justice are interesting.  Sure.  But I really prefer to look more at character rather than scientific research or more or less writing a police procedural.  I've read those.  They typically bore me to tears.  But nonetheless despite typically writing these types of stories, I have also tried my hand at a western short story as well as involving the law a few times, too.  Why?  It's simple.  Experience builds on what we can draw from.  If I decided to write a Western novel, it's much easier to approach the project with experience in writing in that genre.  No matter what your preferred writing style and subjects are, it is always good to venture out.  I realized I have not often focused on physical strains in many of my stories like the characters having to go without food, medicine and vital essentials.  I also realized I have not written many stories about a character on the run and desperate to survive or even just get away from a pursuit.  Often times, I place characters in tighter surroundings, but hey.  It does not mean I won't try new things.  Even within a series like the James Bond or Jack Reacher series novels, the writer puts them through new innovative challenges.  Otherwise what would be the point?  So in order to further your writing, think about all the work you have written thus far and try to find something you have not covered or experimented with.  This can be done with novels, but I prefer to step outside of my box in short stories first.  It is far easier to be experimental with a shorter work.  Then incorporating these new skills and experience into a novel is far easier, because you already have some material to draw from.  This does not mean you have to write stories completely different from what you typically write.  No.  You have your preferences and stick with them!  It took me years just to find my genre and I'm not going anywhere.  But at the same time, play around with what you've done and seek to expand your experience.  It will definitely show up in your writing when your manuscript goes up against several others in the publishers slush pile.  The editors have good eyes and they will know when a true story teller is submitting and when they are just dealing with another, limited amateur.