How to Really Write
on Substack with Sarah Fay

You want people to read what you write.

Not just subscribe and disappear. Not just open the email. Read it.

You want to draw people in, connect with them, build readership, and perhaps make your writing profitable.

But you’re not always sure what to deliver—or how.

Maybe you’ve been writing for years, but writing for Substack feels different. You know how to write for work, a magazine, a book, or social media. You don’t yet know which of those habits help you here.

Maybe you’re not sure the things you write about—or the way you write—are “good enough” for Substack.

You want to publish regularly, but your articles take forever. They get long. You struggle to come up with ideas. Or you have so many ideas that you can’t tell which ones belong.

You have a voice. But when you sit down, you second-guess, censor, and analyze until it’s hard to hear it.

And you want to improve without becoming someone else.

You don’t want another instruction to “create content.”

You want to know how to write something people want to read.

What kind of writing works for my Substack?

We’ll work with my proprietary approach to writing on Substack. By determining whether your Substack is a project, topic, or lens Substack, we’ll shape your ongoing publication and the types of individual articles you write or will write: curated, reported, reflective, narrative, and opinion.

How do I make people want to keep reading?

Learn how to shape an article so readers can enter it, stay with it, and want to know what comes next. We’ll work on openings, structure, storytelling, and endings—not a formula that makes every article sound the same.

How do I sound like myself?

Develop a voice readers recognize without making yourself more formal, more polished, or less interesting. We’ll work on bringing more of you into the writing while keeping the reader in it too.

How do I bring in humor and edge?

Make your writing more alive, distinctive, and memorable. You don’t have to become a comedian or pick a fight to give readers a perspective they won’t find everywhere else.

How do I write Substack Notes?

Write Notes that sound like you and give people something worth reading—not just another announcement or link. We’ll work on short-form writing that belongs to your publication and helps people encounter your voice.

How do I get people to open what I’ve written?

Work on headlines, subject lines, and openings that make people want to begin—and articles that make beginning worthwhile. Not clickbait. Not a promise the writing doesn’t deliver.

How do I write something shorter without making it shallow?

Learn to make your writing more focused without losing its depth, dimension, or personality. And make an intentional choice about when an article should be short—and when it deserves more room.

How do I stop running out of ideas—or taking forever to finish?

Develop a process that helps you move from an idea to an article you’re ready to publish. Work with the messy stage instead of expecting yourself to produce finished writing the moment you sit down.

How often should I publish—and what should go on the calendar?

Create an editorial and content calendar that fits your work, your readers, and your life. Stop borrowing other people’s schedules or treating every publishing day as an emergency.

Choose one session each week.

You don’t need to attend both. Choose the time that works for you that week:

All times are Central Time.

Feedback that keeps you in control of your writing.

During the live sessions, you’ll share your writing in small groups called pods.

These aren’t critiques. They’re supportive spaces where you, as the writer, identify the questions you want feedback on. Your fellow participants respond as readers—helping you understand what reaches them, what stays with them, and what they want more of.

You’re not handing over your writing for someone else to tell you what it should be.

You’re getting the kind of reader feedback you’re looking for.

Feedback is from your fellow participants. I won’t be providing individual feedback or editing.

Your private course Substack

Your video lessons, weekly writing prompts, replays, and course materials will be available in our private Substack. You’ll also be able to chat with your fellow writers, ask questions, and support one another between sessions.

You’ll have six months of access to the course materials and replays.

I don’t want this to become another course you buy and never get to. You’ll have time to return to the material, but not an endless “someday.” As with writing, constraints are helpful.