The Changing Trends in Writing and the Impact of Social Media

Writing has always changed with the times. Language evolves, genres rise and fall in popularity, and readers develop new expectations. None of this is particularly shocking. What is slightly more surprising is that writers now have to consider things like algorithms, trending audio and whether their emotionally devastating love story can be adequately described using five hashtags.

What a time to be alive.

When I first imagined being a writer, I pictured notebooks, endless cups of coffee and perhaps the occasional dramatic stare out of a scenic window while waiting for inspiration. I did not imagine myself attempting to film a fifteen second video while trying to work out where to position the phone, so I did not appear to have three chins. Yet here we are.

I have written before about The Social Media Game and Making the Most of BookTok, largely because social media has become almost impossible for authors to ignore. What I find increasingly interesting, however, is that these platforms are not simply changing how we market books. They are beginning to influence the books themselves.

Readers can now discover hundreds of books within minutes. A quick scroll through TikTok or Instagram might produce enemies to lovers, found family, morally grey villains, forced proximity, slow burn romance and enough red flags to decorate an entire carnival.

Tropes have always existed, of course. We just did not necessarily announce them on the front door.

Social media has turned them into a kind of literary shorthand. Readers can identify almost instantly whether a book contains the elements they enjoy, and writers have become increasingly aware of those preferences. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Knowing your audience has always been important. The danger comes when we begin writing for trends rather than writing the story we actually wanted to tell.

Trends move quickly. Books do not.

By the time you have spent a year writing the novel inspired by whatever is currently taking BookTok by storm, everyone may have moved on to something completely different. Yesterday's brooding vampire might be today's dragon rider and tomorrow's emotionally unavailable pirate.

Good luck predicting that one.

Social media has also affected pacing. We live in a world of instant entertainment, short videos and endless scrolling. Readers are accustomed to being hooked quickly, and increasingly there is pressure for books to do the same. Long introductions and leisurely openings have given way to stories that throw us directly into the action.

As someone who has previously written about building story arcs and keeping readers invested, I understand the appeal. A strong opening matters. Something needs to make the reader turn the page. But I also think there is value in allowing stories room to breathe. Not every chapter needs a murder, betrayal, shocking revelation or unexpected pregnancy.

Although admittedly, all four would make quite a chapter.

Perhaps the biggest change is the relationship between authors and readers. Writers were once mysterious creatures whose photograph appeared on the back of a book beside a short biography suggesting they lived somewhere picturesque with a spouse and an improbably well behaved dog.

Now readers often know what an author had for breakfast.

They see our writing desks, our pets, our frustrations, our deleted chapters and our increasingly desperate attempts to explain a work in progress in seven seconds or less. There is something wonderful about that connection. Readers can follow a book from its earliest stages, interact directly with its author and become part of a community surrounding the stories they love.

But there is pressure attached to it too.

Writing already requires a considerable amount of time. Add filming, editing, posting, commenting, analyzing engagement and trying to remember whether Tuesday is apparently the optimal day to post something featuring a popular audio clip, and suddenly being an author requires skills suspiciously similar to running a small media company.

The challenge, I think, is remembering what all of this is supposed to support.

The story.

Social media is an incredible tool. It connects writers with readers in ways previous generations could never have imagined, gives independent authors access to enormous audiences and allows one enthusiastic recommendation to send a previously unknown book flying up the charts.

But trends will change. Platforms will change. Algorithms will certainly change, probably five minutes after we finally understand them.

Stories, though, will always depend on the same things. Characters we care about. Questions we want answered. Emotions we recognize. Worlds we want to disappear into for a while.

So yes, I will continue learning the latest trends, wrestling with hashtags and occasionally talking to my phone like this is completely normal behavior.

But when all the scrolling stops, I still want the writing to come first.

Because viral is wonderful.

A story worth remembering is better.