Your Complete Guide on Learning How to Write (and Succeed) on Medium

How to go from zero to good, from good to great, and from great to unstoppable.

Hello, welcome to this guide on learning how to write on Medium where I teach you all the steps required to go from zero to unstoppable! It’s part of a series of guides you can find in this publication — SkillUp Ed.

All the guides I’m creating come from at least 1,000 hours of practice in the skill, with additional in-depth research on the topic.

This particular guide on writing on Medium comes from three years of writing daily on the platform. Since January 2018, I’ve published over 1,000 articles, which were read over 5 million times. Some of my most popular articles were translated in multiple languages, included in magazines, made the object of multiple podcast episodes, and more.

I’m hoping my experience on the topic as well as my research will greatly accelerate your ability to learn how to write and succeed on Medium.

Let’s dig right in!

*Originally published in SkillUp Academy

Table of contents

  • The first 15 hours

  • The first 100 hours

  • The first 1,000 hours

  • Resources

The first 15 hours

Expectations

In your first 15 hours learning Writing On Medium, you should be able to:

  • Understand everything about publications

  • Understand everything about tags

  • Understand the claps system

  • Format your stories properly

  • Write headlines readers click

  • Write a few short stories

  • Make money

How to go from zero to good in Writing On Medium

Prepare

The first step is to gather as much information as you can about everything Writing on Medium entails. I strongly suggest starting with Collection: Must Read. Meanwhile, subscribe to Zulie Rane’s channel on YouTube, and follow the Medium Meister publication. On Medium, you can follow Casey Botticelo and J.J. Pryor for more articles about how to succeed on the platform. You can also check out some of the books and courses on this page.

I suggest you spend at least 5 hours learning about Medium first. In addition to the suggestions from the paragraph above, I suggest you read at least a few stories on Medium to figure out what inspires you and what you could write about.

The remaining time should be spent on writing and editing mostly. Spend at least 9 hours there. For the last hour, spend it by interacting with readers in the comments section or with other writers in private notes or by leaving them a comment. You may also join some Facebook groups.

Practice

You can’t get better at writing on Medium without writing. That’s why I suggested you spend about 9 hours writing and editing during this 15-hour timeframe.

The trick here is to not overthink it. Procrastination is your biggest enemy when it comes to writing. Write about anything that inspires you and that you’re good at. Think about how it can help the reader. Write about your experience and back it up with external links whenever you can. Try to write an article in one sitting and then edit in another.

Make sure to read about the best practices on how to format articles on Medium during the preparation phase. Put what you learn into practice. Keep it simple and update your article(s) to make them as “clean” as possible.

For editing, start with putting your text through a tool like Grammarly. It will find all the grammar errors for you. You can choose to ignore the styling choices they propose you to make it sound more like you. I know I frequently ignore them. Once you’ve fixed the grammar errors, have someone else read your article. They’ll find the synthax errors and occasional typos.

Overall, with 9 hours of practice, you should be able to write from 3 to 9 articles. This obviously depends on how long the article is and how perfectionist you want to be about the editing process. And if you’re writing about a topic where a lot of research is involved, you might only be able to do one during that time.

Note that to get better, you have to write more. My personal suggestion is to try to write 9 articles in 9 days. It’s a nice but achievable challenge. Most people can find 9 topic ideas to write about. And if you keep it short, that’s quite doable.

To increase the chances of success and accelerate your learning, you can check out the Trainers section above and get help from a professional.

Ponder

Once you’re done with your preparation and practice, there’s much to reflect on. As with most other skills, reflect on:

  • What went right?

  • What went wrong?

  • How can I improve?

In addition, you should look into your Medium stats to see how people reacted to your stories. Is there a topic that worked better? Is that something you’re interesting in writing more about? Are your stats higher or lower than what you expected? Why do you think that is? What did you hope to accomplish in 15 hours? Did you succeed? How would you rate your success on a scale of 0–10?

Now that you’ve dipped your toes in the skill of Writing on Medium, how do you want to proceed going forward? Do you want to keep writing? Do you want to stop? Do you want to take it to the next level? If you choose to continue, how do you think you can improve going forward? Why do you want to continue? What do you hope to gain out of pursuing this skill?

The first 100 hours

Expectations

In your first 100 hours learning Writing On Medium, you should be able to:

  • Become better at everything you learned from the first 15 hours

  • Increase your vocabulary

  • Improve your syntax

  • Conjugate verbs better

  • Know all about the built-in social features

  • Improve your headlining abilities

  • Get better at finding the right images for your stories

  • Improve your editing skills

  • Get faster at writing good articles

How to go from good to great in Writing On Medium

Prepare

After you’re done with your first 15 hours, most of the remaining 85 hours should be spent on practice. I wouldn’t spend more than a total of 10 hours on preparations, leaving a full 75 hours of extra practice.

For your 10 hours of preparation at this stage, look at the expectations list from above. See where you’re lacking the most and refer to the skill tree at the top for resources on how to get better at it. A lot of the courses from the above list also help you dig further. Following one or two of those courses is a worthwhile investment at this stage.

I would also suggest spending more time reading articles both from your favourite writers and from top writers on the platform. You can also re-read this article and analyze it into greater detail.

If you’d rather spend more time writing, that’s completely fine too at this stage. As I mentioned in the first 15 hours stage, to get better at it, nothing beats practicing more.

Practice

Tim Denning, a famous writer on Medium, once said: “Write your first 100 articles as fast you can as this is the best way you’re going to get better.” I stand by this. Your goal for the next 75–85 hours is to crank out articles. As much as possible, focus on quantity AND quality. Failing to do both, at this stage, your better option is to write in higher quantity.

Make writing a habit. I learned by writing one hour daily for a year. My friend John Mashni writes for 15 minutes every day. That’s also fine. As long as you make it a habit to write every day, you should be able to reach your first 100 hours with a year or less. Also, the slower you go better, the better it is to improve, simply for the fact that you have more time to reflect on your journey.

Use this stage to experiment with different topic ideas. Try to reach “top writer” status in a few tags. This means that, for the moment, you are a top 50 writer about the topic. It’s not as hard as it seems, especially if you choose tags that are not overly popular.

While you’re writing daily, try to make a name for yourself. Participate in different groups. Leave private notes. Comment on articles. Make sure people see your name so that when it shows up on the home screen, they’ll want to click on your article.

Ponder

Once you’re done with your preparation and practice, there’s much to reflect on. As with most other skills, reflect on:

  • What went right?

  • What went wrong?

  • How can I improve?

Since the process here is longer than during the first phase, you’re going to want to reflect on the above three questions weekly and monthly. Spend at least 15 minutes every week thinking about that. Take notes in a journal or a note-taking app of your choice. Failing to do it weekly, spend at least an hour reflecting on that every month.

In addition to those questions, at the end of your practice time, ask yourself:

  • What lessons did I learn?

  • What sub-skills do I need to spend more time improving?

  • What do I want to do going forward? Continue? Stop?

  • How can I use what I’ve learned in my life and day job?

  • Where else could I use these skills?

  • What actions can I take to improve where I’ve failed?

  • When am I going to do those actions? (Schedule them)

The first 1000 hours

Expectations

In your first 1,000 hours learning Writing On Medium, you should be able to:

  • Drastically increase your vocabulary, including synonyms and antonyms

  • Drastically improve your syntax

  • Drastically improve your conjugation skills

  • Know every aspect of the editor, inclusing all shortcuts

  • Become a pro at using all the social features

  • Become a very good storyteller

  • Craft solid subtiles that complement your headlines well

  • Self-edit your pieces better and faster

  • Use creative and interesting images for your articles

  • Research good sources that back up your claims

  • Type much faster

How to go from great to unstoppable in Writing On Medium

Prepare

In this phase, the preparation will come in the form of continuous research and improvement in various sub-skills. Every day, you should strive to learn new words. For words you use frequently, you should find different synonyms you could use going forward.

At this point, you should start taking your stories more seriously and find unique and creative topics to write about. A good way to prepare your writing is to brainstorm multiple topic ideas and headlines every day. For each topic idea you find, you should also start researching it and storing good information you find so that when comes time to write the article, you don’t break your flow.

Also in this phase, you’ll want to get better at storytelling. Most successful writing on Medium features a good story. Spend a decent amount of time learning everything you can about storytelling. Truthfully, you can’t spend too much time on this subskill.

You should also become a master of crafting headlines and subtitles. It’s the ultimate cheat to get more views on your articles. The more time you spend into researching what works and what doesn’t, the more successful your writing will be.

Practice

There’s so much to practice during this phase. Again, this should be the bulk of what you’re doing. That being said, most of what will make you a better writer on Medium at this point boils down to the sub-skills, like vocabulary, storytelling, crafting headlines, and editing. Once you master those, you’ll become unstoppable.

My suggestion is to slow down on the content you produce at this point. Still focus on quality AND quantity, but with more emphasis on quality. Aim to write the best-possible articles you can on the topic you choose. Aim for advice so good it will be relevant for years to come. Do better research, spice up your articles with custom graphics, do interviews, etc. Do everything you can to make your articles stand out.

During this period, you want to start being known for one or two specific niches. You want to be seen as the expert on a select few topics. This will help create a “personal brand” for you. When people see your name, they’ll have a better idea of what to expect. Still, I’d strongly consider spending about 10–15 percent of your time experimenting with new styles and new topics.

Ponder

Once you’re done with your preparation and practice, there’s much to reflect on. As with most other skills, reflect on:

  • What went right?

  • What went wrong?

  • How can I improve?

Since the process here is much longer than during the first and second phases, you’re going to want to reflect on the above three questions weekly, monthly, quarterly, and possibly yearly. Spend at least 15 minutes every week thinking about that. Take notes in a journal or a note-taking app of your choice. Failing to do it weekly, spend at least an hour reflecting on that every month.

In addition to those questions, at the end of each quarter, ask yourself:

  • What lessons did I learn?

  • What sub-skills do I need to spend more time improving?

  • What do I want to do going forward? Continue? Stop?

  • How can I use what I’ve learned in my life and day job?

  • What actions can I take to improve where I’ve failed?

  • When am I going to do those actions? (Schedule them)

  • Where else could I use these skills?

That last question become more and more relevant as you keep learning more of the sub-skills, like storytelling and editing. Using these sub-skills, you can start to branch out and even make money with those skills. At this point, you’ve learned a lot more than just “writing on Medium”. It’s worth exploring new avenues.

Resources

Skill Trees