How Not to Coach a Writer

Hint: Stay away from bats and balls

In 1830 or so, at Oxford University in England, a private tutor who coaxed a student through an exam was labeled a “coach” for the first time. The word was considered slang then because a coach referred to an enclosed wagon drawn by a horse; the horse carried the person along much as a tutor “carried” the student on an intellectual journey.

You can almost picture some snarky student in a black mortar board rolling his eyes as his tutor harangued, lectured, and nagged until he passed his exams. The coach was taking him for a ride. (And yes, these were nearly all men.)

Today, of course, most people associate coaching with athletics rather than academic tutoring — and the connotations are often negative. Think, for example, of Bill Belichick screaming at Tom Brady. Or an over-excited parent-coach yelling at a middle-school athlete for missing a field goal. Or, in almost every sports movie ever made, a big, burly coach, neck muscles straining, giving his team a verbal shellacking in the locker room.

Still, coaching isn’t only about sports, anymore. (Think birth coach, life coach.) When it comes to coaching writers, in particular, a range of skills often in short supply on the gridiron is required. Skills such as empathy and collaborative problem-solving. This work requires delicacy, tact, and considerable sensitivity. The coach must know when to sympathize with the writer’s doubts and lack of confidence and when to push that writer beyond her creative comfort zone. When to raise probing questions and when to recommend solutions. When to encourage, when to criticize.

Funny thing, though. While coaching a writer may seem to have little in common with coaching an athlete, a writing coach may adopt a playbook surprisingly similar to the one used to coach football, soccer, or Little League. This isn’t surprising. The athletic-coaching culture has been around a very long time. In ancient Greece, trainers called paidotribēs whipped athletes into shape to compete in frequent high-stakes games. They were known to brandish sandals or forked whips to “motivate” the competitors. Thus, coaching culture was born.

So rather than list the seven habits of a highly effective book coach (to borrow from business guru Stephen Covey), let’s highlight a few bad habits that book coaches might unconsciously practice in a culture still dominated by the image of the strong-willed, tough-minded, results-driven coach. (And uh, let’s assume that hitting writers is off the table for everyone.)

Resistance to change

As writing coaches, we expect our writer-clients to evolve, to have breakthroughs and ah-ha moments. Guess what? So should we. Even the most structured consulting practice shouldn’t become static. A one-size-fits-all approach never works. As wrestling coach John Klessinger notes, “A good coach evolves and adjusts. A bad coach stays the same.” Adds volleyball-mom-coach Mandy MS, “horrible coaches never admit to mistakes.” Instead they “make it all about the team’s lack of ability to execute your brilliant game plan.” In other words, if your writer’s draft isn’t improving, it must be her fault, not yours. Coach, look deep within when this happens and find a new approach with the client. Better yet, conduct a verbal audit with the writer to learn what they feel is working and what they may be missing.

Focusing on criticism

It is easy for coaches to default to critiquing work, or work habits, in the guise of providing constructive guidance. Are you really coaching if you’re not spotting faults and mistakes? But an over-reliance on criticism, even gently delivered, undermines a writer’s confidence and promotes an adversarial relationship between coach and writer. It’s vitally important to praise often and use criticism as strategically as possible, for example, to raise overarching concerns about a draft’s structure, tone, and continuity. As Kessinger says, frequent criticism will lead the writer (aka, player) to “walk around in fear of mistakes and focus on what they do wrong instead of what they did right or their improvement.”

Befriending the client

This is tough. You want your clients to like you, perhaps secretly love you, and you want to be their friend in return, to put your relationship on a buddy-buddy footing. You may think that playing the friend role softens your criticism and tough love (e.g., assigning deadlines, holding the writer accountable for changes). But you and the writer are not friends (assuming you’re not working with an actual friend, which is probably a mistake). And behaving as if you are can make your guidance feel harsher than intended. Friendships get emotional and can involve betrayal. A professional coach-writer relationship is founded on trust that includes a measure of emotional distance. You are there to help and guide, not to solve the writer’s personal problems.

Encouraging hero worship

Deep down, you hope that your coaching is so stellar, the client secretly worships you. You become their hero. This is a mistake. Coaches who aspire to hero status will inevitably be knocked off their perches. Too many extremely well-paid athletic coaches see themselves as God-like, and that never ends well. Your job isn’t to be worshipped but to offer services and tools that empower the client to succeed independently. After all, coaching isn’t about you, it’s about removing barriers to success on someone else’s behalf.

The coaching role in any discipline is challenging, since it requires the coach to constantly toggle between encouragement and critique, accountability and understanding. A coach should maintain intellectual and emotional distance while remaining attuned to the client’s needs. Obviously, the “yelling field” style of coaching that motivates players through fear and intimidation has no place among writing coaches. Nevertheless, writing coaches need to remain vigilant to keep many of the most common and deeply ingrained coaching habits out of the mix.

Amy L. Bernstein is a certified nonfiction book coach, a former journalist and speechwriter, and the author of several novels.

How Not to Coach a Writer was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.