Nicolas ColeCo-Founder Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy

If You Can Write Fiction And Copy, You Can Write Anything

15 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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In this talk, Nicolas Cole argues that mastering fiction writing equips a writer with fundamental craft skills that make any type of writing easier, but he contends that copywriting—writing designed to sell—offers equal or greater versatility. He shares his personal experience transitioning from a fiction degree to business writing for PR and advertising, noting how studying copywriters dramatically improved his storytelling and fiction work. Cole questions why the literary fiction world and the business copy world remain siloed, asserting that both would benefit from mutual study and cross‑pollination.

Chapters

If you can write fiction, you can write anything. If you can write and understand the mechanisms of fiction, every other type of writing is very easy. As soon as I graduated with a degree in fiction writing, I got into business writing, and I remember starting to write for PR companies and advertising agencies, and I thought, "This is so easy." But I would tweak this slightly. I think, yes, fiction is incredibly important and valuable, teaches you a lot about the art of the craft, but what teaches you just as much and what I've seen arguably more versatility in is if you can write copy. If you can write things that sell, you can write anything. I've actually found that by studying copy and studying copywriters, my storytelling techniques and my own fiction improved dramatically. Something that I've never understood is why these two worlds are kept so separate. You have the literature fiction world over here, and then you have the businessy, markety world, copywriting world over here. And I think both sides of the fence would benefit greatly by studying each other.