At a recent Riverstone Living event, bestselling author and screenwriter Sue Teddern offered a rare glimpse into the creative life. With a career spanning live radio, prime-time television, fiction and musical theatre, her credits include Birds of a Feather, The Archers and the novels Annie Stanley, All at Sea and The Pre-Loved Club.
Through all its shifts and challenges, Sue has remained refreshingly honest about what a writing career really involves. Following her recent talk at Riverstone, we caught up with Sue for an exclusive interview to go even deeper. From impostor syndrome to creative structure, here’s the advice she shared that hasn’t been published until now.
Turning imposter syndrome into progress:
Imposter syndrome – that persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud despite your success – is something many creatives face. Around 50% of UK adults say they experience it regularly (Braverman, 2023).
Interestingly, those who feel like impostors often score higher in motivation and perfectionism (Vergauwe et al., 2015), suggesting the doubt itself is often linked to a drive to excel. Sue admits the feeling never fully disappears. “There’s always the panic that this will be the script that trips you up,” she says. “But my CV reminds me I can do this.”
She notes that most well-established writers experience it, but acknowledging impostor syndrome for what it is can help reframe doubt as a reason to keep going instead of holding back.
Know your genre:
Words rarely land exactly as we expect them to. We often assume clarity is enough, but language is personal, and interpretation isn’t uniform. Benveniste (1971) argued that subjectivity is built into language itself, and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests that language influences thought and processing (Barrett, 2023). Even a simple phrase can be interpreted in multiple ways depending on the listener. That is why Sue urges writers to study the medium they want to master. “I’ve taught too many workshops where students say they want to write for radio but have never listened to any plays or series.”
The more familiar you are with the style and structure of your platform, the better equipped you are to shape your message in a way that connects.
Why structure can set you free:
Planning has a reputation for stifling creativity, but Sue disagrees. “Writing without a plan is like setting off on a journey without a destination,” she explains, adding that structure brings clarity, direction and confidence – and the science backs her up.
A study by Lo Sardo et al. (2023) found that writers who planned ahead actually explored more creative possibilities during drafting. Outlining characters or shaping a plot doesn’t restrict creativity; it frees up mental space to focus on expression.
Further research by Erhard et al. (2019) shows that prewriting tasks like brainstorming and outlining activate brain regions tied to creativity. In short, planning isn’t the enemy of imagination. It’s the structure that helps it thrive.
Erhard, K., Kessler, H., Neumann, J., Orthey, R., & Lotze, M. (2019). Neural correlates of creative writing: An fMRI study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 435. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00435
Lo Sardo, D. R., Gravino, P., Cuskley, C., & Loreto, V. (2023). Exploitation and exploration in text evolution: Quantifying planning and translation flows during writing. https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.03645
Benveniste, É. (1971). Subjectivity in Language. In Problems in General Linguistics (pp. 223–230). University of Miami Press. https://web.vu.lt/flf/n.kersyte/files/2023/02/Benveniste-Emile_Subjectivity-in-Language.pdf
Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., … & Hagg, H. K. (2020). Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of Impostor Syndrome: A Systematic Review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252–1275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-05364-1
Personnel Today. (2023, October 31). Imposter syndrome: Workplace prevalence by sector, gender and age. https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/imposter-syndrome-prevalence-uk-research/
