Do You Have a Writer’s Personality?
As I approach the scary saggy middle section of my work-in-progress, I’ll do anything to distract myself. Today I even considered dusting, but I quickly remembered I had a blog post to write.
That’s the good thing about being a writer. I have willpower. What other qualities are helpful to a writer?
1. An analytical mind – You need to enjoy spending time thinking about situations and their possibilities, as well as all the problems that come up when your characters get themselves into tricky situations.
2. The power of observation – You notice details in the world around you—smells, tastes, sounds or sights—that other people often don’t even register.
3. An ear for language – You like the sounds of words and you have a natural sense of the rhythm of conversations.
4. Good fine motor skills – It definitely helps when your fingers can keep up with the thoughts spilling from your brain.
What other traits does a writer need?
– Andrea
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
A writer definitely needs a sense of humor. How else can we really experience life and transfer that experience to our readers?
Patience. There is no such thing as a quick story or overnight success. You have to be patient not only with your own process (I tend to write slowly, for instance) but for the business end of things.
And ditto for what Hazel-Ann said. Humor is essential.
Curiosity! I’m so curious about everything. How were forks invented? How did people make coffee two hundred years ago? You could lock me up in an empty room for hours and I wouldn’t get bored.
Hope and persistence. Hope to help you believe you can eventually share what you write with an audience, and persistence to help you learn and submit enough to make that hope come true.
Great list! I definitely have an analytical mind. Sometimes I overanalyze stuff. But I don’t really have good fine motor skills!
I’d have to add wild imagination. You need to be able to think up what hasn’t been thought of before or at least twist it in a new way.
Imagination for sure and creativity.
Laughing about the fine motor skills, that’s a good one, it does help to keep up when in full flow!
Ha-ha on the powers of observation. The only way I can write is to turn a blind eye on all the things at home that need doing … sigh. The Husband WISHES I had a keen power of observation.
Cynthia, maybe I should revise that to “selective powers of observation”. I definitely am able to ignore those dirty dishes sometimes, when it’s a choice between that or writing.
Imagination is something I sometimes wish I had more of, but then I think for me it’s a matter of giving myself the time to play around and let my imagination have free rein.