Writing fiction is a complex task, with lots of moving parts. Lots of people recognize this, but never really stop to think about what that means in terms of actually doing the writing.
There are three questions that anyone faced with an incredibly complex job would likely find useful to think about up front. They are:
- What am I good at?
- What do I need to be good at?
- What do I want to be good at?
What am I good at?
Which parts of this job do you already know how to do well? Everybody is good at something, even if it’s something they don’t think is important. This one is about recognizing your strengths, which is very difficult for many people.
One tends to undervalue and take for granted the things that come easily. Writers who do brilliantly natural-sounding dialog ignore that and bemoan their stiff action scenes (and vice versa). They never seem to think of picking projects that involve more conversation, or even of adjusting scenes so that there’s less action and more talk. Writing is supposed to be hard, isn’t it?
Don’t worry, plenty of other things about writing are hard. It’s still really useful to know what you’re good at, because it can help you with the next two questions.
What do I need to be good at?
Which parts of this job are key elements that absolutely must be present, and done to some minimum standard? For most writing, these are the basics: plot, setting, backstory, characters, grammar, spelling, syntax.
The tricky thing here is that the minimum standard for fiction is really a composite of everything that goes into the story. Fantastic characters and witty dialog can compensate for a weak plot; terrible grammar and syntax can drag down an otherwise solid manuscript. The “minimum standard” for individual elements is necessarily flexible – the same formulaic plot that is hardly noticeable amid the witty dialog and interesting characters won’t pass muster in a novel with a cast that’s not so stellar.
The things that absolutely positively need to be present and the minimum standard for them will also vary depending on the type of book you are writing. The minimum amount of setting description is usually greater in an adult work of historical fiction than it is in a middle-grade book set in modern times.
What do I want to be good at?
Which parts of this job are the ones you personally value and will feel unhappy about if you don’t get right by your own personal standards? Or to put it another way, which things will make you happy if you get them right and unhappy if you don’t, no matter how much money the book makes or how much your Mom loves it?
This is a deeply personal question, which varies by author. It also doesn’t have anything to do with whatever you think you should have to be good at, or with what the story needs to be halfway decent.
Note than answering any of these three questions with “everything” means you haven’t thought about it enough. As an answer for #1, it’s hubris; as an answer to either of the others, it’s overwhelming, depressing, and unhelpful even if it is true down in the depths of your secret consciousness. If you, like a former boss of mine, are incapable of sorting “everything” into a list in order of priority, rephrase the questions: What one thing am I best at? What one thing absolutely must be done well for this story? What one thing do I most want to get right in this story?
Even if you can’t come up with a definitive answer for one or all of the questions, thinking about them can help you decide where you need to put your focus for your current or next project. If there’s a big disconnect between what you’re good at, what the story you’ve picked needs, and what you want, you may have a fundamental problem. If you’re good at brooding, deeply introspective characters, and you want to be good at highly involved non-linear structure, but the story you’re writing needs fast-paced action and a strong forward narrative drive, this may not be the right project for you at this time.
From the start, I had a good handle on dialogue, description, atmosphere, and writing in a clean, elegant style—all those things Writer’s Digest articles said beginning writers needed help with. What I was terrible at (and did not even recognize as lacking) was telling a story. Most of my early short stories were essentially just events, with no development of beginning-middle-end.
Even now, it’s something I struggle with—in the form of character motivation. In two of my long works, the protagonist simply wants to get back home. (Maybe that comes from watching The Wizard of Oz too many times as a kid.)
Almost thirty years, I showed my first published work, a short story, to some coworkers. They complimented its dialog and characterizations.
Those were the areas I thought I was weakest! Such a confidence-builder…
Great little anecdote!
I had a similar thing happen to me while taking a class taught by an experienced writer. I confessed that plot was my weak point, and he said, “Heavens, no! Plot is one of your strong points.”
Just goes to show that the writer is always the worst judge of his or her own work.
(It turned out that information flow was a real weak point. I still have to pay careful attention to it.)
When I was 12 I sat down and re-read the stories I had abandoned.
I realized that I found it impossible to segue to a new scene. I worked on that.
Others have told me that the “sit down and read a whole bunch of your stories” also works for determining what a problem in writing you have.
*Thank you* for writing this. (I know I’m commenting somewhat late, but I want to say that those questions aren’t solely applicable to fiction; I probably would have done well to ask myself those before starting my current (seismology) research projects. Since neither project is done yet, I suppose it isn’t too late to figure out the grad school-applicable answers now…)