While Building Up Your Weaknesses
As you might know, last week I started a series on how to be a better writer. This, of course, omits the most obvious method: writing frequently. And the second most: reading good quality writing. But not entirely. I started with how to improve our setting descriptions and in the upcoming weeks we will move on to dialogue, character depth and growth, etc. However, this week I want to stop and talk about something that I wasn’t able to address in the initial post, and which deserves its own discussion: how to magnify your writing strengths while you’re building up your weaknesses.
This is crucial because if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we’re not [yet] the writers that we want to be. We have author heroes who wow us with their witty dialogue, or their deeply-immersive historical depictions, or their intensely evocative emotional journeys. And we would like our writing to grow in various ways.
But that’s not to say that we aren’t stronger in some areas already. Those are the areas you want to highlight and magnify as you’re studying and refining your craft. But how can you do that?
That’s a question I’ve asked myself and still consider on a regular basis. These are the answers I’ve discovered and which will hopefully help you as well!
Step 1: Self-Awareness
Part I – How Do You Write?
The first step requires a lot of honesty. What do you do well? Where are you weaker? You might be naturally self-aware and already know the answer to this. But it’s always good to have feedback. Join writing groups, attend writing conferences or retreats, beta read for others and request beta reading from them. And in each of these instances, ask people for the hard truth – what is your strongest area and what is your weakest?
Another resource is the following link that a number of writers were recently passing around online: https://www.codingrobots.com/iwl/
It’s a quick and easy tool. You copy and paste a section of your writing into the box and click “Analyze.”
The tool will compare your writing to that of different authors and will tell you which famous writer’s style is the most like your own. From the different responses that people were giving, it seemed like the software used writing samples from a LOT of different authors for the comparisons.
You can do this for multiple sections of your writing – from the same, or different works – to assess whether your style is consistent, or if you have a mix of styles. I used the first chapter (2,700+ words) from my current manuscript. The software said that my style is most like the writing of Ray Bradbury.
Part II – Qualifying Your Style
That alone might not help you…but other sites which discuss that author’s style will. For example, the following site had a wonderful breakdown of a number of writers, of which, one of them is Ray Bradbury:
https://literarydevices.net/writing-styles/
If you look at the description of Bradbury’s style, you can see an example of things that might be different from writer to writer. Elements such as a heavier or lighter use of metaphor, rhythm, sentence structure, and types of themes.
This sort of analysis should point you towards your strength(s). In my case, I agree that, like Bradbury, I am very cautious and intentional in my word choice; I tend to write in figurative ways, using metaphors and highly symbolic language; and I have a rhythm to my writing that I see reflected in some of his.
Keep in mind that Bradbury is one of my favorite writers and I am nowhere near his ability level yet, but it isn’t surprising that I gravitate towards his writing. It resonates with me. It mirrors something in my own voice that I can understand and appreciate. My writing, given more time and practice, could grow into a similar version of his style. Not his exactly, but my own version of it.
What this tells me is that I could benefit by:
- Studying Bradbury’s writing more critically and practicing using some of the methods he used in order to accomplish things that I’m also seeking to do in my own writing.
- Focusing my current writing on the things I do best: the use of figurative and symbolic language, etc.
Part III – Marrying That to Your Personality
Another tool in our self-assessment is our own personality. I’m partial to the Myers-Briggs personality profile. Here’s a very comprehensive test if you haven’t take the test before:
https://www.personalityhacker.com/genius-personality-test/
As you learn about your personality (and other personalities), you’ll begin to see where you excel… and where you don’t. I’ve been so interested in this for so long that I can spot a number of different personalities just by reading portions of their writing. Especially other introverts like myself.
For example, when I see a section of writing with deep character introspection and profound themes, I usually guess that I’m looking at an INFP’s writing. They’re so in tune with people and what’s true about each person, along with what they believe – what is right and what is wrong. It’s not surprising that this comes out on the page. But they often struggle to organize their thoughts. So a complex plot line will be harder for this personality to pull off until they’re a more seasoned writer. (A mature INFP writer though is a thing to behold!!)
In contrast, if I see a rich fantasy landscape with lots of nuance and color mixed with deep character emotion, I’m usually looking at the writing of an INFJ. They have the mind to write Fantasy with all of that rich, detailed world-building. It’s in their bones. I know this because an INFJ is very intuitive – seeing the underlying meaning and patterns across countless data points – very in touch with the feelings of others, and very organized. (Others may also write Fantasy well, but may have a slightly different feel to their work.)
Step 2: Put It All Together
Then we need to apply this self-awareness in our writing.
I’ll use myself as an example. I’m an INTJ. If you know much about personalities, you know that an INTJ is (like the INFJ) very intuitive. I also have a high-degree of pattern recognition. INTJs are very good at more complex plots. We can handle a lot of moving pieces and keep them all in order. Of course, this can still be challenging since I just push myself much harder and build more complex stories than a different personality might choose.
For me, the obvious answer is to focus on plot complexity with all of the figurative language that I love. For now. That doesn’t have to mean any one genre, but it will likely exclude some. A lot of literary fiction – brilliant though it tends to be – is focused more on character and theme and less on plot. These are better left to some of my INFP writer friends. Mysteries however, can be very complex. As can Fantasy or Science Fiction.
Hopefully what you’re seeing is that, if I want to write literary fiction that’s a great goal and I can work towards it. But in the short-term, I’m probably not going to see the results I want to see if that’s where I’m focusing my energy. It doesn’t magnify my natural strengths.
The same could be true if I long to be a screenwriter but I’m not as strong in dialogue as I am in thematic symbolism. If that were my goal, I would focus my publishable writing on those types of stories that use the rich themes I love. Meanwhile, I would practice writing shorter side pieces that build up my dialogue.
[I’m not saying that dialogue isn’t always important in writing. Just that it plays a more dominant role in some writing than in others. Even outside of screenwriting, if you read carefully, you’ll notice that some writers use a lot less dialogue than others and still tell a wonderful story.]
On the other hand, INTJs are not as strong in extroverting emotion. Thus, that is one of the things I constantly work on. I read craft books about creating an emotional journey for readers. I practice this in shorter pieces for writing contests. I work on it in focused segments of my current manuscript, etc.
It’s something I’m highly aware of and am working on, but it’s not the central component of my work. I’m not going to write a story about a young mother who loses her child in a horrific accident and has to overcome her bitterness and forgive those who bear the guilt of her child’s death. It wouldn’t come off as well as it should. But I might have a side story about someone who suffers a loss in the midst of a very complex Gothic mystery.
Conclusion
That’s the key. We each have strengths and weaknesses as writers. And we’re each trying to improve these as we grow. But the best way to do so is to give ourselves the room to magnify the things that come most naturally to us while we’re building up the areas of our writing that are more challenging for us.
This gives our readers the best of our writing ability today, while still moving towards the goals that we have for our writing in the future.
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