Every writer has things that they are really strong in, and things that they feel they’re weakest at.
So for you what are your greatest strengths in writing, and what are your weakest areas?
For me, I feel my biggest weakness is consistently describing settings for readers to get the best picture. I’m better than I used to be, but I still have to go back through my writing and find ways to bulk up how a setting looks.
My greatest strength I think lies in writing believable dialogue. I feel this is my greatest strength because I tend to think of scenes by the dialogue being used. I feel I can effectively use dialogue to describe the mood of a piece as well as forward character interactions and even plot.
So how about it? Share with me your areas of strength and weakness.
My biggest strength is probably descriptions/a distinct, prose-y writing style that can make it easy for readers to picture exactly what’s happening. Which is good, because a lot of my stories (usually in genres such as fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal) tend to have a lot of elements that don’t exist in real life, so they need to be something you can envision.
My biggest weakness is the middle of the story. Generally when I write a story I know exactly how I want it to start and I know exactly how I want it to end. Getting from point A to point B tends to get a bit clunky, because I can’t write the middle of the story unless I plot, and I hate plotting, so I’ve got countless documents where I’ve written the first 1K-10K of what could be a spectacular story that I’m just never gonna finish. I like writing those super foreshadowy complicated stories, so pantsing can work sometimes, but more often I just keep writing more threads and tucking others away and frantically patching plot holes and I’m left with an overcomplicated mess that’s just too much to untangle.
TRANSITIONS ARE THE WORST! I feel you about the middle thing!
I’m not a plotter either TBH, I’ve tried outlines and I’ve tried organizing things, but it unfortunately doesn’t work for me. I think it’s because I feel like I’m doing double the work, especially if things change significantly from the outline (which they often do!)
Plotting is simply the worst and just always feels like a waste of time no matter how I try to organize it but I want my big epic adventure plot lines-
The only reason I’ve stuck with my current WIP is because it’s not even in a book format it’s in an episode format so all the plotting I did was name each episode and then write all the episodes based on the name but even then it feels restraining. I swear if I got a pre-made story skeleton I could write an entire story start to finish but as is oh my goodness it’s exhausting
Writing is definitely work, no matter how one looks at it. Especially when not feeling particularly inspired, but the drive to write pushes me to get something down.
I didn’t use to think of this as a strength, but after listening to other writers complain about their inability to finish a manuscript, my superpower is finishing power! I’ve never started anything that I didn’t finish. Once I begin a project, I live and breathe that universe until it’s done, and I can’t work on anything else until it is.
My weakness would be organization. I take millions of notes, and keeping them sorted and handy is impossible. (ノ_<、)ヾ(´▽｀)
Organization is hard. My coworkers often tell me how organized I am, and I have to correct them You have no idea how scattered I really am. I have to write myself lists in order to be sure important things get done in a day. So yeah I feel that organization thing!
Prose. If there’s one thing I’m gonna do, it’s string a pretty sentence together.
My biggest weakness is probably perfectionism. I don’t believe in myself enough to keep putting work out. I’ve made some progress with it the last few months tho. By this time next year I hope I’ll be writing £1 plays at fringe festivals.
