Every profession has its own specifics. Which, if you work in one specialty for a long time, leaves its mark on a person. These are the qualities that a person acquires by adapting to the specifics of his work – partly his worldview, outlook on life, and social and psychological habits.
The writing profession also has its own specifics, its own worldview and a set of necessary qualities. And if you are a student studying English literature, than you have probably thought about this ultimate question:
What does it take to become a writer?
You need to have writer’s view of the world
A writer’s eye is the ability to notice important little things, details, that make up a certain situation, images, and life. This is the ability to observe and draw conclusions, this is the ability to notice what others are not paying attention to.
A writer’s perspective is necessary to reliably describe people and the relationships between them, elements of the world around them, and the world itself. And this view serves as a source of new interesting ideas.
Writer’s Mindset
This is the ability to skip through what you have seen, heard, felt, follow the cause-and-effect relationships and draw conclusions. From everything – from the situation you see, from interesting phrases someone says. This is the ability to describe the experiences gained. Find the right words for them.
It is also the ability to look at a situation or people from the outside. Such thinking presupposes a broad mindset: when there are several different (or even opposite) opinions on one issue. When there are several ways out of one situation – and all are useful and correct in their own way.
It is necessary to develop a writer’s mindset. So that the characters do not turn out to be one-dimensional. So that the scene-situations do not come out monotonous, so that the world turns out to be deeper and wider. And, as in the case of the writer’s view, thinking develops through training and becomes a habit, a quality.
The ability to work when you don’t want to
Writing is the same job and you need to get used to it. And this is difficult, because most writer’s have a main job, which takes both their strength and time. But it is necessary to train yourself to work on the story in your free hours.
Developing this quality, you first need to train concentration. Gather thoughts and get down to business. Two or three times a week to start with, for a couple of hours. And then – to develop perseverance. Not just for a couple of hours, but until you write five pages. Then not twice a week, but every other day. And finally, two or three pages a day.
The ability to organise yourself and sacrifice
Who among us doesn’t spend time on the Internet? When does says something like “just ten more minutes”, that later turn into a three–hour chat with friends? And how much time do games and TV shows take? When the working day is over, two hours fly by just like that.
No, of course, rest is needed. But if you want to become a writer, then you need to work on a book as often as possible and allocate at least an hour or two to write a page or two. This means that it is necessary:
- Organise your free time;
- Learn to collect your thoughts quickly.
What is necessary? Keep track of yourself during the week and note how much free time you have. To understand what it takes, think about how to organise time and what to sacrifice. Yes, sacrifices are inevitable. But they can be minimised. And, for example, instead of ten episodes of your favorite TV series, watch one or two after two pages are written.
Learn to collect your thoughts quickly, do not get hung up on fatigue, give up wasting time where there is no benefit, and you will always have half an hour or an hour to write at least a page.
Willingness to learn
Writing is not just a job. First of all, it’s learning. Permanent. And not only learning of literary materials and articles about “how to write a bestseller.”
Yes, and you will have to study all the time. Unless, of course, you plan to limit yourself to a couple of short stories or a book-of-a-lifetime.
A writer’s eye and writer’s mindset, self–organisation, the ability to work when you don’t want to, and a willingness to learn - these are the qualities that need to be found and shaped by those who want to become a writer.
Patience
Writers need a lot of patience. Working on any story requires a lot of time, and only writing the first drafts takes from a month (if a story) to several years. And, creativity will be slowed down by:
- Lack of knowledge and experience,
- Lack of time,
- Creative “hang-ups” – when inspiration disappears, when you don’t know what to write about next,
- Discouragements like “what kind of nonsense am I writing and who needs this?”.
Writing is a long and tough marathon. And for most marathon runners, by the way, the main thing is not the victory, but the finish. To endure and run. Yes, and in life, patience is an extremely useful thing.
What else is important? Do not write in a bad mood, get distracted, be patient. Do not write to the detriment of life’s affairs and problems. Many people practice escaping into the book from reality, but the problems do not solve themselves.
Psychological stability and stress resistance
Writers have a lot of stress associated with creativity. And writers, like any decent creative people, are subtle, and hypersensitive. Especially when it comes to your favorite creation - book.
What kind of stresses do writers face and how to deal with them:
Is the plot no longer coming together? No tantrums. Think about the ending, edit the beginning, take a break and relax.
- Does someone else write better? But why? Find what’s that “better”, analyse the techniques and learn. And avoid feeling envy. Envy kills creativity.
- Are family and friends laughing? Only a writer can understand a writer. In no case be ashamed or make excuses. You are different from them and picked a different career. And that’s a good thing.
- Are critics being harsh? This is inevitable. But before rushing to defend your creation, abstract from the authorship. And evaluate how right the critic is, and, if anything, it’s pointless to argue with them.
Be sure to develop psychological stability. Don’t let yourself get discouraged and upset, love your stories and your calling. Accept it and be proud.
Interest in life
This is a mandatory quality. If you are not interested in what surrounds you, what you live by, you will never interest readers with your work. It is the interest in life that pushes us to study and research it, to search for details and cause-and-effect relationships. As long as you are interested in looking around, observing, studying, analysing and recording what you see, you will always have a lot of creative ideas.
It is also very important to be positive and believe in yourself. Keep the mindset like: I believe that everything will work out, that there will be interesting ideas, that readers will come to you, and the novel may not be the first or the second – it will be successful and will interest publishers.
And be sure to believe in what you write for a reason. It’s very difficult. But the interest in life makes this task easier. It helps to understand that you have not seen much, missed a lot, and there is still something to learn and something to strive for.
A sense of proportion and self-demanding
Or rather, the golden mean between these qualities. Everything seems not as it was dreamed of, unfinished, which means that it needs to be redone and improved. And working on a story can turn into a protracted editing of one page. But the worst thing is when perfectionism “wakes up” in the middle of the novel and the reworking of the unfinished begins. It is often endless. And that’s it, the work stops, and you stop liking the story at all. And here a sense of proportion is needed. Redoing is good, but finish the whole book first. And at the end, refine it point-by-point. Otherwise, you won’t write anything else, and will find yourself stuck trying to improve what is already good enough.
But in general, being demanding is a good thing. It does not allow you to stop and abandon the draft. It helps to abstract from the text, look for flaws, find and correct them. And, in general, to learn, develop and move on. But a sense of proportion is necessary at the same time.
Knowing yourself and your creative goals
Why do you need to know yourself? To understand what to write about – what issues to raise, what topics to disclose, what images to work on. In any work – it doesn’t matter if it’s a short story or a novel – there must be something that you want to say. Without understanding the topics and questions, even a detailed plot will stop, because there will be no interest. And in order to unearth all the burning questions, you need to study yourself properly.
What is the need for knowledge of creative goals? To understand what you are writing for. For yourself – to dream “out loud”, talk about the painful memories, remember interesting events and record observations? Or for earnings, publications and fame?
So, if you write for yourself, then there is no point in looking back at the requirements of publishers and tormenting yourself with a large book if you wanna write short stories. But if you are writing to be published, you will have to study the book market, read the creations of fellow competitors, comply with the requirements of publishers and integrate them into books. Approaches to creative topics and issues, to their elaboration, will vary depending on the purpose.
Of course, the writing profession is not limited to these qualities. You will also need the courage to start, the determination to continue writing and defend your right to be creative, and the ability to stop and rest. And a lot of strength, both physical and psychological. But there is a huge plus in this. You will always have a favourite thing to do, an interest in life and the ability to spend time usefully. Plus, you will never be bored!
Writing is not only a profession. It’s a worldview, and a philosophy. And anyone who thinks that being a writer is an easy thing, most likely have never thought about how much work and stress this profession involves!