25 Skills Every Fiction Writer Should Know
--
If you want to be a good fiction writer and tell interesting stories, you need to practice and learn new things. These are the 25 important skills you should try to get better at and some resources to help you start.
No obvious stuff like teamwork and good communication.
No, these are the big skills you have to continually hone. The powers you’ll need to master so you can survive and succeed as a fiction writer.
I’ll give you a short overview of each skill and then explain its importance before linking resources.
Note, some links are affiliate links. I can get paid a small amount when you buy the item linked at no extra cost to you.
1. Character Creation
Overview:
The process of creating the characters for your story. Writing profiles for your main and side characters. The creation of your heroes and villains.
Creating their motivations, goals, fears, and even physical descriptions. All of it goes into creating a character. When you deliver this info to the audience, it’s called characterization.
Importance:
Characters are the driving forces of your plot. They make the decisions that drive the story and they must make sense with initial creation.
Whether their heroes or villains, complex or simple, it’s important to have well-written characters in your story.
Resources:
- How to Create Dramatic Characters
- How To Write Complex Characters: Overview Of The Enneagram
- How to Make a Character Profile
2. Character Development
Overview:
Character development is the process of change your character goes through.
It can be a positive development, a negative development, or occasional spikes of change.
Importance:
Characters are reflections of people and people change over time. Even if it’s occasional changes, we change as we grow.
