Saturday, July 17, 2021

Writing is not one skill, it is set of Skills

types of writing

 Looking at a work of fiction it is composed of several different types of writing like: description ( of a character, place, weather, or thing), dialogue, inner thoughts (of any of the characters) , narration ( storytelling by the narrator when there is one) , action ( could be a sub-set of description as in a description of some characters actions).

Each writer has varying degrees of expertise in each skill. Just about no one excels in all of them. And I guess every writer enjoys some more than others.

What's interesting is also how writers combine those different types. If you look at chapters (in the same book), and I have,  mostly you find they are not uniform in content types. Some chapters have more dialogue than others, some more action than others, some more narration, etc. Which makes sense since variety is the spice of life. Patterns of writing can emerge which also makes sense since life forms tend to work in patterns.

Some writers never use certain types of writing. Jane Austin almost never uses description. She never tells you someone's eye color, or the material of their dress, or temperature of the room. Occasionally she might describe someone as handsome or mention the make of a carriage but only where it is strictly useful to the story's progress. She doesn't do atmosphere. She does a lot of dialogue. That's why her writing is so available to modern readers and so adaptable to the screen - it's very like a screenplay.  Some writers almost never do dialogue. Raymond Chandler does great description; of people, places, weather, etc. Alice Hoffman does great atmospheric description. Read the prologue to Here on Earth.

It can help your writing to be aware of how other writers combine the different types. An exercise you can use is to get a bunch of highlighters and assign each type of writing a color. Then mark up several chapters of any book you want to analyze. You can then quickly look over the chapters and see which types of writing the author uses and how they combine the types, and how their chapters differ. If you  do several different authors you can compare the authors' styles. You can also ask yourself which type of writing of a particular author do you like or dislike. This can give you insight into your own writing.

You don't have to be great at all types of writing. But you should try to be good enough at each type you use. Part of being a writer is finding out what you do best and what you like to do best. And leaning heavily into those types.

When you work to improve your writing it's a good idea to assess your strengths and  weaknesses by type and work on each type separately.  Instead of saying such and such chapter needs work ask yourself what about it needs work the most. What type of writing. And does that type of writing need work in all your chapters.

Read authors whose writing is great where yours needs improvement and learn from them. Seek out authors who excel in the types of writing you are good at and learn from them.  Ask yourself what they are doing that works so well.

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