Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some people are good with grammar and syntax; others suck at it. Some people can pour ideas out and fill up endless gigabytes of word processor files without slowing down, but others write 1,000 words and hit a block. I read several excerpts from writers here who are amazing at describing scenes to the point where you feel right there with the MC. Others come up with great one-liners. Of course, the Beethoven of fictional writing would have all of these traits. But, which one do you think is most important? If you could choose one to be great at, what would it be? I included a poll.
What is the most important trait for a fiction writer?
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I voted for persistence, but actually have no idea. A vivid imagination will give you the story, but persistence gives you the determination to research and learn the craft of writing. Shrug... I’ll be interested to read what others say.
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I was once told by the owner of the old agency I used to be with, who was veteran agent himself, that he always thought the most important things an author needed were TALENT, PERSEVERANCE and LUCK. After decades in the game however he had switched up the order to LUCK, PERSEVERANCE and TALENT in order or importance.
It might seem a little cynical to have luck right at the top but after a decade in the biz I am now inclined to agree. That being said, you won't go far without the other two too. You really do need all three for a sustained career.
Now as for your question, which breaks down the "talent" portion, that I don't think there is one top option. I think the key is to play to your strengths, whatever they may be, and always work on self improvement and developing new skills.
It might seem a little cynical to have luck right at the top but after a decade in the biz I am now inclined to agree. That being said, you won't go far without the other two too. You really do need all three for a sustained career.
Now as for your question, which breaks down the "talent" portion, that I don't think there is one top option. I think the key is to play to your strengths, whatever they may be, and always work on self improvement and developing new skills.
This is difficult to answer for several reasons, the two main reasons being: the poll includes a mix of writer traits and elements of fiction; and, answers will be subjective.
And, as Liz says, everything can be learned.
Were I to pick one thing as a stand-out need for a writer to have, it would be a strong narrative voice.
(A really good article on the AW blog: The 3 Most Important Elements of Fiction Writing, by Magdalena Ball. It's an oldie, but goodie.)
And, as Liz says, everything can be learned.
Were I to pick one thing as a stand-out need for a writer to have, it would be a strong narrative voice.
(A really good article on the AW blog: The 3 Most Important Elements of Fiction Writing, by Magdalena Ball. It's an oldie, but goodie.)
Hmm...it's a bit mixed as to choices. The most important trait I'd say is persistence--sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.
But the most important talent or ability, IMO, is having a firm grasp on what is an effective story for your particular genre/type of literary fiction.
But the most important talent or ability, IMO, is having a firm grasp on what is an effective story for your particular genre/type of literary fiction.
I watched Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul Sunday this past Sunday. She had an author on, Steven Pressfield (author of The War of Art). He talked a lot about resistance (what economists would call barriers to entry), as it pertained to his breaking into book writing.
He said something interesting.... There is a way to get to the gold (getting an agent, getting published, becoming successful, and so forth). He had to figure out how to get passed the dragon protecting the gold. Finally, he did it.
Most important, to me, are two (and they carry equal weight): 1) Skill; and 2) Properly-guided determination (consisting of four elements).
I think luck becomes more important with reduction of design of commercial appeal for a novel. Think of things with high commercial appeal; they were designed to succeed. Lee Kerslake (Ozzy's drummer on the Blizzard of Ozz album) said in an interview that there was no way the album would not succeed; it was too clever. Guns n' Roses Appetite for Destruction was designed to succeed, and it did.
Twilight and The Hunger Games, at least appear to, mimic Harry Potter's book layout (evidence one, two). These books were designed to succeed, and they did. Granted, Twilight was rejected by 14 agents before the author found one. I do not know specifics, but I assume some of the rejects might have been automated, non-compliance of agent interests or submission guidelines, or something similar.
Music and novels are not the only venues offering designed-to-succeed products. Car manufacturers, gadgets, and what not; it's everywhere.
If a book is not designed to be maximally, commercially successful, luck is important for sure. I think luck is replaced by greed (of author, agent, and publisher) the more commercial-appeal potential an author can bring at the beginning. This includes a high degree of skill (technical and commercialization), but I think an agent (and/or publisher) might be more willing to work with a new author if the product may bring greater profits (as long as submission guidelines are met, some level of skill is demonstrated, and so on). This is not to suggest all agents and publishers work this way.
Is luck ever 100% not present? No! But luck is diminished by other elements.
He said something interesting.... There is a way to get to the gold (getting an agent, getting published, becoming successful, and so forth). He had to figure out how to get passed the dragon protecting the gold. Finally, he did it.
Most important, to me, are two (and they carry equal weight): 1) Skill; and 2) Properly-guided determination (consisting of four elements).
I think luck becomes more important with reduction of design of commercial appeal for a novel. Think of things with high commercial appeal; they were designed to succeed. Lee Kerslake (Ozzy's drummer on the Blizzard of Ozz album) said in an interview that there was no way the album would not succeed; it was too clever. Guns n' Roses Appetite for Destruction was designed to succeed, and it did.
Twilight and The Hunger Games, at least appear to, mimic Harry Potter's book layout (evidence one, two). These books were designed to succeed, and they did. Granted, Twilight was rejected by 14 agents before the author found one. I do not know specifics, but I assume some of the rejects might have been automated, non-compliance of agent interests or submission guidelines, or something similar.
Music and novels are not the only venues offering designed-to-succeed products. Car manufacturers, gadgets, and what not; it's everywhere.
If a book is not designed to be maximally, commercially successful, luck is important for sure. I think luck is replaced by greed (of author, agent, and publisher) the more commercial-appeal potential an author can bring at the beginning. This includes a high degree of skill (technical and commercialization), but I think an agent (and/or publisher) might be more willing to work with a new author if the product may bring greater profits (as long as submission guidelines are met, some level of skill is demonstrated, and so on). This is not to suggest all agents and publishers work this way.
Is luck ever 100% not present? No! But luck is diminished by other elements.
I voted Other, because I believe the most important trait is persistence. Followed by the ability to learn from mistakes and improve. Beyond that, storytelling ability and empathy. And a good understanding of what makes people tick doesn't hurt, either.
I would go with persistence. No matter how good a writer is they will know rejections and self-soubt so they need to have the strength to learn to pick themselves up after being knock-down.
Agree to disagree about luck and commercial success. First Harry Potter, Twilight and others weren't designed, they were written because the author had a story to tell. Secondly Harry Potter was rejected several times, and only got published because luckily the editor gave the 1st chapter to his child and they wanted to read the rest. So even the worldwide successful Harry Potter had a big push of luck. The publisher didn't believe it would be that successful anyway and JK Rowling 1st advance was only £1,500. Stephenie Meyer didn't sit down at her computer and thought what unexploited niche market can I write a book to be massively successful? She just had a dream and decided to write a story based around it and she got lucky it came at the right time on the market. She got rejected because not all agents like the same things, and they didn't feel it was the right book for them, not because she didn't follow submission guideline. Even EL James didn't carefully designed her 50 shades success. A published found her fanfic online (luck) and decided to repackage it into novels by changing names.
You can design something to succeed and still fail. Happens every year that agents or publishers think a book will be the next big thing, pay huge advances and it falls flat. It might not be your intention but the way you mention 'design to succeed' makes it come across that if someone applies a specific formula and follow a set of instructions it will guarantee your book to be successful. It doesn't work that way in my book.
You can write a great book but if it doesn't land on the right desk, of the right agent at the right time it might not get published. Agents will admit that there are great books every year that don't get published. The same way that you can write something not that great but if it scratches the right itch it will become successful.
Agree to disagree about luck and commercial success. First Harry Potter, Twilight and others weren't designed, they were written because the author had a story to tell. Secondly Harry Potter was rejected several times, and only got published because luckily the editor gave the 1st chapter to his child and they wanted to read the rest. So even the worldwide successful Harry Potter had a big push of luck. The publisher didn't believe it would be that successful anyway and JK Rowling 1st advance was only £1,500. Stephenie Meyer didn't sit down at her computer and thought what unexploited niche market can I write a book to be massively successful? She just had a dream and decided to write a story based around it and she got lucky it came at the right time on the market. She got rejected because not all agents like the same things, and they didn't feel it was the right book for them, not because she didn't follow submission guideline. Even EL James didn't carefully designed her 50 shades success. A published found her fanfic online (luck) and decided to repackage it into novels by changing names.
You can design something to succeed and still fail. Happens every year that agents or publishers think a book will be the next big thing, pay huge advances and it falls flat. It might not be your intention but the way you mention 'design to succeed' makes it come across that if someone applies a specific formula and follow a set of instructions it will guarantee your book to be successful. It doesn't work that way in my book.
You can write a great book but if it doesn't land on the right desk, of the right agent at the right time it might not get published. Agents will admit that there are great books every year that don't get published. The same way that you can write something not that great but if it scratches the right itch it will become successful.
I answered storytelling/characterization ability because I wasn't looking at it from a sales/marketing "successful author" angle but from a "what makes a great read" angle. From that POV, stamina and persistence also matter in writing and the editing. However, if you haven't nailed storytelling and characterization all the stamina and persistence in the world isn't going to fix the story.
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You're making the assumption that a book that's become successful would of course have been recognized as such at the querying stage by everyone who had a proper chance to look at it.
This isn't the case.
A runaway success is determined by alchemy. Marketing can only help you so much. IME, a book "designed" to be successful may fail more gracefully than one without the marketing engine behind it, but it'll still fail if it doesn't somehow catch fire with the public. And I've seen no evidence that anybody in the publishing food chain is better than anyone else at figuring out which books those are going to be.
Sanderson is a smart and successful person who provides good writing advice, but he's a unicorn. There's no formula to any of this, and if you assume you can just reconfigure until you hit the right numbers you're going to end up frustrated.
All books are written to be successful.
That's sort of the entire point of learning craft and/or trying to be published.
On the whole, there is a high degree of subjectivity. It really does come down to an agent saying, "I love this--me, personally" and later on an editor also saying "I love this--me, personally". There will always be something that sells, if not X then Y, therefore decisions are made on a very individual, personal, and subjective basis in many cases.
Here is a very interesting article on the thought process behind why some editors offer huge advances (in this case, 2 mil for 3 books):
http://ew.com/article/2016/05/02/debut-novel-millions/
That's sort of the entire point of learning craft and/or trying to be published.
On the whole, there is a high degree of subjectivity. It really does come down to an agent saying, "I love this--me, personally" and later on an editor also saying "I love this--me, personally". There will always be something that sells, if not X then Y, therefore decisions are made on a very individual, personal, and subjective basis in many cases.
Here is a very interesting article on the thought process behind why some editors offer huge advances (in this case, 2 mil for 3 books):
http://ew.com/article/2016/05/02/debut-novel-millions/
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Those charts that 'prove' Twilight and Hunger Games were somehow designed to mimic HP are... odd to say the least. One just says 'look these books all have a bunch of characters (though characters seem to include even random unnamed people like a receptionist). I'm pretty sure you could put a metric ton of successful books into that chart and come out with differing results, and take a ton of duds that have the same number of characters as those random three.
The other basically says 'they're all hero/quest stories' which... I disagree about Twilight but the creators of the chart, like whomever did the other, seem determined to shoehorn so... *shrug*. Hero quest stories are hardly a new thing. There are a zillion books that aren't it too that are wildly successful.
I mean there are formulas to things like storytelling in book form -- you need arcs and a point and etc,, but getting that granular in some attempt to suggest there's a secret formula is just destined to fail imo.
And how many of them actually DO hit it out of the ballpark?
This is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. Take some hit products and look for similarities. Whatever they are (and there will be sure to be some), assume that's "designing for a hit."
The trouble is when you try to go forward, sticking to those principles. You suddenly learn the meaning of "correlation does not mean causation." If designing to succeed were that easy, there would be few failures and multiple Jobs and Bezos running around.
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I voted for persistence and stamina. I prefer to think about it as determination and perseverance.
Luck is always a factor, in everything you do. Like the weather, it’s uncontrollable and unpredictable so I tend to disregard it in these kinds of discussions. As for all the other factors—with enough determination and perseverance, you can improve all these other traits and more. Even natural talent will only get you so far. It basically just gives you a bit of a head start. If you don’t work to develop your skills, you will quickly fall behind those who do and any practical distinction between innate talent and acquired skill becomes meaningless.
Luck is always a factor, in everything you do. Like the weather, it’s uncontrollable and unpredictable so I tend to disregard it in these kinds of discussions. As for all the other factors—with enough determination and perseverance, you can improve all these other traits and more. Even natural talent will only get you so far. It basically just gives you a bit of a head start. If you don’t work to develop your skills, you will quickly fall behind those who do and any practical distinction between innate talent and acquired skill becomes meaningless.
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As BethS said, with additional emphasis on empathy. You don't have even the beginnings of a story if you can't imagine what your characters are thinking, feeling, planning, hoping, etc.
I agree. I've learnt so much since I began writing, but the one thing I would be at a complete loss without is my creativity.
Is it the most important trait for a fiction writer? I don't know. But it certainly is the most important trait for me.
I never suggested designing to succeed is an easy task. It is quite difficult. Each project has its own unique challenges. I think goals should be some level higher than expectations. Bezos knew what he wanted and achieved it. He came across some snags (e.g. grocery-store elements of "Super" Targets and Walmarts). His goals were obvious; www.relentless.com redirects you to Amazon.com.
For me, I have expectations. I expect to learn how to write. I expect to improve myself via learning and experience. I expect to attempt writing a series. I do have goals to test what I learned. These are different, of course, but these are more icing on the cake elements (cherry on top, if you will).
If it is done right, mimicking, it can pay off well. There are A LOT of coincidences with Twilight and Hunger Games (compared to the first book of Harry Potter). They have different characters, plots, and what not, but I'd go as far as saying each of these authors may have deconstructed the first Harry Potter book to follow elements to improve their chances of: 1) landing an agent; 2) landing a publishing deal; 3) landing a following of fans. If either, or both, authors deconstructed Sorcerer's Stone, and followed it as a template, the books were designed to succeed.
A book that is designed to succeed, at the querying stage, can only be guesstimated as having high commercial success. Let's say a published author starts a new fantasy novel under an unused pen name. Let's pretend her agent agreed to this, as an experiment. She writes two versions of the same story (one to pitch to 5 agents and the other to 5, different agents). Both books have the same plot. In the second book, she designs it to succeed (much more than the first), and leaves the first alone. She adds in things like improved setting(s), wonderful character quirks and arcs, improved dialogue, better magic spells, better challenges/quests, and so forth.
Assuming she follows all the submission guidelines, writes as well as she did to get published before, and so forth, I'd expect her chances of success are improved with the designed-to-succeed novel. She may have a very good book without the improvements/embellishments, or she may get zero interest for the first book (and, possibly, both books). I think the luck element is diminished with elements the author can control.
I have no expectations, for my own writing, outside of learning how to write a novel series (and things of this nature). I have goals (outside of my expectations) that are like icing on the cake. For me, I will fail if I do not, at least, meet my expectations for myself. Sanderson did not sell his first novel till book 14. He noted, in his videos, he refused to do revisions; instead, he opted to start a new book. This is not to say his books would not sell, with revisions, but he said he will never revise them.
I'm not basing my goals on anything Sanderson taught from his videos. I use Sanderson to help me minimize occurrences of mistakes I would likely make without his information.
I won't vote in the poll, because I don't think you can make such discrete categories out of these things. To write well, you need to find a comfortable amalgam of all those listed. They are all valuable.
It might be more revealing to think in negative terms, as in: which of these, if weaknesses, limit/damage your writing in the eyes of most readers. For that, among the list, I would put "clarity and readability" at the top. If you ain't got those, most readers won't get far enough to notice the other things.
caw
It might be more revealing to think in negative terms, as in: which of these, if weaknesses, limit/damage your writing in the eyes of most readers. For that, among the list, I would put "clarity and readability" at the top. If you ain't got those, most readers won't get far enough to notice the other things.
caw
Again... all books are designed to succeed. That's what authors are trying to do. I'm struggling to imagine authors doing otherwise.
If you're talking about writing for maximum chances of sales, then write children's lit or romance, and self pub. Turn out one reasonably-plotted romance/ya sff novel per month, market it well, build a following, and you'll net six figures a year. That's what all the big earning indies do. It's a much surer road to success than trade. Of course, actually doing it is the tricky bit! It's a tough road to walk.
If you (general, not specific) don't take that route, then you generally have to do the best you can with what interests you. Something most best sellers have in common is a low reading age, for reaching a maximum demographic of people. I really think this is a massively important factor. In the UK, the average adult has a reading age of 9 so if I want to target the average adult, I should write a book that 8 year olds can read.
Since I'm unable to write for that age, I'm confined to doing the best I can with adult lit. My success is limited before I even start, so I suppose that might constitute an example of *not* writing to succeed.
If you're talking about writing for maximum chances of sales, then write children's lit or romance, and self pub. Turn out one reasonably-plotted romance/ya sff novel per month, market it well, build a following, and you'll net six figures a year. That's what all the big earning indies do. It's a much surer road to success than trade. Of course, actually doing it is the tricky bit! It's a tough road to walk.
If you (general, not specific) don't take that route, then you generally have to do the best you can with what interests you. Something most best sellers have in common is a low reading age, for reaching a maximum demographic of people. I really think this is a massively important factor. In the UK, the average adult has a reading age of 9 so if I want to target the average adult, I should write a book that 8 year olds can read.
Since I'm unable to write for that age, I'm confined to doing the best I can with adult lit. My success is limited before I even start, so I suppose that might constitute an example of *not* writing to succeed.