Since there’s a thread about where you feel you could improve as a writer, I thought it would be fun to think about the other side of the coin. What areas are you proud of as a writer/developer, what do you feel are your strengths? What do people consistently say is good about your work?
This may be a hard question to answer - there can be internal pressure to be modest, especially if you’re unsure about your skills - but here is a thread where you can toot your own horn! Feel free to say what other commenters’ writing strengths are, too.
To kick off: one of my strong areas is character voice. One of the beta testers for Blood Money said that they knew who every character was just from their dialogue, and that was incredibly nice to hear! I also feel that my location descriptions give a good sense of place and atmosphere. I like trying to include details to flesh out locations without having to write something really long.
You’re right, this is somewhat hard to answer. I am ambivalent about my other aspects of writing, but I do quite like the style of fighting scenes I write, and do enjoy similar action scenes in others’ works as well.
Wow, a place for me to shamelessly stroke my narcissism.
Based off of some of the comments I’ve got on The Magician’s Burden, Winter of the Bovine, The Enchanter’s Misery, and Mass Mother Murderer, I’d say maybe my biggest strength is getting people to feel strong emotions for the characters or situations, whether it be anger, pity, happiness, sadness, or disgust.
Good thread, @HarrisPS! Self-assessment is definitely tough, but as we make progress with our skills, I think it’s healthy to acknowledge some things we do well. We’re often way too hard on ourselves!
For me, I think I have a knack for developing the heart of a story and inviting the reader to care about the characters. I heard that from a lot of CCH readers, and I’m working hard to develop it with StarStreakers! too. I figure that if readers like the characters, they will follow them (almost) anywhere, but that flat characters will almost never carry even the tightest of plots.
writting funny scene , I love to laugh (think thats what is keeping me alive so far lol) . And writing funny hilarious scene is just a blast .
and dialogues .
You know , a long time ago as a noob…I always though that writting different characters would be the scariest thing to do . Always though that somehow my own personality would override whatever ‘zen’ personality I could think of creating . Phew…that never happen! lol
I’m not sure if this is really a writing strength, but I have a very easy time visualizing characters, locations, entire scenes. I don’t always have the easiest time translating my imagination into words, but I know exactly what everything looks and sounds like before I ever even sit down to write.
Oooh and writing sex scenes. I’ve gotten lot’s and lot’s of positive feedback on the smut I’ve written.
Oh and you’re so right @HarrisPS. I read your current WIP, and I had a such a clear image of who my character was before I ever got to the character creation moments that I was surprised I hadn’t already done that part when I came to it.
Oh heh…we should make an other thread about saying nice things about other writers because I’ve got something nice to say about everyone who posted ahead of me.
The most positive comments I’ve received so far have been about my ROs and the sex scenes in Werewolves: Haven Rising, which is funny because I always thought that would be my weak point. Personally, I’ve always felt that I was at my best when describing a scene or the actions of a group within a scene. I’ve always been very self-conscious about my dialogue.
Not necessarily a writing strength, but I’m not afraid to hack and slash my drafts when I go to reread them for small things (like spelling errors) and then end up changing the scene entirely.
I like how I develop characters. I feel like I’m fairly good at creating compelling, complicated characters with defined personalities. I also like to think I’m not bad at writing dialogue. And I suppose I’m not awful at worldbuilding, haha.
I feel like I do two things very well: create characters, and create atmosphere. If I need to make a tense and oppressive situation, or a flawed and compelling character, I’m good.
I think(/hope) my strong points are characters (and writing natural dialogue/interactions between them) and world-building without word-vomiting, which is often the thing that most bothers me when reading other works! I also think I’m pretty strong in grammar and spelling when I try.
I like to believe my strengths lie in dialogue. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out how to move between topics while keeping the game of back-and-forth still seem natural. Granted, if I let the back-and-forth lead to its more natural conclusion, it can steer off into unexpected directions, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes even opens up new story routes.
I can also write pretty quickly and in bulk if I’m focused enough. My current record is a 45k word novella that I wrote over a span of 4 days or so. Downside of that is an inevitable burnout, but I feel like it’s a fair trade-off.
I think my best and greater strenghts are my creativity and ability to get attention from people with my narrating style. However I have problems with ordering the conversations between characters and I lack the ability to know how other people will be reacting to my work. I am also very ashamed to show othets what I write because I believe it is not so good.
So yeah my problems are shame and insecurity. I am bad planning psychological schemes in my stories (or I have never tried it before) and English is not my native language but I have been practicing it for a long time. Most of what I have write is in English, so no idea why but I am way more creative in English.
