What Type of Writer Are You?

I follow John Fox’s YouTube channel: BookFox. He’s a writing teacher, editor, and it seems to me, also a coach. Whatever your skill level, his channel and website are full of helpful material for any writer.

During lunch, I make a point of watching one of his videos. Some of them are long, but most are under fifteen minutes. One of his older (ha! only seven months ago) videos highlights nine questions he thinks every writer should be able to answer for themselves regarding their writing craft.

In other words, answering these questions can help you determine the type of writer you are or the type of writer you want to become. I thought it was fascinating because I struggle with this questions all the time.

Below is the link to the video. Go ahead and watch it. I’ll still be here when you’re finished.

After watching this video, a lot of things about my writing became clear:

I want to put my readers in a trance.I like to think I stand on high moral ground.And no subject is off limits.

But whoa whoa whoa, cowboy!

Not so fast.

Do I really want to grandstand in my fiction? Are there truly no subjects I won’t write about? In other words, would I write about, say, masturbation? Pedophilia? Rape?

By the way, I have written about those things. But do I want to be that sort of writer?

Explore with me these questions to find out what sort of writer you and I want to be.

Of course, keep in mind that a “type” of writer is ephemeral and not static. These questions help to apply guardrails on a very wide path, but we all know the best journeys veer off the well-trodden road.

Let’s start by re-iterating the questions from the video:

Do you prefer language as trance or as entertainment? Or both?Do you take advantage of the novel’s inherent advantages as a communication medium (as opposed to films): interiority, time fluctuations, & point-of-view (POV) variation?What should you never show? Do you show everything (i.e. no topic is off the table)? Where do you draw the line? Do you have a line?Should you always write round characters? Or flat characters? Or both?Is your novel or writing moral or amoral?Should you include coincidence in your fiction? (If you do, make sure it is at the beginning and not end.)Anticipation or suspense? Which do you prefer to write? Or a bit of both?Should you use brand names in your fictions? This will time-stamp your work.Should you create themes in your story? Or allow them to emerge organically from the work?

These are all heavy topics. I don’t like to inundate my readers with too much in one go, so in the next few weeks, I’ll tackle one or two questions in my Wednesday Writer series. Let’s start!

1. Do you prefer language as trance or as entertainment? Or both?

By trance, the Bookfox is referring to the kind of writing that doesn’t get in the way of the story. The reader can “fall” into your world and is so immersed, they are not aware of the physical words on the page. They simply enjoy the ride and aren’t paying attention to whether you used ‘and’ or ‘then’. The text is so unobtrusive, they don’t see it.

On the flip side is writing for the sake of entertaining the reader. I would argue that this is what most poets do. The words are the point. The text will have several clever turns of phrases or sentences. The reader may even stop to re-read something not because they’re confused, but because they want to relish the rhythm or cadence of the words again and again. Or they may paint a unique picture in the reader’s mind that they can’t help but stop reading the story to notice.

For myself, I have to admit I’m the kind of writer that aims for my readers to fall into a trance. I don’t want to break that fourth wall. For sacred sake, don’t notice me–the writer! Fall in love with my characters and the places I take them. While I might enjoy a metaphor here or there, I primarily write from my character’s perspective and I hope you get into their heads so completely, I’m the last person you’d think of when reading my stories.

That’s what I aim for.

How about you?

2. Do you take advantage of the novel’s inherent advantages as a communication medium (as opposed to films): interiority, time fluctuations, & point-of-view (POV) variation?

This question won’t have a clear answer, but it illuminates the degree to which a fiction writer uses the narrative tools at their disposal. The primary three Bookfox highlights are:

Interiority–the deep, personal thoughts of the characters.Time fluctuations–the inherent ability in a novel to be able to write “one week later…” to skip time. Or to slow down time by describing the most minute detail.POV variation–we can experience a story from multiple perspectives, not just one, painting a complex and rich story.

How much you use these techniques will define your writing. And of course, you may adopt varying levels of each depending on your writing project.

In my case, for the Mapmaker Trilogy, I adopted to use a close third-person narrative using a single POV throughout the series. Though I did dip briefly into another character’s POV at the end of each book, the reader primarily experiences the story through only one character. That was a deliberate choice. I could have opted to tell the story from two or three or more POVs, but I felt I didn’t have the skills to pull it off. And I wanted to finish it within a reasonable amount of time.

I’m doing something similar with the series I’m working on now. The Damndrake Chronicles will take advantage of two POVs, but it’s written in very close first person of the main character and her partner.

However, in my next project, I’ll have four POVs in a sprawling war epic that will make huge jumps in time and space, though I’ll keep the narrative very close to each character in first person.

The mix of each tool will lead to a difference reading experience for each story. In this regard, I like to think my work spans the breath of what these tools give a writer. I don’t want to be pigeon-holed as the author whose stories are always a single POV in first person. I want to offer some variability. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I’m not sure.

What’s your go-to when you start to write a story? Do you always use 3rd or omniscient? Multiple POVs or just one? Does your narrative jump around in time and place?

That’s it for today. I’ll expound on the remaining questions in my next post.

Until then, write like you know what type of writer you are.

Nila