Last week I opened up a bit and talked about my top five author obstacles, but this week I want to talk about strengths and how I can use those to balance out my shortcomings. It’s important to know how to not only recognize where our talents lie, but also know the best ways to apply them to our work. Today is world mental health day, which is a great day to take a little time to unashamedly acknowledge your strengths and abilities. I will be using mine as an example, but I hope that this post will lead you to reflect on your own personal skills.

5. Lack of self-doubt. On surface level, that probably sounds incredibly narcissistic, so at least give me a moment to explain. I don’t consider my work to be perfect, and I’m not claiming to be above criticism. The reason why I say that I have a lack of self-doubt is for the following reasons. I have an editing process that has proved to be trustworthy, so when my writing is made public, I am wholly satisfied with my work. While there is always the matter of opinion on whether or not the piece is good, I know that I have made the changes that I am ultimately happy with. Critiques from trusted sources is always welcome, but I have gotten to a place where I know when and how to tune out untrusted or malicious sources of criticism. This results in a healthy amount of self-confidence that is essential in a writing career.

4. Character Design. I absolutely love my characters. And I have two reasons why I feel so successful in my character building.

a. I write flawed characters, but I don’t write characters that annoy me. One of my biggest turn-offs for media is when one or more of the important characters is constantly annoying me. (* cough * half the characters in Stranger Things * cough *) While everyone has different opinions when it comes to what bothers them in a character, I try to avoid the classic personality pitfalls when it comes to the characters I write. This helps me and my readers to not get mad and put down the book.

b. I let my characters do what they want. I know this is going to make me sound… a little crazy… but just hear me out. Sometimes when I’m writing what my character is doing or saying, I don’t know where it’s going. They’ll tell me when they’re ready. I never strong arm my characters into doing anything, because then I end up with a story that seems forced. If you let them live and breathe on their own, they’ll show you where to go next. (Still not helping my case with sounding crazy.) I have ended up with some of the craziest plot twists and epic moments by having my characters do what feels right rather than doing what I planned on.

3. Deadlines. I really discovered how good I was with deadlines when I was enlisted to write a play for my high school drama group over Christmas break. Due to my busy holiday schedule, I ended up spending the two weeks in between Christmas and the start of the semester to write a full length play. Knowing that I worked well on limited time, I continued to set deadlines for myself even when I didn’t explicitly have an end date. My biggest success in that vein was giving myself a year to finish my novel, and finishing it in eleven months. Having a certain amount of pressure always pushes me to get out of my head and just do the thing. If deadlines don’t make you break down into a puddle of stress, I would highly recommend this as a way to push you to complete things.

2. Dialogue. If you have read any of my work, you know exactly what I mean when I say that dialogue is one of my greatest strengths. This was a skill I learned through script writing, when the entire story was driven by dialogue. While I have been able to translate this to my everyday writing, it can be tricky territory to keep your characters sounding realistic. But in the right place, it can make people audibly gasp while reading your book. Especially for chapter endings, this can be the perfect mic drop from your characters. Though it’s a controversial opinion, I believe that it’s okay for your dialogue to sound a little more “scripted” than real life conversations, because at the end of the day I would rather read about someone who sounds like Shakespeare than a high school TikTok user. (The day a book character says “skibidi” is the day I die.) While it’s important to find balance, I would say, if you’re good at writing dramatic dialogue, use it and be proud of it!

1. Creating content that I would want to read. I was scrolling through the entirety of The Reaper yesterday for the first time in a little while. Looking back on it, I realized, I actually want to re-read this book. Though I had gotten a little tired from the first 5-ish round of edits that I did earlier this year, it was so exciting to come back to The Reaper from a reader’s viewpoint. This is far more important than appealing to any market or trend. The reason I was so excited to re-read The Reaper is because I dream inspiration from the things in my life that consistently interest me. For me, that’s “what ifs” grounded in our world. The Reaper is “What if there were people on earth with magic and we just didn’t know it?” but there are other things as well. Unexplored places on earth, alternate histories, alternate futures… All of those things get my creative gears turning, and I will continue to be inspired by them and asking questions as I explore those ideas in my writing. You have to find what will continuously interest you to the point where even filling plot holes can be an adventure.

I know that it can be easier to look at your flaws, but at the end of the day, your strengths are just as important. Recognizing these and finding the best ways to utilize them will help you to not only refine your writing, but it will also make you feel far more confident in the long run. You can also use them to help others improve on the things they struggle with. We can use our unique skills to help create a positive ecosystem for the writing community, revolving around supporting, and learning from the talents of those in our circles.