Discover Your Writer's Identity

In a previous post, I talked about your writer's identity.

If you want to write, you must figure out your writer's identity. 

Exactly what is a writer's identity?

It's your authorial voice, the genre in which you choose to write, the ideas you express, the words you use, and your skill in conveying your story vision.

All of that plus you must possess the narrative skills that enable you to craft a well written piece of fiction.

Today, fiction of every genre is vibrant and exciting, with excellent characterization. Most of today's best writers work in genre fiction, not the so-called literary fiction.

How to Find Your Writer's Identity

Read widely so you'll discover the kind of stories you want to tell. Find a niche that allows you to tell those stories. That's writing on your own terms.

Write a lot—thousands and thousands of words. Simply write. One of my favorite literary authors Larry Brown and bestseller thriller author Dean Koontz both said virtually the same thing: "You must write X number of words before you'll ever write anything worth publishing."

No one knows what X is because it's different for every writer. Practice makes perfect or, at least, better, even when it comes to writing.

Takeaway Truth

Learn from the books you read. Learn from the writing you do. Get better with everything you write.