What's your strength?

[otterman]

In the better part of a year since I signed on here at AW I've been impressed by how many talented writers spend time sharing their opinions, tapping into the wealth of knowledge of their peers, or just having fun with people who share their love of writing. I've also come to realize that almost everyone, from the established pro to the newbie in pursuit of published bliss, has strengths that they bring to their writing that impress, inspire, and entertain those who read their work.

So my question is: what do you do really well? Are you a master of dialogue? A world-building wizard? A mechanical genius? What do readers of your work marvel at and writers envy?

Horn tooting permitted and encouraged.

[Seaclusion]

Character developement. My characters come to life (I hope) for the readers. I sometimes over describe them, but they are always understandable, compelling, and rich with emotion. This goes for my villians as well as the heroes.

Richard

[superman skivvies]

I'm good at witty dialogue, creating bizarre characters, and making interesting situations from nothing. My weakness is endurance--I've never been able to write long passages or scenes; everything is very short and fast paced. Sometimes that can be good, but other times it's hard when I know I should be elaborating more.

[Donkey]

I have a lot of fun with dialogue. I also think I'm good at creating distinctly different, believable characters. What's really cool is that this was the area that I was most worried about being any good at.

[roncouch]

Not much of a horn tooter, but I believe I know people quite well, and am able to draw from personal experience with thousands of individuals and transpose my thoughts into meaningful characters who appear in my manuscripts (changed somewhat, of course to avoid litigation.) My works of fiction deal with the auto industry - how it was, how it is, what it's going to be, and why. That theme, plus the age-old good vs evil plot keeps me writing.

[Clair Dickson]

I think it's dialogue that I do best. That combined with witty internal commentary by my MC are my favorites and seem to get me the most praise.

[MelodyO]

I'm good with the turn of a phrase, although that's a lot easier with short stories than novels. It's harder to be witty and pithy and fresh and unusual for 90,000 words OMG.

I'm also very good at sex scenes. It's both a blessing and a curse. :D

[Shadow_Ferret]

I'm not good at anything but wasting bandwidth.

And one day I'll stop wasting everyone's time here.

[FOTSGreg]

Scientific detail and internal consistency of that detail are probably my best strengths.

[Shweta]

Perseverance.

Oh, I do some things well, and apparently I even make them look natural/easy occasionally, but I've sweated for every one of them.
There's not a single thing I'm proud of that I could do when I first started writing, from concept down to word choice. And I know I have a long way to go yet, but I've started.

[OctoberRain]

I think my narrative is strong. I try to tell the story as if I'm whispering in your ear. I want it to feel intimate, and put you right there where it's all happening.

It's possible I'm deluded but you asked. ;)

[JimmyB27]

Procrastination. I've yet to find a use for this particular skill.

[Priene]

I construct good sentences.

[Robert Toy]

Procrastination. I've yet to find a use for this particular skill.
Procrastination…can we discuss it later?

My strongest and weakest point – use of sarcasm, being a SOB (Sarcastic Old Bugger) in real life makes for interesting dialog, but too often really sounds like me and pisses people off.

GAS factor = minus 23

[Moonfish]

Readers have told me I build very vivid scenes. They've said they can really be present in the worlds I have created.

Also I am apparently good at keeping the reader hooked, wanting to find out what will happen. It's a skill I am really glad I have and I am sure it's contributed to me being published, but I sure wish I knew how I do it so I could be sure to reproduce it every time...

[Manderley]

My greatest strength is that I'm able to get a little better with each novel I write. And that's a darn good thing, cause my first one was a real onion fart of a book.

[CaroGirl]

Warning: Going through a patch of low self-esteem right at the moment.

Strength: I can put a stamp on a query envelope straight.

Weakness: My writing.

[Phaeal]

I can use the word "ichor" in a complete sentence, and I even know what it means.

[IdiotsRUs]

sheer bloodymindedness.

[KTC]

I don't have a strength. I am weak at everything. There are degrees of weakness.

[Stew21]

When we discussed this before I didn't have an answer.


Surprise! I still don't.

[cray]

What's your strength?


economy

[Sassee]

First person PoV. I'm pretty good at it. I think.

I've discovered I'm also pretty good at playing around with the dialogue that's already there, taking perhaps five lines and making it twenty, while still making it look natural to both the story and the characters.

Now if only I could do that with the rest of my prose...

[tehuti88]

I believe I'm good at characterization, including getting at the real motives and personalities of characters that most people would immediately despise without a second thought and making them sympathetic in their own way. It's something I don't even have to try or work hard at because they're just like people who have been in my head all along, and me, I'm only here telling their stories. When I write I learn things about them that surprise even me. It's like I'm not even making it up--they are.

I can't say that I am good at this though, just that I think I am. I haven't kept any readers long enough to really say if I'm any good at anything. I really don't think anybody marvels at or envies me. :(

[qwerty]

I can dialogue the hind legs off a donkey. Probably because my early writing was in the form of stage scripts, which is probably why I struggle with straight narrative.

Somehow, Mellissa exits stage left as Fairy Godfather emerges from trapdoor in a puff of pink smoke just doesn't cut it in a novel.

[RedScylla]

I have a +10 fountain pen of good spelling. ;)

[ccarver30]

I am the one-liner gal.
I have laughed at my own writing more than twice. :)
One of my favorite lines from my NaNoWriMo 2007 novel- Equilibrium 2 is:

The sound of her name on his perfect lips made her want to swoon and punch him in the face at the same time.

[Minister]

I find it interesting how many of us here believe our strengths are in dialogue and characterization. Few mentions of plotting, structure, worldbuilding, etc. It makes me wonder if we are evaluating ourselves correctly and are if this sampling is representative of most writers.

And I'm not going to change the trend, either. Feedback on several dozens of short stories has shown that my dialogue and characterization are strong (no real surprise, given my profession, I suppose), my narrative voice is almost invisible (for good or for ill), and my worldbuilding/descriptions are pretty weak.

[ccarver30]

I guess I don't have to really build my world b/c of my genre; it is a given. Regency Romances are always in 19th century England. Romance readers already know what this entails. It kind of makes my job easier! :D

[malberque@comcast.ne]

plotting, structure, worldbuilding, etc

lol

[Loriedna]

When I was writing in Romanian I would have said my strength was the writing style. I thought I had something special there. Now I switched to writing in English and the style I thought I had doesn't really seem to translate, so I am not sure of what I'm doing anymore.

[Peachnuts]

determination, single minded focus, lack of procrastination
some creativity
I love to write unexpected twists

[Shweta]

When I was writing in Romanian I would have said my strength was the writing style. I thought I had something special there. Now I switched to writing in English and the style I thought I had doesn't really seem to translate, so I am not sure of what I'm doing anymore.

Your strength is being fluent, then, in several languages and ways of writing. And probably having a background of storytelling that will make your work interestingly unique. That will show in your work once you've found your feet with English. Give it time :)

[sunandshadow]

I find it interesting how many of us here believe our strengths are in dialogue and characterization. Few mentions of plotting, structure, worldbuilding, etc. It makes me wonder if we are evaluating ourselves correctly and are if this sampling is representative of most writers.

And I'm not going to change the trend, either. Feedback on several dozens of short stories has shown that my dialogue and characterization are strong (no real surprise, given my profession, I suppose), my narrative voice is almost invisible (for good or for ill), and my worldbuilding/descriptions are pretty weak.

I'll claim worldbuilding as a strength, in addition to character psychology and relationships. Voice, well it's unique, and readable if I remember to chop the 30+ word sentences. Dialogue passable. But plot, gah, if I could strangle abstract nouns plot would be at the top of my list.
Walter Pitkin, a long-time writing instructor, wrote:

“A large number of writers will always be found capable of excellent description, such as our better newspaper reporters are continually producing in their big first-page stories. A much smaller group shows skill in character analysis. But by far the smallest group is that of the natural born plotters. Out of every hundred beginners I do not find more than five or six with a thorough instinct for seeing and constructing dramatic complications.”

[Gray Rose]

My strengths are definitely worldbuilding, scene-setting, mood, voice, and character development (the characters develop themselves, see; I do absolutely nothing but nod complacently and pound the keyboard.)

Plot is a weakness, though I'm working on it. On the other hand, I'm good at developing tension.

Dialogue is ok, I think.

[C.bronco]

plot and dialogue

and being abnormal enough to have other people say, "why are you so weird?"

[Melenka]

Plot development, strong characters and dialogue - not necessarily in that order. Depends on the story and the day as to which one comes out on top. Also, I research like mad, often during the writing process and especially if I'm not well versed in a certain area but need it to move the plot along. I'm not much for narrative description, which is something on which I am working.

[Judg]

I don't know. Readers have told me they kept wanting to read on (yay!) and that they thought the dialogue was good. I am a terrible typist, but once I fix the typos, my copy is very clean.

I'm not sure about plotting, quite honestly. I hope I'm doing OK, but we'll really know once the MS is polished and sent out. Terror of plotting is one of the things that kept me from writing for many years. I finally determined that I would treat it like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.

[Charlie Horse]

Really confusing plot lines that no one can follow, constructed with overly long, very wordy, hackneyed sentences, mixed in, I might add, with witty banter, riddled with comma splices.

[Thekherham]

Dialogue. I have a tendency to listen more than speak, and one of my favorite pastimes is to listen to other people, and what they have to say.

Er... discreetly, of course.

[Miss Java]

(shrug)


Being a good storyteller?