Here is a quick post about what you need to focus on as a writer. There are plenty of important skills to master good fiction writing. Crafting complex interesting plot, creating compelling characters, dazzling prose, strong important themes, having a distinct point of view or voice, all of these are important.

But.

I think we can all recall novels and short stories where one of these elements was less than stellar. Books that are massively successful despite some poorly drawn characters, tired cliched plots, or that they brought nothing new to light. (Mind you I don’t think aside from self-published material – and only some of them not all by any measure – do you find all these faults in one work. But many works survived with one or two of them.)

There is a skill that every published author has mastered no matter the material.

They finished.

The story didn;t end up in a forgotten drawer, on in an uncompleted file on their hard drive. The author stuck with it, did not give up and chase a new shiny idea, but did the work and wrote to the end.

This is the most important skill, learning to finish. Because if you can’t, none of the other things will matter.

No one has asked for this post, but then again no one asks for any post and that has never stopped me.

Writing short stories and novels is a curious thing, particularly when you do it without a contract in hand. There’s no assurance that it will be published or that anyone other than the author will see it, so why take that risk? Why write?

I write for many reasons, other authors may share some of these reasons, some may value them differently. That’s neither right nor wrong, as with cars, your mileage may vary. These are my objectives when I start putting words in a row.

1. Entertainment. I write the sort of stories that if I read them would entertain me. Be they dark or light, happy endings or death and gloom, all the stories have elements that thrill and engage me.
2. Show me a world I don’t know. That can be cultures that are new to me, viewpoints that illuminate others’ lives, or a whole new way of thinking about things. I love a good novel that take me into the a headspace unlike my own.
3. Moral Thought Experiments. I am far less interested in plots than I am stories about difficult choices. If the only issue is stopping the bad guy from doing a bad thing, that itself is of limited appeal to me. It can be exciting to read or watch but upon reflection it proves empty. I like it much more when a character is torn between what they want and what they think is right or just.

Those are the biggies for me, but the list is representative not exclusive.

Recently it struck me that on a number of front writers have a real sharp edged duality about them, of composed of what seems like mutually exclusive natures. In no particular order here are some of those ideas.

Writers seem to be both optimists and utterly practical. Consider that when you send off a manuscript you are competing with hundreds and more likely thousands of manuscript for that publication slot or agent’s representation. The keep sending them out as the mountain of rejections grows is an act of utter optimism. One day it will change, one day that lightning will strike. At the same time when you review and edit your material, there is no place for wishful thinking, no room here for sentimentality. that which does not work must be fixed and excised from the text. It is the basis of the adage ‘kill your darlings.’

Writers seem to exist in a strange state of self-doubt and criticism while also possessing a belief that what they have to say is not only worthy but worthy of the attention of thousands. They must be critical enough to see the flaws, as above, but certain in their views, their plots, their characters, that they know the world needs to see it.

We can also dive into philosophical duality. Character we create exist in some sort of Heisenberg uncertainty region between free-will and determinism. Consider a character like say Will Riker from Star trek The Next Generation. If a show opened with him storming onto the bridge, mouthing off to Picard, slapping Troi around and making the moves on Wesley, the viewers would demand a reason for these actions.  He would never do such things. They are beyond any scope of his freely chosen set of actions, something must be making him act that way. Characters have defined natures that if they venture beyond they break beliefe and become ‘out of character.’ And yet we have to believe that characters make choices and that often in a character’s arc he, or she, chooses something at the end of the story that would have been out of character at the start.

It is a strange thing I pursue.