What Kind of Writer Are You?

As a writer, you have your own quirks and idiosyncratic characteristics when it comes to writing. From the way you gather inspiration to the way you structure your stories, you are often a unique writer with different writing habits compared to the others.

However, these characteristics can often manifest into recognizable patterns, and you’ll realize that you are not alone when you prefer to write in the dead of night, or if you’re really, really good at procrastinating until the threat of the deadline looms in the next day. Sometimes, you are not just one kind of writer, but two or more!

In this article, we’ll list out 6 kinds of writers, complete with each of their quirks and iconic traits, and we’ll see which one/s (singular or plural) will have you thinking, “huh, that sounds oddly so much like me!”

Why You Need to Know What Writer You Are

Each writer develops their own habits as they write and craft their masterpiece, and over time we’ll try out some weird ways to get the writing done, or maybe we just function in an oddly specific way to put out the words that your manuscript needs. When we get to identify these traits, we get to put a name on what we may be as a writer.

Aside from getting to put a label as to what kind of writer would conjure ideas to no end, yet shiver at the thought of ever sticking to a single project for more than a day, understanding your patterns as a writer helps you recognize your strengths and weaknesses.

By capitalizing on your strengths and finding ways around your weaknesses, you can become a more efficient writer who can finally get something done and not just drown in world-building/research/social media.

Now that we understand why we want to know what kind of writer we are (aside from the fact that we really just want to know who else does this weird thing while writing), let’s get into the kinds of writers!

The Kinds of Writers

The Closet Writer

The Batman of writers, the closet writer would never, ever spill a squeak about them ever writing words outside of corporate reports or company emails. They can have a mountain of unfinished stories that can fill a community library, yet when asked if they are a writer, they will aggressively shake their heads as if their lives depend on it.

Closet writers are great writers, yet it may be modesty or the lack of courage that stops them from ever labeling themselves as one. To these people, writing can be incredibly personal, or that they don’t feel confident that their writing is good enough for others to be read.

However, closet writers should realize that part of the writing process is feedback, something that you can only get when others get to read your piece. Sure, the idea is daunting, terrifying even, as it can be akin to exposing the deepest parts of yourself to someone. However, if you want to improve and grow as a writer, you have to get out of your comfort zone and write not just for yourself. Plus, it can be liberating to finally let your second identity be let out in the open.

The Procrastinating Writer

Procrastination is the bane of productivity, you understand that deep in your mind, and yet you are still doing exercises with your thumb scrolling through every social media platform in existence. Nothing ever motivates you to finish your writing aside from the threat of the deadline tonight.

It can be easy to call procrastinating writers as lazy, or that they want to avoid working on it altogether. However, they are simply different from other writers who derive writing power from inspiration; procrastinators get their writing fuel from the panic induced by alarms set mere hours from the deadline.

As a procrastinating kind of writer, you are excellent at coming up with all the right words and ideas on the spot; how else could you manage to survive procrastinating all this time? However, you do recognize that time spent procrastinating could be used for something far more productive. Imagine the power you could unleash if you actually worked on that manuscript instead of catching up with Internet gossip!

Thankfully, there are a lot of techniques available, such as the Pomodoro technique or breaking tasks into smaller chunks, which can help even the worst procrastinators convert idle time to productive time. Procrastination, especially if it works well for you, is not all that bad, but you could also manage it so as to not greatly affect your productivity.

The Writer with the Fountain of Ideas

Many writers struggle to find a topic to write about, but there will be that one writer who seems to live their life generating ideas every second. Like a new child who has just stumbled upon something shiny, these kinds of writers can produce a book idea out of the most mundane things, and they’ll keep doing it if you don’t stop them.

These kinds of writers are characteristically linked to their notepads, whether physical or digital, each page scribbled with the wild imaginings of an inspired novelist. They will bring this notepad everywhere they go; you never know when inspiration strikes, but you know it will.

However, having many ideas to write about is not always a good thing; which one will you actually work on, among the dozens of ideas written down on your notes? Once you take a breather and see your ideas from a bird’s eye-view, it can get overwhelming really easily, maybe to the point that you can’t see yourself finishing any single manuscript. Plus, the prospect of having a better idea later on might make you double-take on fixating yourself on a singular idea.

A great idea to get yourself focused on one book idea is to get help from a friend in choosing the one to pursue. It’s going to hurt letting go of those amazing ideas, only to never see the light of day, but if you don’t choose one right now, you’ll never be able to choose any single one of them later.

The Planner

Where the Writer with the Fountain of Ideas relies on notepads to hold their ideas, the Planner dedicates entire documents to architect their novel’s structure before it even gets started. 

The Planner thinks of writing as not just a process, but an entire project that’s akin to engineering. World-building, research, and characterization are all structured into intricate paperwork filed into their thickening binder or a haphazardly labeled Word file. If you’re like J.K. Rowling, maybe you even have a spreadsheet detailing each chapter of your novel.

However, the Planner can also get too fixated on the planning phase, you might never be able to get out of it. The urge to have everything perfect before you dive into manuscript-writing is cool and all. However, having the plan will not make the story magically write itself. You will still need to write the manuscript. Shocking, I know.

For the Planners, we are glad to tell you that LivingWriter has all the tools that you will ever want for planning that great story. Plotting? Outlines and Chapters are the bog-standard tools while Plot Boards are the new and shiny toys you can play with. Character notes? Look no further than Story Elements. Research? The Research Board will hold any and every document, image, and/or link you want to keep.

The Hunter of Inspiration

Perhaps the opposite of the Writer with the Fountain of Ideas, the Hunter of Inspiration simply cannot work without their Muse. As if their writing only manifests in the presence of inspiration, the Writer-Hunter goes around to find that spark by always trying out something new while your umpteenth case of writer’s block hits hard.

However, fear the Hunter of Inspiration when they finally find the inspiration they seek, because they will become unstoppable. As if a spring of words burst forth from within their mind, the Hunter writes relentlessly, almost like a madman. This spark of inspiration can be infinitesimally small; the Hunter only needed it to spark for them to write their masterpiece.

Of course, when your productivity as a writer is tied to something as erratically random as a “spark of inspiration,” you will want to become just a bit more productive aside from basically hunting down your Muse. You know that you have a creative mind, but you want it to work a bit more often. Suffering from writer’s block every now and then is a frustrating feeling, one that you know a bit too well.

Writer’s block can be every writer’s bane, but there are ways to get out of writer’s block, such as working on something else or getting some fresh air outside. Or perhaps, the writer’s block is your subconscious telling you to take a break and have some rest. Machines break down if worn down, and so much more a creative mind.

The Hesitant Writer

Similar to the Closet Writer, but while the Closet Writer identifies as a writer internally, the Hesitant Writer is afraid of even calling themselves one. They recognize that they do have a talent for writing wonderful words and worlds, yet they don’t feel they have the right to do it. 

Whether it be a general hesitation to pursue creative writing in earnest, or the fear of failure in the field, the Hesitant Writer has a million excuses to shy away from writing. If they do get into writing, they take calculated and safe steps, holding back the creative spirit within. It’s bursting and wanting to fly out, why stop it?

Understandably, pursuing a career out of creative writing is rocky. However, this shouldn’t hold you back from honing your craft. After all, all first steps are rocky, and when you do get down to writing that first manuscript, you don’t have to think about anything else, other than getting it finished.

Which Writer Are You?

Every writer has their own quirky traits that accompany their writing style. Whether it be coming up with the most amazing excuses to procrastinate, or preparing an entire database of documents for planning your novel. You might also manifest some characteristics of more than one kind of writer, and that’s just what you are as a writer.

If you take advantage of the upsides of your kind and convert the downsides into something better, you can be sure that you’ll become a better writer in no time. Of course, LivingWriter is here to help you become an even more efficient writer! Try LivingWriter now!