The Qualities of a Good Writer - 7 Thinking Habits a Good Writer Needs

As important as emotion is to a writer, writing is a thinking game. You need to be able to think in order to succeed. You need to be able to plan, to organize and to create structure -- both in thought and action. After all, that's what your reader is looking for from you. You need to deliver or your reader will feel cheated.

A writer must be a good thinker. But what are the thinking habits that a good writer has to develop?

Here are 7 thinking habits that a good writer needs:

1. A writer must be able to start with the end in mind. I know you've heard that phrase before (probably too often). But with a writer it's definitely true. Writing a book needs you to be able to see the end product. To see what your book will be when you finish.

2. A good writer must be able to see both the overall pattern and the individual pieces. This sounds like the previous habit but it isn't. Quite. The previous habit talks about being able to see the desired end. This habit refers to being able to see each of the building blocks of the book, how they fit together and where the book is actually going. Without this ability, it is not possible to bring a book back on track.

3. A good writer must have the ability to provide full attention to detail. They need to be able to think at the lowest possible level. All the way down to the words and the letters that make them up. After all, another name for a writer is wordsmith!

4. A good writer needs the ability to conceptualize. Being able to create a concept and deal in ideas is a core requirement. It doesn't matter if the concept is a fantasy world of dragons and knights. Or a world without mental illness. Or increased sales. Or almost anything that a fiction or non-fiction writer might choose to write about. The core of all books is a single idea.

5. The ability to synthesize ideas is another key skill or habit. To bring different ideas together to form new and more powerful ideas. Just working in the world of ideas is not enough. A good writer needs the ability to create new ideas from others. To build up and change and grow.

6. A good writer needs an open mind. Especially to criticism. Thinking you have the only solution blocks you from growth. And growth is a necessary condition to being a good writer.

7. But most of all a writer needs to be positive. Realistic certainly, but positive most of all. There will always be times when writing fails. When even the great writer begins to doubt their ability. A positive mind set is the only thing that will carry the good writer through those times.

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