Excellent writers have a lot of traits in common, but after years of editing, I’ve discovered three foundational qualities, and every amazing writer I know has them.
The basic characteristics all good writers have
If you ask a dozen different writing professionals to list the qualities of a great writer, you might get some lengthy lists. I’m willing to bet these traits would show up more often than not:
- Discipline: You can’t be a writer unless you write, and those who are the most successful have the drive to write nearly every day.
- A reading habit: The best writers are also voracious readers. They read not only for entertainment but also to analyze and learn from other writers.
- An eye for details: Writing is rewriting, after all. The best writers are ruthless and pragmatic self-editors.
- Persistence: This craft ain’t easy, but those who become good writers are those who don’t give up in the face of challenges, harsh feedback, and rejection.
These are all outstanding traits you can nurture as you develop your writing chops. Even if you don’t have them, you can work to create habits that will support your writing goals.
Qualities of a great writer
Some of the qualities of a great writer are innate. They’re the ones I’m going to talk about today. You’ll notice they’re more like core personality traits rather than habits or skills.
1. Curiosity
There’s magic in questioning things — in asking “what if,” in asking “how.” And no matter what type of writing you do, curiosity should be in the driver’s seat.
In fiction
When you write fiction, the question that drives the narrative revolves around “what if.”
What if my character:
- Dropped out of college to follow his passion and become an artist?
- Proposed to the love of his life only to get a “no”?
- Inherited a fortune from a former lover under the condition that he keep a dark secret?
In non-fiction
When you write non-fiction, it’s essential to explore your topic with curiosity. Curiosity will help you take your writing from dry and transactional to engaging and enlightening.
I’ve been tasked with writing articles about some pretty dry, niche topics. I once ghostwrote a piece about how artificial intelligence will improve customer experience. (Fascinating if you’re in the customer experience field, but not something I was well-versed in before I started researching.) So I got curious and asked myself tons of questions.
One question was: I wonder if people even realize when they’re talking to AI chatbots. Lo and behold, there was an answer—I learned that 63% of people who used AI-powered services like chatbots didn’t even know they were talking with a bot instead of a human.
Including that stat—along with other relevant data curiosity drove me to seek out—made my article more intriguing and fact-based.
2. Empathy
When I was a chatty kid, my grandma used to pat my head and say, with affection, “You’re talking just to hear yourself talk.”
Without empathy, you’re writing just to see yourself write.
Unless you journal or keep a diary that’s not meant for anyone else’s eyes — and I do encourage that! — you’re not writing for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you write blog posts, non-fiction articles, memoirs, or fiction: You’re not writing for you; you’re writing for your readers. And that means you’ll need to empathize with them.
When you write fiction, empathy is how you reach your readers.
Stephen King writes fiction for his “ideal reader,” his wife, Tabitha. She’s the person he imagines himself telling a story to. He writes in a way designed to make her “prickle with recognition” (King’s term, not mine). He wants his characters to have thoughts, fears, and desires that Tabby can relate to. Because he knows if Tabby relates, his readers will, too.
Pretend you’re sitting across from your ideal reader in a café having a conversation about this topic. What would you tell them? Write that.
When you write non-fiction, empathy helps you overcome the dreaded “curse of knowledge.” As paradoxical as it seems, having expertise can also be a problem. The more informed you are about a topic, the more challenging it is to simplify. If you assume your readers have more knowledge or context than they do, you risk creating content that leaves them more baffled than enlightened.
Empathy means getting back into a beginner’s mindset (or at least taking a step back to the same level your reader is likely to be at) and writing with that perspective in mind.
I always tell my writers, “Pretend you’re sitting across from your ideal reader in a café having a conversation about this topic. What would you tell them? Write that.”
3. Openness
This quality doesn’t directly apply to specific fiction or nonfiction techniques like the others. Instead, it’s an overarching trait that every great writer has — openness to experience.
Openness is about observing the world around you without judgment, pondering what you see and experience, listening, and soaking up every moment. Because everything you take in with a clear, open mind fuels your writing.
You could even say that when it comes to great writers, openness is the one characteristic that rules them all. When you’re open to experience, you greet the world with curiosity. When you set aside judgment and allow yourself to truly see others, you’re building empathy.
Science has shown that people with higher levels of openness are not only more creative and intellectually curious, but they truly (and literally) do see the world differently.
I believe the best writers are open to experiences. The vast amount of input living in the world subjects us to can be overwhelming. But the more open we are, the less likely we are to “filter” our experiences and develop what researchers have called “psychological blind spots.”
Maybe open people write as a means to disburse some of the excess stimuli we take in to prevent ourselves from short-circuiting.
Do you have the qualities every writer needs?
I hope you’ve reached the end of this post with a feeling of kinship. I hope you’ve nodded along and said, “Yes! I’m curious, empathetic, and open.”
If you don’t feel that kinship, then let me reassure you:
You do have the qualities of a good writer. I’m willing to bet on it.
Because you’re here, you’ve already shown curiosity and openness. And if you’ve found this post relatable, then you’ve experienced empathy. You probably recognize empathy when you see it because, well, you’re empathic yourself.
These qualities, at times, aren’t easy to have.
- Curiosity can get you in trouble if it leads to gossiping or speculation without research.
- Empathy can be a burden, especially when you’re so tuned in to others that you experience their pain and trauma alongside them.
- Openness can lead to overstimulation and taking in more input than your brain can process.
But hey, nobody said writers were perfect. We’re just wildly inventive, deeply sensitive, and utterly unique. We live in the world a little differently. Writing is our pressure relief valve.
And that’s a good thing.
