Writers are expected to do a great deal, and likely for no pay. It’s a fate we’ve accepted, because we’re dedicated to our craft and honestly obsessed with it. However, obsessed or not, it’s not always the easiest job in the world. Half of what makes writing complicated isn’t the writing itself, but the multitude of other skills you must develop. While certain tasks, such as marketing or web design, can be outsourced, having a basic understanding of them is still crucial. Even if you don’t know how to do something, being able to select those who do, and those who can do what you want, requires some knowledge.
There are also certain areas which require research on your part, regardless of your ability to delegate tasks to others. Any writer should be knowledgeable about a number of topics; it enhances your understanding of the world, which in turn improves the writing itself.
Some topics are more practical, some are fun and meant to expand your imagination, and others still are recommended but not strictly necessary.
Video version available:
- Psychology
Even if you’re writing fantasy, having an understanding of psychology will help you to write more believably, adding layers to your characters and the situations they endure. Of course, psychology is a complex topic. Psychology can cover mental illnesses, and the medicine people take to combat these disorders. Psychology can be about drug addiction, the effects of chronic pain on the mind, or the stages of grief and their supposed validity.
Psychology can also extend to the research of so called personality types. Many authors recommend their fellow writers to take personality tests—not for themselves, but for their characters. The term “enneagram” gets thrown around and, while writers don’t have to follow their character’s enneagram to a t, having a psychological basis for why your character acts a certain way and how else they’re expected to act can aid in the process of making them feel more like a real person.
It goes without saying that if your character has a diagnosed disorder, such as schizophrenia or being on the autism spectrum, you’ll need to research that specific topic thoroughly.
A knowledge of psychology can be useful, too, when applied to specific situations your character faces. For example, if your knight goes through a series of battles, watches several villages burn, and sustains severe injuries in battle, it doesn’t hurt to research PTSD. Too many books or films have characters go through something traumatic, only for them to be walking around, cheerful, the following day. If a character loses a loved one, researching grief can also give you insight into how to portray the character more accurately.
There are innumerable reasons why an author should research psychology, but a final reason would be diversity. If an author hopes to include characters with ADHD, disabilities, or who are either transgender or of another race, there’s a psychological side to these topics. Certain groups are more likely to experience mental health issues, as a result of common hurdles they face, and topics like “intersectionality” could fall under the umbrella of psychology.
2) Mythology & Religion
On a more human level, knowing about other religions, and possibly the cultures they stem from, simply makes you more aware as a person, giving you real world knowledge to incorporate into your story as needed. The more you know, especially about other people, the closer you’ll be to characters which are both accurate and engaging.
On a more creative level, mythology, particularly ancient mythology, offers you nothing but ideas. In fact, many of your stories likely already feature motifs from these tales, because they are so ingrained into our culture, and embedded in mainstream fiction.
Harry Potter even draws from biblical tropes (Harry is called the “Chosen One” and is resurrected after his self sacrifice to save the world). In this scenario, Harry represents Christ, despite neither the books nor the author being overly religious.
As a writer, you won’t use everything you come across (especially if something seems particularly sexist or brutal by modern standards). That said, mythologies for writers to study include Greek, Norse, Egyptian, and even Christianity. These four are easily the most popular, but there are dozens of mythologies to study, with Mayan being an honourable mention.
After a writer has studied these mythologies, they can do one of two things, or both: the writer can absorb the tropes and motifs, such as the forbidden apple, into their stories to form plots, complement themes, and pay homage to the pieces which inspired them; or, they can take a more literal stance, and write about the characters they’ve encountered.
The latter is what Marvel does, taking characters like Hercules or Thor, from Greek and Norse mythology respectively, and turning them into their own characters. While a good writer will keep the character’s key attributes from a story (such as Odin’s love of wisdom or magic), how a new writer portrays these traits, and which new ones they add or take away, are left up to the writer.
Finally, you might do something of a mixture. While you may literally write about the characters you’ve encountered in mythology, the commonalities observed between all, or most, mythologies, can also be used as an unofficial rule book to building your own pantheon (or your own group of Gods or godlike beings).
This advice doesn’t just apply to fantasy writers, either. Even if you couldn’t care less about dragons or elves or gods or time travel, the motifs found within myths—tragic murders, family betrayals, resurrection, forbidden apples, and the myths themselves—can be used in other genres. Plenty of crime dramas have, for example, made use of both topics I’ve covered on this list so far—psychology and mythology. The two can even be linked. If you’re writing a police officer who’s trying to track a murderer, he or she may even have been required to take a mythology course, and to examine how it connects to the psychology of their perpetrator. On a more literal note, the murderer could be a huge myth nerd (sadly, many unhinged people throughout history have been) and could be staging their murders after events in a specific mythos. None fantasy stories can still take the framework of the old myths, and push them through a modern lens.
3) Authors
Researching others isn’t strictly necessary for crafting a good story, but learning what other authors went through, and what they did to keep going, is invaluable—not only as a learning opportunity, but as a chance for inspiration. For example, many writers, even the most famous, weren’t happy all the time. In fact, many of them struggled to pay their bills. Authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway suffered losses, fought to keep their finances in order, and faced harsh reviews from critics for even their best loved stories.
This isn’t to say you, as an author, are required to undergo severe suffering. Instead, it reminds you that you aren’t a failure if you do. Authors are still human beings, going through life’s ups and downs. Remembering that your idols also went through the same events as you did can be sobering. Plus, there’s something to be learned from how many of them actually tackled the writing process itself. Tolkien went for regular walks. Hemingway, among others, made a point of waking up early. An author isn’t required to copy all of these habits, but choosing those which work for them can be helpful.
Many authors led fascinating lives; even using one, or two, as the basis for a new character can be fun. Their unique lives can make for engaging plot points (though it’s better not to do this with a living writer, at least not to such an exact degree).
Moreover, looking at which stories in turn inspired your hero can be invaluable. For example, if you’ve made a study of Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings, digging into the original mythologies which excited him could give you another source of inspiration. Chances are, you and your hero have similar interests. This could even become something of a chain, allowing you to discover new writers and stories in the process. You might find Author A was inspired by Author B. You fall in love with Author B, and find out she was inspired by Author C and Author D. You fall in love with Author C and Author D…and the process can go on and on.
When studying an author, you can study both their lives and their works; the two are more linked than people realize, and understanding what an author went through can give you a better understanding of why they included certain plot points. If your author hero lost his mother at an early stage, the prevalence of orphans in his stories takes on another layer.
4) Diversity
When I use the word “diversity,” I refer to a character’s ethnic background, potential disabilities or mental disorders, and their sex or gender status. It’s not my recommendation to cram as many “diverse” characters into your book as you can just for the sake of pleasing others. Creating characters you enjoy, and fleshing them out, should always be your first priority. However, for my part, I find stories with a wider variety of characters to be not only more interesting, but more realistic.
If an author does choose to write about someone who is “different” from the majority somehow, researching these topics is important. Even if a writer is covering racism towards elves, researching racism itself and understanding its effect on people, can make the plight of your elves feel deeper. How much a writer models their elves (or dwarves, or aliens, or whoever is being attacked) off of a specific real world group also comes down to the author. If a writer models their elves specifically after the indigenous, even putting their characters through the exact same plights, thorough research should be done on that group. Readers will pick up on real world parallels—which they will either appreciate or find lazy, depending on how the writer executes the story.
For those not writing fantasy, an author’s choice to include a character who’s transgender, religious, and so on needs to come with some research. A transgender woman, for example, is still going to act differently than a cisgender woman, because she’s had different experiences. Your trans character might be more shy around other woman, or more self conscious generally, or exhibit symptoms of PTSD or anxiety. A character with autism will avoid eye contact, or tell the same stories twice, and so on. These small details will give characters more depth, and personality traits for the authors to work with.
Not everything will go smoothly, and there will always be debates about how certain characters are portrayed, or who should be writing who, but these decisions remain with the author. Whatever the political argument, having a character, and story, that’s properly researched can save an author trouble down the road.
5) Finances
It’s time to look into the research of the “boring” topics. Finances are something nobody wants to talk about. However, as an author hoping to make money, you are also an entrepreneur. As an artist, you’ve accepted you’ll be broke for much of your life. That said, this doesn’t mean you can give up understanding money. In fact, as someone with less money, you’ll need to be capable of budgeting. Understanding, on a personal level, what a tax free savings account is, and why you’ll need a business account, are important. There’s also that terrifying entity called taxes—as a business owner, you’ll need to know the difference between business income and personal income, what year ends are, whether or not you need a book keeper, and how you can make tax claims on business expenses. It’s not fun, but completely ignoring it all can leave your business disorganized and yourself stressed.
Most entrepreneurs recommend outsourcing what you can. After all, if you’re going cross eyed over numbers every month, and likely botching the process because you don’t know what you’re doing, then you aren’t spending that time writing (or relaxing, so you have more mental energy when you do write).
Plenty of videos exist online explaining how to put one’s finances in order, what are the best financial practices, the hidden struggles of running a business, and more.
6) Marketing
If finances aren’t fun, marketing doesn’t sound glorious either. Like your book keeper, this is something which can be outsourced—or not. It depends on your needs, and your overall enjoyment of the process. For some writers, posting on a daily basis might not be necessary. It’s ideal if you post once a week, but posting for the sake of posting isn’t the best use of your time. Instead, you should still be posting content that’s not only meaningful to you, but simple enough that it doesn’t distract from your actual writing.
Marketing is a broad subject, with a number of niches within it to cover. Marketing can mean learning how to run a successful blog. It can mean knowing how to build a mailing list; it can mean researching the various social media platforms. For writers, you’ll be researching how to create a book trailer, how to run an ad campaign on Facebook, how to use Bookbub, and how to distribute advanced reader copies in exchange for reviews on Amazon or Goodreads—these are all forms of marketing. You don’t have to use all of them. Some authors never use ads, while others swear by them. Most push for a mailing list, but a handful claim they are a waste of time.
Which marketing tactics work for you will come through not only research but experimentation. You might find mailing lists do little to sell your books, or that sales have increased moderately since you’ve started one. As you try different social media platforms, you’ll quickly notice which ones you have fun with, and which ones you don’t. Different demographics are more prevalent on different platforms too. If you’re more of the creative type, Instagram might be better for you than Facebook. Facebook has older users, while Instagram has younger users. If you’re writing detective novels for forty year olds, Facebook might be better; if you’re writing YA novels, Instagram and TikTok are where the teen users are.
Ultimately, you still have to use the platforms you like. If you hate Facebook but love Instagram, sharing your detective novels on the latter may be a better strategy. Outsourcing someone else to handle that Facebook page you despise remains an option down the road. I tried Facebook and Pinterest, and found both little enjoyment and no engagement. In terms of both enjoyment and actual connection to other human beings, Instagram and Tumblr have been the best for me (I also run a YouTube channel, but I don’t think of it as a social media platform in the same way that I do the others).
7) Writing
The final research topic should come as no surprise. It’s not enough to just write into the void (though regularly writing is still good for improving your skill). Writers also need to research how to write well. Like marketing, the research of writing is a broad topic. Sub topics to research include grammar, character development, world building, and editing (which in itself comes with categories like developmental, line, and more).
You can dig into character development: how do you write a compelling villain? What traits should your protagonist have? How large should your cast be? What is a Mary Sue, and how do you avoid one?
You can dig into world building: do you have a logical magic system? Is your magic system “soft” or “hard?” Does your world have religion? What are the cultural customs of your Dwarves? Which websites or programs are ideal for world building?
As an author, you might get distracted researching programs. What is Scrivener, and do you need it?
Then there’s the wonderful world of editing, which is a can of worms in itself. As you edit, you’ll need to look for passive voice, bring in beta readers, and hire editors to cover both the developmental edit and the line edit (if you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, these are phrases you’ll need to research).
You’ll have to research which phrases are redundant (plenty of blogs will encourage you to cut “that,” unnecessary dialogue tags, adjectives, and more).
If you’re overwhelmed, that’s natural. The research of writing isn’t just about looking for typos or having your punctuation in the correct place. There are various facets to study, both in prose and in the story itself, and setting aside time to study these aspects will improve your skill as a writer.
In Conclusion
As writers, we have to study a variety of topics, whether they be religion, inclusion, or writing itself. The best writers are knowledgeable about the world around them. Other topics to research could include design, but I’ve left it off this list solely because most will outsource the work for cover designs and so forth.
Having a love of learning helps writers for the reasons listed (though that sounds like a blog for another time). Not all of these topics are essential, but studying old stories and learning about your writing idols, alive or dead, can not only help your own work, but inspire you all over again.
A number of resources exist to study all of these topics: the most accessible are blog articles and YouTube videos; there are books to read, especially on topics like mythology; and podcasts to listen to, to say nothing of the advice you can find from your fellow writers. Many authors also share writing advice on their social media pages.
Some creators I follow to learn something new include Jenna Moreci (writing), Psych2Go (psychology), and The Legends of History (Mythology). There’s also my own channel, Otherworldly Fiction, where I offer writing advice in addition to rambling about my favourite books. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but can give you a good starting point.
What other skills do you feel writers should learn? Let me know!