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Busting 10 Myths About Writing Fiction

You’ve thought about writing fiction. However, the moment you did, your inner critic bashed the notion and rolled out ten reasons you shouldn’t. Your inner critic was wrong. Today, I’ll bust those myths about writing fiction.

10. I don’t have time to write.

In one sense, your inner critic was right about that. You don’t have time to write. Neither do I. No writer does. We all make time for it. We deliberately carve out time out of our day for writing, no matter how brief it may be.

9. I could never write as well as [insert your favorite author’s name].

Since you’ve never tried, how would you know? Even if it’s true, who cares? You’re aiming at the wrong target. Adjust your aim to write as well as you can.

8. I’ve led a dull life. If I write what I know, it’ll be a dull book.

If you had suffered a troubled past, that would give you much to write (with authority) about. But you’ll have to admit—your past wasn’t all dull. You experienced fear, pain, triumph, loss, and love. Remember those emotions and write about them. More important than writing what you know is writing what you feel.

7. I don’t know all the English rules well enough.

This ain’t English class. Editors and publishers won’t quiz you on the difference between a reflexive pronoun and a ditransitive verb. They’d trade a hundred grammar experts and another hundred spelling bee champions for one great storyteller. You can learn the rules of English faster and easier than you can learn the craft of weaving a compelling tale.

6. I’ve heard you need a muse. I don’t have one.

Forget the muse. It’s a metaphor for creativity. I’ll give you two ways to increase your creativity, and each beats waiting around for an ancient Greek goddess to whisper in your ear. (1) Practice 20-solution brainstorming, where you write down 20 solutions to a problem without regard to workability or practicality. Don’t stop until you reach 20. (2) Channel your 5-year-old former self. You were creative then.

5. I don’t know the ‘author tricks.’

Of course you don’t. That’s because all the highest-paid authors belong to a secret society, and you haven’t been initiated. Wait, no. There’s no such secret society and no author tricks. What worked for others won’t work for you, and vice versa. You’ll have to figure out your own tricks, like everyone else. Many authors have written how-to-write books, but there’s no sure-fire formula in this biz.

4. Writers are introverts and I’m an extrovert.

You may be extroverted, but writers come in all personality types. If the thought of writing alone bothers you, collaborate with another writer. Or attend a party after each writing session, to get back in your comfort zone.

3. I’ll get stuck and suffer from writer’s block.

Maybe. Probably. It never lasts long. Whatever inner force compels you to write will insist you resume at some point. If you listen to that voice inside, it will help you get unstuck.

2. All the best stories have already been written.

Maybe that’s true. So what? More stories get published now than ever before, so that excuse doesn’t seem to be stopping other writers. One thing’s for sure—your best story hasn’t been written, and you’re the only one who can do it.

And the number one myth about writing is—

1. I won’t make any money from writing.

Hmm. What a coincidence. All the highest paid authors in history likely had that same thought at some point. It might end up being true in your case, but you can’t know that yet. Most writers keep their day job until their writing income grows to a point that they feel comfortable quitting that job. Maybe you’ll end up loving writing so much that you won’t care so much about the money.

There. I’ve busted the top ten myths about writing fiction. What’s your next excuse? Whatever it is will soon get demolished by the sledge hammer belonging to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 25, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Homo Scriptor

A potential Wikipedia entry:

Homo Scriptor

The writing human (Homo scriptor) is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, differing from H. sapiens only in its highly developed skill in writing. Though most humans write to some extent, Homo scriptor writes as an obsession, often to the exclusion of other activities.

Etymology

The genus Homo refers to human and the subspecies designation of scriptor (from Latin) refers to a person who writes.

Taxonomy and Phylogeny

Homo scriptor is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, member of the tribe Homanini, the family Hominidae, the order of primates, in the class Mammalia. H. scriptor has not yet split off from H. sapiens, and mating between the two can occur, but scientists believe sympatric speciation (the splitting apart into separate species) may be underway.

Description and Characteristics

In appearance, H. scriptor is indistinguishable from H. sapiens. Specimens of H. scriptor are present in the same genders and races as H. sapiens, in approximately the same proportions. Behavior is the only distinguishing indicator between the two.

Distribution and Habitat

Scientists estimate the world population of H. scriptor at around 400,000, perhaps 1 in every 20,000 humans. Homo scriptor has accompanied H. sapiens to every continent. They cluster in cities, as does H. sapiens. They occupy the same types of dwellings, though H. scriptor insists on one quiet space within the abode for solitude, writing, and the storage of books.

Behavior

Diet

H. scriptor eats the same foods as H. sapiens, but prefers to spend less time in obtaining, preparing, and consuming the food, to leave more time for writing.

Locomotion

H. scriptor walks in the same bipedal manner as H. sapiens, but less often, since writing is a sedentary activity.

Reproduction and Parenting

H. scriptor mates in the same manner as H. sapiens. However, for H. scriptor, the sexual act provides an additional benefit—research for a future book.

Any combination of H. sapiens and H. scriptor parents may result in either H. sapiens or H. scriptor offspring. Scientists have not yet identified the genetic markers for H. scriptor.

Social Structures

The main and subspecies share a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. H. sapiens seeks and pays for the product (books) of H. scriptor’s work. H. scriptor writes books for H. sapiens’ enjoyment and receives payment in return. With both symbionts achieving benefits, this relationship seems likely to continue. The two freely associate in complex social structures, though H. scriptor may seem aloof and isolated.

Communication

Since the advent of written language in the late 4^th millennium BCE, H. scriptor has exceeded H. sapiens in this activity, both in quality and quantity. On the other hand, H. sapiens surpasses H. scriptor in nearly all other human activities. The written language prowess of H. scriptor does not typically extend to other forms of communication. For example, H. scriptor may not speak any better than H. sapiens, and when the writer subspecies does speak, the topic is often about writing.

Cultural Significance

With the exception of non-written language arts, such as music, sculpture, and painting, Homo scriptor provides culture for Homo sapiens. All novels, short stories, plays, song lyrics, newspapers, motion picture scripts, television scripts, and Wikipedia entries were written by members of H. scriptor for the enjoyment of H. sapiens. Due to the symbiotic relationship, the writer subspecies rarely writes about itself, but more often about the main species.

Dying Writers, Dying Readers

Author Annie Dillard once wrote, “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.” The quote intrigued me. What did she mean?

Source

It’s from a 1989 essay in The New York Times titled “Write Till You Drop.” The paragraph continues, “That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What would you say to a dying patient that would not enrage by its triviality?”

Picture the situation. You are near death and so are your readers. The pen and pad (or computer) sit before you. How would you write differently than you do now?

Answers?

As morbid as the thought experiment may seem, some answers to that question occur to me:

Don’t waste time. You haven’t much time for writing, nor do your readers for reading.
Don’t ‘enrage by triviality.’ Write about what’s important, vital to being human. Write the thing you’d regret not having written, the thing readers would regret not having read.
Don’t save your best for some later time. Don’t keep that masterpiece in reserve. There will be no later time.

Wonderful Concentration

English author Samuel Johnson said, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Dillard admonishes us to write that way all the time, with a wonderfully concentrated mind.

Socrates

Consider the last words of Socrates. At his trial he received a sentence of death. Imagine the ‘wonderful concentration’ of his mind as he drank hemlock and felt his limbs going numb. Some have reported his final words as, “Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Don’t forget to pay the debt.”

How can that be? On his deathbed, one of history’s greatest philosophers prattled about not having paid for a rooster? Is that not enraging by triviality?

Newer interpretations of those last words paint a different picture. Greeks considered Asclepius a god of medicine and the rooster a symbol of rebirth or eternal life, for it crows every morning. Some now think Socrates’ words a metaphor, a way of saying, “Athens may kill me, but philosophy lives on.” If so, that satisfies Ms. Dillard’s advice to write as if you were dying.

Triviality

Regarding the part of her advice referring to triviality, that confused me at first. What is trivial and what is not?

After all, author and politician Bruce Barton said, “Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think that there are no little things.”

No little things? Aren’t they the trivial things?

Perhaps not. Mother Theresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Ah, that might provide a clue regarding what Ms. Dillard meant by triviality. You may write about anything, large or small, but do so with great love. Use up every drop of your literary skill. It’s not the triviality of the subject, but the treatment of it by the writer.

In sports, we say a player ‘left if all on the field,’ meaning he gave it his utmost. I may be wrong, or I may be over-analyzing it, but that’s what I believe Annie Dillard meant in advising us to write as if we were dying, and as if our reading audience were dying as well.

If your next written sentence were your last, would readers say you ‘left it all on the field?’ Aim to write with a mind as wonderfully concentrated as that of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 14, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink Leave a comment

Milieu, Ambiance, and Writing

Are milieu and ambiance important, perhaps even necessary, for the act of writing?

Milieu means surroundings, environment. Ambiance means the mood created by an environment. As a writer, you strive for a creative, productive mood, particularly one that results in a string of words soon to become a best-seller. Before sitting down to write, do you arrange a milieu conducive to achieving that ambiance? Let’s examine the aspects involved.

Sight

You don’t gaze at the screen or page all the time. Now and then you glance up. When you do, what visual surroundings do you prefer to see? Do you lean toward a natural view—vistas of the outside world including trees, flowers, mountains, lakes, etc.? Or are you the decorative indoor type—furnishing your writing space with paintings, knick-knacks, posters, figurines, or other delights for the eye? Perhaps visual clutter distracts you, and you seek a bare, spartan environment. Or do your visual surroundings matter at all?

Sound

Does noise, or its absence, harmonize with your writing? Some writers hate sound of any kind. Even the ticking of a clock or the hum of a fan disturbs them. Others prefer the quiet murmurs of nature—twittering birds and babbling creeks. Others put on recorded music, a background soundtrack of their writing passion. Perhaps, for them, certain songs match the rhythm of their creativity. Other writers tap into music more in tune with the specific mood or setting of their work-in-progress.

Smell

Scientists claim a strong link exists between odor and mood. Do you follow your nose to improved creativity or prolificness, or both? Do you achieve your optimum olfactory atmosphere via flowers, perfume, potpourri, or incense? Perhaps you turn your nose up at fragrances altogether, not caring one whiff about them.

Touch

Does the tactile sense reach out and poke your creative nerves? Does it help to stroke the fur of a pet or stuffed animal? Is the comfiness of your chair a factor? Maybe the feel of a pen in your hand rubs you the right way.

Taste

Bundled with smell, taste hits the spot for some writers. We’ve all heard accounts of authors who required alcohol to write, but I’m not sure I swallow that. In fact, I’d caution against forming a strong association between writing and tastes. Once that mental link gets established, you’ll strive to write better by eating or drinking more. Too much food or drink can harm your health.

Locale

For the above sensory factors, locale plays a role. Do you write outdoors, preferring a natural setting, disdaining the artificial? Or is the indoor milieu more your style, a place you can shape and adjust as you please, without the bother of insects?

Mental State

We’ve been assuming a process of ambiance—allowing the milieu to create a mood. Perhaps, however, you attain your optimum mental state in a more direct, way. Maybe you reach your creative mood through meditation. Or, more simply, you read and think about what you’ve written before to put yourself in the right frame of mind to continue on. In other words (with apologies to Decartes), you think, therefore you can write.

Experimentation

Maybe you haven’t a clue about the answers to any questions I’ve asked, but you’d like to find out. No problem. Do what a scientist would do—experiment. Try out different milieu and assess the resulting ambiance. Compare the way you write in these different environments. You’re not looking for surroundings that you find most pleasurable, but the one that results in your best prose. Readers, of course, may differ from your assessment and then you’ll face an interesting choice—go with what you prefer, or with what your audience wants.

As for me…

Throughout this post, I’ve proposed things for you to consider as you write. You might be interested in my choice of milieu and its ensuing ambiance. Why you’d be interested in that is a question only you can answer.

I favor the make-your-own-mental-state approach without regard to any milieu. I like to think I can write anywhere. However, if I should, one day, discover just the right environment to generate a best-seller, that would lock in that particular milieu and ambiance for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 3, 2024Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Procrastinate to be Prolific?

Been meaning to blog about this, but kept putting it off. This article by Loizos Heracleous and David Robson cites studies claiming procrastination can benefit creativity.

The authors quote Agatha Christie as saying she often thought of story ideas while bathing. I suspect many writers have experienced a similar phenomenon. You’re writing and get stuck. You take a break and turn to some dull activity, such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, showering, etc., and Bang! The solution comes to mind. Often you don’t even realize you were thinking about it.

The article discusses several studies that bear this out. Researchers found that taking a break from a creative task and performing a different, humdrum task allowed participants to return to the creative task and perform better. Oddly, those that rested instead of working on a humdrum task did not do as well.

Odd that the human mind works this way. I’ve blogged before about how weird that is. You could spend time puzzling about it or analyzing this brain quirk, but perhaps your time’s better spent accepting it and using it to your advantage. When the words won’t spill out, back away and pursue some mundane chore for a while.

However, I urge you not to draw the wrong conclusion from this discussion. You’re thinking, “Well, if procrastination works that well, I’ll spend years putting off writing and end up a best-selling author.”

Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, I wish the article hadn’t use the term ‘procrastinate’ at all. The word means to postpone, to delay, like when you have homework due and you watch YouTube videos instead.

We’re talking about something different here. When you get stuck while writing and choose to do gardening instead, you’re not really postponing anything. You’re still writing in the sense that your brain is thinking of creative solutions.

To paraphrase the math genius, Yogi Berra—writing is 90% mental; the other half is physical. Your body may have walked away from the keyboard, but your brain still writes.

Put another way, if you aim to be a prolific writer, you must write a lot. But not all writing time involves stringing words together. An observer might think you’re washing dishes, but you’re really stringing ideas together. Just tell that observer you’re not procrastinating, you’re writing in your mind, just like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 6, 2023Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Stories from the Grand Hotel

If you’d love to write a story, are unsure what to write about, and you think every possible story has already been written, don’t worry. So long as you don’t plagiarize, there’s room in the world for your story.

It may seem like writers before you already used every possible plot, character type, setting, theme, mood, and style. Maybe they have, but not in the combination you’ll use. None of the previous authors brought the distinct flair to their stories that you’ll bring to yours.

What does this have to do with the ‘grand hotel’ mentioned in this post’s subject? Everything.

In 1924, German mathematician David Hilbert introduced what’s come to be known as the ‘paradox of the Grand Hotel.’ Imagine a big hotel, so big it contains an infinite number of rooms. You arrive at the front desk and ask if you can have a room for the night. The receptionist says the hotel is full, with every room occupied, but there are vacancies.

That makes no sense, but the receptionist picks up the public address microphone and directs all guests to move from their current room to the next higher numbered room. The receptionist then offers you Room number 1. Problem solved.

You enjoy your stay there. The next time you’re in town, you go to that hotel again. You forget to get a reservation ahead of time (again), and this time you’re accompanied by an infinite number of friends who all want separate rooms.

The receptionist again says the hotel is full, but also says there’s no problem accommodating you and your friends. Over the PA system, the receptionist instructs all current guests to move from their room to the one with a number two times their current room number. The receptionist then checks you and your many friends into the odd-numbered rooms.

You get where I’m going with this. We live in a world filled with an infinite number of stories, and they’ve all been written before. Even so, there’s room for yours. Since it will bear similarities to previous stories, lawyers would call it derivative. Don’t copy character names or significant sections of text from previously published work—lawyers call that copyright infringement. Stay clear of plagiarizing, and the possibilities still go on without end.

In fact, even if your brain teems with an infinite number of story ideas, you can write them all (well, as many as a human lifespan allows). The world can accommodate an infinite number of writers, each writing an infinite number of stories.

Write as many stories as you can. There’s room for them all, as well as those written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 17, 2022Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Mind the Gap

In the London subway system, iconic signs exhort patrons to step with care across the space between platform and train with the words “Mind the Gap.” Not bad advice for time management while writing, either.

Here I refer to a different kind of gap. Inspired by Andrew Gudgel’s post on June 3, 2019, which he based on Samantha Leach’s article in Glamour, I’m referring to a gap in writing productivity.

The blogpost and the article state that author Danielle Steel writes 20 to 22 hours a day. That’s not a typo. My math says Ms. Steel uses between 83% and 92% of all available time for writing. On occasion, she goes the full 100%. Put another way, in an average 8-hour period, Ms. Steel writes for 7 and squeezes the rest of her life activities into the remaining 1 hour.

I suspect very few other writers (perhaps none) maintain that schedule, so let’s consider that an upper limit of what is possible. Is Ms. Steel’s time well spent? Well, she’s the best-selling living author. She’s written over 141 novels, all of which were best-sellers. Yes, I’d say she’s used that time productively.

Right now, you’re mentally comparing your writing schedule to Danielle Steel’s and feeling rather inferior. You’re thinking you need more than 2-4 hours of sleep each day, and there’s also eating, showering, dressing, and undressing to consider.

That’s the gap I’m talking about—the writing schedule gap between you and Danielle Steel. If you keep thinking about that gap, you’ll get depressed.

Still, in a detached way, you can see how someone could get there. Say you enjoyed writing and wrote a debut novel that became a best-seller. You’d feel a strong incentive to write another. If that novel also succeeded, you’d be motivated to repeat that process. If nothing else in life gave you as much satisfaction as writing, and if all you got was positive feedback for doing so, you might end up writing for 20-22 hours a day, too.

To avoid comparison envy and anxiety, I encourage you to focus on a different gap. Forget about Danielle Steel. Think about how much you write every day, and compare it to where you were before becoming a writer. That’s the gap that matters. That’s a gap you can work on improving.

By instinct, I prefer metrics where more is better. The less=better metrics—golf scores, unemployment rates, the you-to-Danielle Steel work-hour gap—just feel wrong to me.

As the London subway signs say, “Mind the Gap,” but mind the right gap. Always here to provide uplifting advice and encouragement, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 30, 2022Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Practice Makes Perfect?

We know practice can help us improve our abilities in various areas. Yet many people believe they can sit down and write a blockbuster novel without any writing practice. Maybe you’re the rare exception who can, but most of us need practice.

Not just any kind of practice. Good practice helps. Bad practice not only wastes your time, but it also hurts by ingraining poor habits. This wonderful blog post by Barbara Baig inspired the one you’re reading now. She calls the two types naïve practice and deliberate practice, so I’ll stick with her terms.

When young, I played the cello. I don’t play anymore, but I enjoyed it while I did. Early on, before I learned how to practice, it felt like drudgery. My mom said, “Someday, when you play in Carnegie Hall, remember to tell the audience that you owe everything to your mother, who made you practice.” Sorry, Mom, that opportunity never arose.

Practice, in those early years, consisted of my playing a piece from start to finish. Once I did that to my satisfaction—a rather low bar—I moved on to the next piece. In Ms. Baig’s blogpost, that’s called naïve practice. Over time, I discovered an interesting thing. Whether in practice or performance, I played some passages well, without effort, consistently. However, I stumbled in other spots—the same spots, and the same sort of stumbling, every time.

I tried practicing a different way. I focused only on the rough spots, playing them over and over, then backing up and leading into them, then continuing on after them to ensure transitions both ways went smoothly. In this way, I developed ‘finger memory.’ My fingers knew how to play the difficult passages with less conscious thought on my part.

My skill as a cellist improved after that. I’d learned the secret of deliberate practice, and nearly all my practice time served to better my playing, rather than to reinforce poor playing.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything. You may be getting plenty of writing practice—story after story, novel after novel. But perhaps you’re not reaching a large audience, not achieving hoped-for sales.

Perhaps you’re putting in naïve practice, doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get better that way. Improvement might happen, but there’s a quicker path.

Use the deliberate practice technique I mentioned above. First, identify the stumbling points in your writing, perhaps from a critique group, or a trusted beta reader. You might also learn something from online reviews of your stories.

Knowing your weak points, assign yourself some brief writing exercises designed to work on those particular problems. Here’s a list of examples:

Weak in characterization? Flesh out a character in extreme detail.
Weak in setting description? Visualize a setting in minute detail, then pick three facts that really make the setting vivid.
Weak in working out plots? Outline the plot of your favorite story, or one you just read. What do you like about that story’s plot? In a similar way, outline the plot of several stories you’d like to write.
Weak in use of the senses? Take a scene from your Work in Progress (WIP) and put all five senses into it.
Weak in comparisons? Find three to five things in your WIP that are hard to describe or visualize. For each one, brainstorm twenty similes or metaphors you could use to make it clear to the reader.

They say practice makes perfect. You may never achieve perfection, but getting closer to that ideal may prove good enough. Deliberate practice may get you writing, and playing the cello, better than—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 5, 2021Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Negentropy and Writing

Do you recall one of your physics teachers mentioning the concept of entropy? Today I’d like to discuss its opposite, negentropy, and how that applies to writing.

Entropy depresses me. I dislike the idea that energy changes into less and less useful forms, that order becomes chaos, and that the universe eventually runs down and stops.

Negentropy seems more fun. While we all wait for the universe to wind down, we can take tiny chunks of it and turn chaos into order within those chunks.

I ran across this article by Dr. Alison Carr-Chellman where she explores the concept of negentropy as it applies to everyday things like cleaning your room or making your workplace run smoother. I wondered if her concepts could apply to writing fiction.

Writing, itself, epitomizes negentropy. The inputs—life experiences, a brain, and writing implements—get converted to a single output, fiction. Chaos becomes order.

But is your fiction-producing process smooth and efficient? Are you losing energy along the way? Think about achieving maximum output (published fictional stories) for minimum input (personal time and energy).

Dr. Carr-Chellman provides five steps for improving that efficiency (she calls it ‘minimizing energy loss’). I’ll discuss each as they apply to writing fiction.

1: Find the entropy. Think of the steps involved in getting to a published story. Which of those steps (examples: researching, editing) take the most time for you? Which do you put off or rush through (ex: scene setting, choosing a title) because you hate doing them? Which steps do you agonize over (ex: submitting, marketing) because you don’t understand them well?

2: Prioritize the losses. Identify the biggest entropy problems, so you tackle them first. Not only will this provide the best gains in efficiency, but your success will embolden you to solve the others in a similar manner.

3: Come up with a plan. For the steps taking too much time, consider self-imposed time limits. For the steps you hate, give yourself small rewards for completing them. For the steps you don’t understand well, learn about them from TED talks, YouTube videos, books, or internet searches.

4: Try it out and pay attention. As you implement your improvement plans, track how they’re working. Did you put more energy and time into the plan itself than the improvement warranted?

5: Go beyond fixing and maintenance. As you plug all these energy leaks and achieve a smoother process, consider the bigger picture. Perhaps you’ve now developed a very efficient method for selling low-grade stories. That may not have been your desire. It’s not worth optimizing a process that doesn’t result in the output you want.

If you start implementing negentropy into your writing now, you stand a great chance of optimizing it before maximum entropy brings about the heat death of the universe. That event may happen as soon as ten to the hundredth power years from now. That’s a googol years. Best not to schedule anything in your personal organizer for any date after that event.

Negentropy, turning chaos into order. That’s the main job of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 12, 2021Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Engineers Can’t Write

My college degrees are in engineering and my career was in an engineering field. I’ve never received a degree in writing or literature. Now I write fiction. Is that even allowed?

At one point in my career, I had a boss who’d say, “Engineers can’t write.” He was, of course, referring not only to fiction, but also the sort of nonfiction engineers must write—specifications, instructions, memos, emails, etc. It pleased him that I was an exception, but daily experience with others only proved his rule 99% correct.

Not many engineers write fiction as a spare-time hobby, but I did, and now it’s my sole retirement job. I believe stories written by engineers often suffer from common deficiencies that make their stories unappealing to editors and readers. These deficiencies result from the rigorous thought processes of the engineering mindset. In particular, engineer-writers:

emphasize things, particularly human-made things, not people or emotions;
focus on actions, not internal motivations; and
over-explain, in detail, how gadgets work.

The essence of engineering is problem-solving, and engineer-writers often pen stories in which the protagonist solves a complex problem. The problem tends to involve things, not people. The story often glosses over the protagonist’s emotions and desires. The feelings of other characters, if mentioned at all, involve amazement or admiration for the brilliant main character.

An Engineer’s Guide to Writing Fiction

Perhaps you’re an engineer who wishes to write fiction, but hasn’t been successful yet. Here are some pointers:

Think of ‘success in writing’ as you would any engineering problem. The end objective is to create a manuscript that maximizes the emotional response and enjoyment of end users (readers). These readers may not think like you. The only raw materials at your disposal are words.
Keep in mind what readers care about and what all classic fiction emphasizes—characters. Show your readers what your characters dream about and long for. Show readers your character’s fears, vulnerabilities, feelings, and doubts.
When writing fiction, you’re leaving your neat and logical world of machine parts, where rigid physical laws and mathematical equations govern how materials and subsystems interact, where you work within the laws of nature to benefit people. You’ve entered the infinitely more complex and messier world of human emotion, motivation, and fantastic imaginings.
It’s fine to include machines and vehicles in your tales, but go light on the descriptions. Pick a few key details to mention, just enough to give an impression and let readers imagine the rest. You don’t have to explain how it works; trust readers to go along for the ride. How your characters feel about the machine is more important than the machine itself, so describe it through their thoughts.
You didn’t learn engineering in a day, and writing good fiction is no different, no less complex. You’ll have to learn the craft. Read fiction within and outside your favorite genre. Read books about writing. Go to writers’ conferences. Join a fiction writing critique group.

Now that I think about it, I believe my former boss was wrong. Engineers, like you, can write. Not only can you write good fiction, you will. Many others have, and since I followed their path, you can follow—

Poseidon’s Scribe