The Author's 9 Jobs

“Writing a book is easy! Anyone can do it.”

As an author, you hear this from people all the time. People look at writing as one of the “easiest” professions there is because “after all, anyone can do it”. Sure, anyone can sit down and type out 80,000 words on a word doc. It doesn’t take any special training or specialized tools or knowledge… right?

Well, not exactly.

Writing may be one of the easiest careers to get into, but it’s not the easiest to make it in. Not only is there a lot more to writing than most people know (I’ll get to that in a bit), but there’s also another key factor – the criticism. Being an author is one of the most high pressure jobs you can get. Why? Because everyone believes they’re an expert. After all, anyone can sit down and read your work and then compare it to hundreds of others, analyzing your every decision, your every grammar mistake or spelling error or plot hole. And they will, trust me. They’ll write a review, good or bad, and put it out where the entire world can see. It won’t matter if they have any kind of credentials, if they actually know what they’re talking about, or if anyone should listen to them. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and they’ll be sure everyone hears about it – even if that’s all it is.

So what does it take to write a book that will make it in the hard world of reader criticism? A lot of things. An author is basically a psychologist, an English teacher, a sociologist, an engineer, a government major, a scientist, a religion specialist, poet, and a logician, etc. etc. etc. Why? Let me break it down for you.

Psychologist: An author has to know people. You have to get inside their heads and find what drives them. Every decision that your characters make, you will be responsible for. In-depth characters are one of the key components to making a book work – and therefore a key component to making readers like and buy your work. They have to function as human beings – be relatable, understandable, and lovable. They have to think like people think, act like people would act. Every part of their personality, thoughts, actions, hopes and dreams all will be analyzed and studied and, ultimately, will decide whether or not you’ve created real people or flunked out. Poor character creations are one of the first things that will turn readers off for your work.

English Teacher: As an author, you basically have to know more than an English teacher would about grammar, punctuation, spelling and turn of phrase. You’d better believe that your work has to be perfection or it’ll get mentioned again and again in reviews.

Sociologist: As an author, you will have to have down the origin, development, organization, and functioning of your human society. You will need to be able to answer any question that arises about the entirety of your world from the view of your own humanity. And it all has to be consistent, or people will find those inconsistencies and publish them for everyone else to see.

Engineer: How do your flying cars fly? How did your character get over the wall with just a piece of rope and two pulleys? How did your pre-technology civilization build a castle suspended over the ocean? Any and every engineering problem your characters face, you’d better know the answer to – or at least be able to pull off a believable bluff. People want to know things are believable: that they could actually happen. If there isn’t a reasonable explanation, they’ll cry foul.

Government Major: You may not actually have to go to law school, but your government has to be as believable as your engineering. You’ll need to know how it functions because that will affect your entire society. The rule of law is essential in character development and for both you and your characters to know where they stand. Who is above who? How does that affect your characters’ day to day lives? How does it affect your plot? Does it help it, hinder it, or is it the cause of it? You’ll need to create a system of law that makes sense, is uniform, and functions – or vice versa, one that is failing and has logical reasons as to why.

Scientist: For all the reasons you have to be an engineer, you have to be a scientist. You have to be ready with a scientific explanation of everything in your newly created world. A plant has a healing property? Why? What causes it? How does it work? The sun revolves around your planet instead of the other way around? Why? How does it affect your planet? Does it change weather? Plants? Any environmental aspect of your world needs to make sense with all the other environmental aspects. Any scientific breakthrough will have to be backed up. And if you don’t have good explanations, then you either have to bluff believably (which isn’t a walk in the park) or you’ll likely be criticized for it.

Religion Specialist: What religion does your country/world have? Does it have many? How does it affect your characters? Do they believe in it/them or not? How does it/they relate to your scientific standpoints? How does it/they affect the culture/social standing? If you mention a religion once or twice and never have it affect anything, it’ll be considered a poorly developed world or a plot hole.

Poet: People expect a certain poetic – or at least interesting – level to the descriptions in books. If they’re bland or boring, people won’t read your book. It’s just that simple. No one wants to wade through pages upon pages of boring descriptions. Authors have to weave words in a way that draws people in and holds them captive for hours at a time.

Logician: Everything your characters, world, government, science and religious groups do must make at least some logical sense. You have to be able to justify it all logically – if only logically in the minds of the people doing it.

 

And all of that is only for starters. There’s all the small details that make a story flow, as well. The humor, the subtle hint of emotions without stating them, the color every author has to add to their own unique world that can’t always be defined.

You may be thinking “well, you could just not have any of those things if they’re so hard”. And you could, I guess. Not have a religious group and therefore bypass that difficulty. Or you could skim over scientific explanations of things and simply say no one knows. You could give vague backgrounds on characters that could, possibly, explain all their actions without having to go into detail. But if you do, it will come across as sloppy and not well thought out, and you’ll be just as disliked on those grounds as well.

There is some leeway with things. You don’t always have to give the scientific explanation, or include some religion, or give a full account of every characters’ background. But you do have to include at least some elements of them all. Well-developed plot, world, and characters is critical to creating a good book. The amount of work you put into it is almost always how much return you’ll get back. People appreciate good books because good books are hard to write. It’s not every day that you stumble upon a book that draws you in and captures your attention to a depth that a truly well-done book does.

Which brings us back to the beginning. “Writing a book is easy! Anyone can do it.” Yes, anyone can write a book. You could sit down and type out 80,000 words on a doc and publish it on kindle and see what happens. Lots of people do it all over the world, every day. That slogan is why there are so many books out there. Anyone can write a book the easy way.

But not everyone can write a good book.