What Kind of Writer Are You?

It’s refreshing to dabble in different genres from time to time and many writers produce wonderful fiction for a variety of tastes. Gone are the days when publishing houses required writers to stay in a particular area such as historical, gothic, or Regency. Now everybody can write as many different kinds of stories as they want–contemporary, paranormal, etc.–and they don’t have to worry about upsetting readers or editors. Some writers still use different names for different genres and that’s ok. But I wonder if it’s necessary. It could make it difficult for some readers to find works by their favorite authors when they aren’t aware of the pseudonyms. But, oh well.

A good writer is inspired by the challenge of writing in different categories of fiction and non-fiction as well. A writer’s brain is usually expansive with ideas and readers are generally happy to see different types of writing from their favorite authors. But what if you aren’t sure what genre you should be writing? Take this fun, short quiz to find out what kind of writing you’ll enjoy the most.

1. Are the names of the characters in your stories more like

A. “Scarlet and Butch”

B. “Diasha and Trong”

C. “Maren and Dick”

D. “Jade and Orlando”

E. “Laura and Miles”

2. Do you like to write about

A. People and relationships

B. Other worlds and magic

C. Talking animals and creatures

D. Combat and travel

E. Riddles, mazes, and puzzles

3. When you write do you mostly describe

A. the appearances and emotions of your characters

B. the details right down to the blade of grass

C. the stupid things your characters do

D. details of every swing of the sword or punch of the fist

E. just the bare minimum of descriptions

If you chose mostly  A’s, you are a romance writer at heart.

If you chose mostly B’s, you are a fantasy/science fiction writer at heart.

If you chose mostly C’s, you are a humor writer at heart.

If you chose mostly D’s, you are an action/adventure writer at heart.

If you chose mostly E’s, you are a mystery writer at heart.

If you chose a mix of responses, you are one of those multi-talented writers who can write just about anything successfully!

Personal interests of writers help determine the genre and categories they will feel the most comfortable with. It’s just a matter of trying different stories and  styles and when you are writing one and the time and the words fly by, you’ve found your niche.

Happy writing!

15 Comments:

  1. Fun quiz. I’m glad to see I’m in the right place – a romance writer at heart!

  2. Interesting way to sort out writers. I went for mostly D’s and E’s which makes sense with what I write in both historical romance and romantic suspense. Thanks for providing the different take on things. It’s always interesting to look at writing from a new perspective!

  3. What a fun quiz, Liz!

    The results tells me I enjoy writing romance the most, but then I knew that lol. 🙂

    Take care.

  4. Pretty inconclusive for me, but these things usually are because I write romance, but in several sub-genres: western historical, western contemporary (with talking animals), fantasy, and YA. Have even written a SFR. So my answers were all As, Bs, or Cs, or a combination of those three. #2 was all three.

    Fun, Liz. 🙂 How did you score?

  5. I like to dabble in a little bit of everything. The first story I wrote was about witches with a D/s twist, the one after that was Scifi mostly, the romance did not come until later in the story as I got older. Then I went to fantasy with a D/s twist, I wrote a spanking story taking place in an English boarding school, a paranormal menage(herione was born on another planet but living on Earth) so I guess I am a dabbling dilettante…lol

  6. Hi Liz,

    That was a fun quiz – I’m a romance writer at heart (booooo) 😉

    I’m following you now. BTW you won a copy of my book from Karen Nutt’s blog! Let me have your email:
    suemonteiro@yahoo.co.uk

  7. Fun quiz–And I’m a romance writer at heart. But anyone who knows me knows that’s true! 🙂 I also cross genres. I have Christian books placed with an agent. I chose a pseudonym in order to keep the two separate. I think it’s all right for my secular readers to pick up my Christian works, but I’m not so sure that my Christian readers would be so understanding of my sexier books. They’re not erotica, but there is a morality issue that could come up and I definitely want to keep that to a minimum!

    • Hi, Amie, Thanks for taking the quiz and I agree with the psuedo choice. Lots of folks don’t understand that writers write alot of different things these days. Happy writing!
      hugs,
      Liz

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