If you have spent any time in the world of education, you might have heard the term: lifelong learner. This is the concept that as time goes on, some teachers lose their motivation and fall into a comfortable routine. They stop pushing themselves to grow in their craft. On the other hand, some teachers never growing. They are constantly adapting and evolving. These teachers are lifelong learners.

I love this so much. I’ve always been a lifelong learner, but after grad school, I’ve taken it to a new level. Here are a few of the things I’ve been learning over this past year and into this current year as a writer:

-Kindle Vella
-Dragon Speaking Naturally and how to dictate a novel
-Facebook Ads
-Romance beats and how to write a compelling romance
-How to perfect the emotional arc of a character
-Figuring out how to make the Save the Cat beat sheet work for novels

A lifelong learner uses formal opportunities to learn. In the writing world, that could look like taking classes, reading books, articles, blogs, podcasts, watching online videos, and taking advantage of mentoring opportunities and writers conferences.

If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you have some writing skills. Some of your skills will be stronger than others. If you are looking for ways to improve your writing, you need to figure out how to identify your weaknesses.

You might already know your weaknesses. I have a weakness that I’ve known from the start. But there are other things I’ve come to realize over 14 years of writing. It’s taken that journey for me to gain enough experience and data to start to recognize some patterns.

Some of you might not like looking for weaknesses in your writing. If that is you, I want to tell you: get used to it. In this business, whether you write articles or books, fiction or nonfiction, it’s all about putting your work out there to be read and critiqued and judged and compared, and it never stops. It’s important to grow a thick skin and practice ways to gather feedback that matters while protecting yourself from opinions that don’t.

Now, on the flip side, if we focus too much on our weaknesses, we can demoralize ourselves. Too often, when an already vulnerable writer starts focusing on their weaknesses, they easily become discouraged. And a discouraged writer is not usually self-confident or productive.

What I’m suggesting here is a balance.

So, how can you identify your weaknesses so that you can start working on them?

1. List Your Strengths

Start by identifying your strengths. This will not only help you feel better, once you have a list of strengths, you’ll be able to see what’s missing, which might offer some clues about weaknesses. Ask yourself:

What comes easiest to me?
What excites me about the writing process?
Which scenes are my favorite to write?
What type of writing energizes me?
What do my readers tell me they love about my writing?

2. Identify Your Weaknesses

You might already know some of your weaknesses, so write those down first. Then work on identifying other weaknesses. You can look to your strength list to see what’s missing. You can also ask yourself some questions:

What is the hardest part of writing for me?
Which scenes do I hate writing?
Is there anything missing from my first drafts?
What doubts are always on my mind about my writing craft?
Are my characters one-dimensional? Do they have a strong growth arc?
How are my beginnings? my chapter endings? my pacing? my plot structure? my middle? my climax? my ending? my dialogue?

As you brainstorm, make a list of whatever comes to you. Don’t panic. This is all brainstorming. You’re not looking to fix all your weaknesses at once. And some weaknesses might always be difficult for you. That’s okay. The point is to raise awareness so you can make a plan to improve.

3. Know the Rules

When I first started writing, I heard SO many of the same rules over and over, and I did not understand most of them. It was a stressful, frustrating time because I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong. Things like:

-Show Don’t Tell
-Avoid passive writing
-Use active verbs
-Avoid –ly adverbs
-Only use “said.”
-Don’t write prologues
-Only one exclamation point per manuscript

If you’re new to writing, you need to learn the “rules” to the point that you understand them. If you don’t understand them, you’re going to have a very difficult time pinpointing your strengths and weaknesses. There are tons of books and videos and blogs out there to help you learn these basics. Once you understand them and the craft of writing in general, then you can break the rules all you want. But if you don’t know them, chances are a good deal of your weaknesses might revolve around the writing craft itself. You can be excellent at plot and character development and be weak in craft.

4. Enlist Help

If you can’t figure out what is broken, recruit a trusted critique partner, writer’s group, mentor, or a few beta readers to help you identify strengths and weaknesses. (It’s always best to ask for a balance of feedback so you don’t get discouraged.) Beta readers should be people who are skilled at story structure and character development.

Also, this doesn’t only have to be about your writing. There are so many other hats a writer wears in this business. So, make this list about your writing craft. Then do it again thinking generally about the writing business as a whole. How are you at pitching? Writing synopses? Managing your social media? Building a platform? Bookkeeping? Marketing and advertising? The list goes on and on.

5. Make a Learning Plan

Study your list of weaknesses and rank with what you feel is the most important on the top. This is an important step because it helps you prioritize and take ownership of your list. You might even be able to group related weaknesses together. Now choose one—or one in each area. This year I’ve tackled how to write a romance and learning Facebook ads. I also hired a virtual assistant to help me with social media and communicating better with my readers. If there is something you can delegate to someone else, that might be a very good way to go.

I want you to take one craft item at a time because if you try to tackle too many weaknesses at once, you’re going to suck all the joy out of writing and make yourself miserable.

Ask yourself how you might improve on that area. Take into consideration the type of information you need to learn and your current stage of writing, stage of life, and levels of busyness/availability. Also take into consideration what you are writing at the moment. Currently, I am drafting two different novels. I have nothing to edit right now. So it wouldn’t make sense for me to choose a micro level weakness since I can’t spend any focused time on it. Instead, I would choose something on a macro scale like plot structure, character arcs, or sagging middles.

Next make a plan for learning. Are you going to read some blog posts about this topic? Find a good craft book? Find an online class? Make a specific goal that you can measure like: “I will learn to weave my description into action by reading Susan May Warren novels and studying how she does this. I will also write or revise one of my own descriptions every time I write for one month.”

A Caution

Humans can learn almost anything if we set our minds to it and practice. But we all have unique talents and gifts which means that some things are easier for us to learn than others. You aren’t setting out to “solve” every weakness on your list. You’re looking to improve. And you might find that some things will always be difficult for you for whatever reason.

Weaknesses I still have and have to fix in edits

I tell rather than show.
I use passive voice.
I still write generic action tags.
I’m terrible at romance scenes. I slave over them. It’s always going to be hard for me.
I’m weary of sword-fighting scenes. I have written so many, I struggle to find ways to make them new.

You Got This!

Identifying weaknesses can be a fun thing to do. It’s freeing to know your strengths and weaknesses and not have to wonder. It’s also freeing to be able to take control of your education and professional development as a writer. Incidentally, professional development is another thing we public school teachers are required to do every year. But it’s good for us. We all need to keep learning because there is always more to learn.

What is one of your favorite ways to continue learning as a writer? Share in the comments.

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.