What Sort of Writer Are You?
Understanding the kind of person you are is one of the most useful starting points for finding the kind of stories you are best placed to tell. Writing draws on everything you already are: your instincts, your interests, your way of seeing the world. The more clearly you understand yourself, the more deliberately you can channel those qualities into your work.
Read through the types below and see which one, or which combination, feels most like you.
The Active Writer
You are someone who experiences the world through movement and physical engagement. You might love sport, performance, or any activity that puts you in direct contact with the world around you. You think on your feet, communicate with your hands, and find energy in doing rather than observing.
Active writers tend to produce work that is kinetic and immediate. Their scenes have momentum. Their characters are defined by what they do rather than what they think. If this sounds like you, lean into it. Write stories with physical stakes, vivid action, and characters who are always in motion. Your natural instinct for pacing and energy is a genuine asset on the page.
The Private Writer
You are someone who processes the world internally. You are thoughtful, perceptive, and comfortable spending time alone with your own mind. You may already keep a journal. You are drawn to poetry, or to writing that pays close attention to inner life and emotional nuance.
Private writers often produce work of unusual depth and honesty. Because they are accustomed to examining their own experience carefully, they bring that same quality of attention to their characters and stories. If this sounds like you, your greatest strength is your capacity for introspection. The challenge is to channel it outward, into characters and situations that allow readers to share in what you observe.
The Popular Writer
You are someone who understands people. You read social situations well, move comfortably between different groups, and are often the person others turn to when things need to be resolved or organised. You are naturally attuned to how relationships work and what drives the people around you.
Popular writers tend to excel at dialogue, character dynamics, and the social textures of a story. They understand instinctively how people behave in groups, what goes unspoken in a conversation, and how power and affection shift between people over time. If this sounds like you, put those instincts to work. Your stories will likely be at their strongest when they are built around relationships and the tensions within them.
The Linguistic Writer
You have always had a relationship with language. You read widely and naturally, notice the way things are phrased, and are drawn to words as objects of interest in themselves. You may already write in some form, whether formally or privately. Word games, crosswords, and the mechanics of language come easily to you.
Linguistic writers often have a strong instinct for voice and style. They are sensitive to rhythm, tone, and the precise weight of a word choice. If this sounds like you, that sensitivity is one of your most valuable tools. The challenge, occasionally, is to ensure that the pleasure of language serves the story rather than drawing attention to itself. When the two work together, the results are powerful.
The Scientific Writer
You approach problems analytically. You are comfortable with logic, structure, and systems, and you find satisfaction in working out how things fit together. You may be drawn to mathematics, science, programming, or any discipline that rewards careful, methodical thinking.
Scientific writers often bring unusual rigour to their work. They are good at plotting, at constructing airtight narrative logic, and at world-building that holds together under scrutiny. If this sounds like you, your instinct for structure is a genuine advantage, particularly in longer or more complex stories. The area to develop is often emotional texture, allowing the characters and relationships to carry as much weight as the architecture of the plot.
The Musical Writer
You are deeply sensitive to rhythm, pattern, and sound. You love music, perhaps make it yourself, and experience the world in a way that is partly sonic. You are attuned to tempo and repetition, to the way things build and release.
Musical writers often produce prose with an unusually strong sense of rhythm. Their sentences have cadence. Their paragraphs breathe. They understand instinctively that writing, like music, is experienced in time, and that the pacing of information is as important as the information itself. If this sounds like you, trust your ear. Read your work aloud. Let the sound of the language guide you as much as the sense of it.
The Artistic Writer
You think visually. You are drawn to colour, form, and composition, and you notice the aesthetic qualities of the world around you with a level of attention that others often miss. You may draw, paint, or simply carry a strong visual sensibility through everything you do.
Artistic writers tend to produce work rich in imagery and visual detail. They describe the world in ways that allow readers to see it clearly, and they understand intuitively that showing is more powerful than telling. If this sounds like you, your descriptive instincts are a strength worth developing deliberately. The challenge is sometimes to ensure that the visual richness of a scene is doing narrative work, moving the story forward or revealing character, rather than existing purely for its own sake.
A Note on Combinations
Most writers will find that more than one of these types describes them, and that is not just acceptable. It is normal. The most interesting writers are often those who sit across two or three categories, bringing a combination of instincts and sensibilities to their work that produces something harder to categorise and more distinctly their own.
Use this framework not as a fixed label but as a starting point for self-awareness. The better you understand your natural strengths, the more deliberately you can bring them to the stories you tell.
This framework is inspired by the work of Edward de Bono and his concept of the Six Thinking Hats, applied here to the creative instincts and working styles of writers.