If we got to choose, we’d probably find it easy to pick our superpower: flight, invisibility, mind-reading, time travel. If we were limited to writing superpowers, this editor would bet most of us would want the power of writing a best-seller every time, first draft, out of the gate.
But the reality is, we don’t get to pick and the powers we have are a smidge more mundane. There are a number of top candidates for Greatest Writing Superpower – Imagination, Tenacity, Discipline, the Oxford Comma – but in a post on Killzone, PJ Parrish says the writer’s best friend is their ability to observe human nature.
“You need observation to create description, to establish mood, and make your setting come alive,” Parrish writes. “This is especially important if you’re working in a genre like sci-fi or fantasy where you are literally building a world from scratch.”
Observation also helps with dialogue. “Dialogue is not real conversation,” Parrish says. “Real conservation is banal and bloated. Good dialogue is sleight of ear, a trick really, wherein you the writer listen to real folks talking and then recast it into stylized ‘conversations’ between characters.”
To properly convey your observations, you need to engage all your sense, and be specific. Don’t tell the reader your character is handsome, pick a few specific details that show it.
