S18:E15: 5 Ways to Identify Your Writing Weaknesses (and Become a Better Writer)

Summary

K.M. Weiland explains how writers can identify recurring weaknesses without mistaking every unusual choice for a flaw. A writing weakness is generally a technical problem that appears across multiple stories or drafts, such as unclear motivation, weak structure, uneven pacing, flat dialogue, or confusing point of view. Recognizing these patterns is a sign of growing craft awareness, not a reason for shame.

The episode distinguishes poor execution from intentional style. Departures from convention can be effective when they’re deliberate and communicate what the writer intends. The goal isn’t to make every story conform to a standard, but to improve the parts that keep readers from understanding or engaging with it.

Five Ways to Identify Writing Weaknesses

• Listen to your story instincts. Treat a specific, nagging sense that something is wrong as a useful signal. Look for a diagnosis—such as an unnatural conversation or a weak opening—rather than accepting broad self-criticism like “I’m a terrible writer.”
• Notice what you avoid. Reluctance to write certain scenes or craft elements may point to underdeveloped skills, or “atrophied” writing muscles. Consider whether you avoid beginnings, action scenes, setting description, or complex antagonists.
• Look for recurring problems across stories. Make a list of what was difficult or unsatisfying in several recent projects, including the parts that took the longest to revise. Repeated issues are more likely to indicate a broader weakness than a challenge unique to one story.
• Review feedback from beta readers, critique partners, and editors. Look for patterns in comments, especially from people who have read multiple works. Questionnaires can prompt specific responses about clarity, characters, goals, setting, and plot.
• Watch for patterns in reader reviews. Reader opinions are subjective, so don’t treat every criticism as definitive. But repeated complaints may reveal a problem worth investigating. Weiland’s personal rule is to take a criticism seriously when two people agree—including the writer’s own story sense.

Improving Weak Areas

Weiland advises writers not to hide from weaknesses or rush through difficult scenes just to return to familiar strengths. Instead, study the craft systematically, focus on the skills that need work, and create a practical plan to address them in the next story. She also emphasizes understanding the principles behind storytelling patterns, so writers can make informed choices rather than relying only on memorized rules.

The episode also promotes Weiland’s course on flat character arcs and mentions a blog post about writing dialogue with subtext.

Creators and Contributors Mentioned

• K.M. Weiland — Host of Helping Writers Become Authors
• Ira Glass — Quoted on the gap between creative taste and early work
• Verlyn Klinkenborg — Quoted on treating gaps in knowledge as information
• Sue Grafton — Quoted on the value of knowing the question
• James Scott Bell — Cited for advice to study writing craft systematically
• Laurie Halse Anderson — Quoted about her own writing challenges
• Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy — Cited as examples of writers whose unconventional techniques became part of their styles
• Damonza — Sponsor of the episode