His or her stated purpose:
As addressed in #1 above, there is a conscious motivation that is driving you to do write. Your relationship to the subject, either as an expert or a participant plays a major role in how you deal with it.

His or her hidden agenda:
Not every writer is forth coming to others as to why they are writing a particular story. As most of you know character assassination or trying to prove a point, facts be damned has become quite popular. If you have a hidden agenda be honest with yourself. It makes maintaining your focus so much easier.

A subconscious drive or motivation the writer may not be aware of:
The mind is a peculiar piece of work. It operates in its own way and sometimes takes us places we never expected or intended to go. There is the chance that you may wind up finishing your work only to discover that your stated purpose for beginning it was not what really drove you to embark on the adventure in the first place. Hello, this is your id speaking. Surprise!

Command of the language:
Please be honest with yourself. If you can’t write it might behoove you to find another way of expressing yourself. And do not rely on spell and grammar checkers to make up for a lack skill. They cannot tell you if you really wanted to use lay, lye or lie, or there and their, or your and you’re. Simple and silly errors can cause a perspective publisher to reject a work out of hand, especially of you’re a first timer. Trust me, I know this since I am a terrible speller and have managed to make just about every mistake a rookie writer can and then some.

Knowledge of the subject:
How well do you really know your subject and all issues associated with it? If your expertise is a mile wide and an inch deep you may have to spend some time on research before you begin writing. By the same token someone who knows everything there is about a subject can easily overwhelm the reader with too many facts or too much technical jargon. There is a fine balance that has to be struck, one that the writer develops over time.

Understanding of human nature / psychology:
This is critical if you are writing fiction. Not all your characters can be little clones of yourself. You’re going to need to develop a whole cast of players who are three dimensional, figures that have personalities and behave in a manner that is credible to the reader. While it is possible to have someone in your story do something that goes against their nature from time to time, it makes for bad fiction if this is a routine occurrence. In the “Lord of the Rings” Frodo was always Frodo and Sam was always Sam. They changed as their circumstances changed and matured but throughout their quest they behaved in a manner that was logical, in line with their particular personality and made sense to the reader.

The ability to tell a story:
Just as you must have the ability to construct a sentence that makes sense you need to be able to weave a seamless theme throughout your work, creating something that has a clear beginning, a compelling narrative and a concise and logical conclusion. Far too many writers get into their stories and find themselves becoming lost as their story line wanders astray or is abandoned in favor of what they think is an even better and more interesting approach. You can make tweak things as you go along but the primary thrust of the story, the tread that holds it all together must run from beginning to end, otherwise you will lose the reader.

Mechanical skills:
How are you physically going to translate your scathingly brilliant ideas into a format that allows you to share it with others? Will your manuscript be produced on a word processor or hand written on yellow legal note pads? Can you type? (Please note; I type with two fingers, averaging 35 words a minute. Not exactly a world record but it does get the job done. Touch typing is a handy skill but not being able to is not be a show stopper).

Discipline:
Writing a book takes time and patience. Most publishers require manuscripts to have a minimum of 75,000 words. A good day’s work for me is 2,000 to 3,000 words of original work. The best I ever did was just shy of 5,000 words and that, dear friends was a long and brutal day. Few people who have a real job and can only write at night cannot match that sort of pace. If you are serious about writing you must be willing to devote the time and energy needed to see the project through.

Understanding the meaning of “Good Enough” and recognizing it:
Perfection is so over rated. You can needlessly impale yourself trying to find the perfect word or hammer a decent sentence that gets the job done into a masterpiece. Flash traffic sport. Even William Shakespeare would have a hard time making it through the editing process these days without having his works ripped asunder. So do your best. Do make sure the simple and seemingly stupid things like spelling are correct but don’t even try to get it all one hundred percent perfect the first time around. That, after all is why God invented re-writes.

The courage to submit your finished work for publication:
Far too many writers finish a work and find they either do not know what to do or lack the courage to let another person read their work for fear they will be laughed at or ridiculed. Many people cannot deal with rejection or criticism, something that all writers have to learn to accept and benefiting from.

The ability to accept constructive criticism and advice:
Not everyone is going to like what you say or how you say it. If what they are telling you has merit, pay attention. In my humble opinion we all need from others to make our creations better. This is particularly true if the people making the recommendations are your agent or editor. Those people are your allies. They have a monetary stake in this project and want to see you succeed. Some of their suggestions and recommendations can be ignored but not all. This is a fine balancing act, one that you must approach without becoming emotional. Listen to what they say, take time to think about it and see if you can use their recommendations. If a professional editor is having difficulties with a passage, a character, or an approach it behooves you to find out what that problem is and fix it.

Available time to write:
Writers starting out generally have steady jobs that have nothing to do with their writing. Many also have families and other obligations. So finding the time to sit down and work on your literary project can be something of a challenge. That is not the only one. Most people cannot simply disengage themselves from the events, pressures and stress of the day with the same ease that one changes the channel on the TV. Before pitching into serious writing it may be necessary to devote some time to clearing your brain housing group of that day’s clutter and worries, so be sure to factor this into your scheduling.

A place to write:
Most people starting out don’t have the convenience of a home office or a den they can retreat to when the literary muse pays a visit. Some very famous writers wrote their first tombs on kitchen tables. I preferred the dining room table. Where you write is not important. What is critical is that you have a place where you can spread out and work without a lot of distractions. If you don’t have a home office you may find yourself having to pack up everything and storing it out of the reach of curious little fingers after each and every session. Otherwise you may find your rambunctious five year old who is eager to imitate everything you do has taken it upon himself to edit your work when no one is looking.

Access to reference material or people upon whom the story is based:
This may sound like a real BFO, (Brilliant flash of the obvious), but there’s more to reference material than a simple dictionary. For example I have the following items within arms reach at all times.

And those are just my general all purpose reference works. I also draw upon U.S. Army area study books and CIA reference material, (open source of course), when dealing with a specific nation or part of the world, books on various cultures and their histories and well as material on current events and issues that concern the subject I am currently dealing with. These days a lot of folks resort to the internet as their default place for reference material. It is a good place to start but all too often you will find the material there is a mile wide and an inch deep. In addition, anyone can post anything on the internet, right, wrong or indifferent. So take care, cross check your references and don’t settle for the first answer or result you stumble upon.

These days a lot of folks resort to the internet as their default place for
reference material. This is a good place to start but all too often you will find
the material there is a mile wide and an inch deep. In addition, anyone can post anything on the internet, right, wrong or indifferent. So take care, cross check your references and don’t settle for the first answer / result you stumble upon.

A support system to edit, encourage, guide the writer:
Once published this is easy as you usually have an editor that stays with you and serves as your proof reader and spirit guide. The writer who is just beginning however needs someone they trust who has a keen eye and the ability to render a good, honest assessment. Not everything you commit to paper makes sense to someone who is reading it for the first time. What may be perfectly clear and obvious to you may appear confusing or gibberish to someone else. So find a good first reader to go over your work and listen to what they tell you.

The mechanical means to write:
Here’s another BFO. How will you write and submit your finished product? Do you have a computer with a word processing program that will allow you to translate your scathing brilliant idea into black and white? Or are you going to write your first book in long hand on yellow legal pads? And don’t laugh at this last approach. J. K. Rowling wrote “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in this manner.