5 Writing Skills You Need to Succeed as a Writer

Being successful in the craft should be your main goal when you venture into writing. Success is, however, relative and dependent on so many factors. For some, success in writing is simply being able to produce quality pieces that will be consumed by a group of readers. Others, however, want financial rewards for their writing endeavor. Regardless of what the end-goal is, you need to master some writing skills if you’re to stand a chance of achieving your objectives.

What are Writing Skills?

It is not just enough to be able to write coherent sentences and craft error-free written pieces, you need to be able to create flawless written works of art if you’re to be highly regarded in the writing field. Your writing should be both compelling and engaging while also accomplishing the principal goal it was set out to achieve.




You can’t achieve all these if you don’t have the writing skills that are needed. Just like in other fields, skills are quite essential to the execution of principal duties. A football player needs certain skills like running, throwing, catching to be able to excel in the sport. An actor also needs to have certain abilities if he or she wants to become the best in the creative trade.

This is even truer for the writing craft since almost every individual engages in some form of writing occasionally. It is no surprise that there is a massive proliferation of writers who either go through the creative writing route or become freelance writing professionals.

So what exactly are writing skills? Writing skills are basically those innate or adopted qualities that you incorporate in your writing in order to drastically improve its quality and impress your readers.

Importance of Writing Skills

If you want to succeed in any facet of writing, you must endeavor to adopt or hone certain skills that will make you an expert. The importance of writing skills and the role they play in the actualization of your writing goal can’t be overstated. They are the core contributor to every writer’s creative output and also determine the level of your prowess.




If you fail to master the different types of writing skills that are commonly incorporated into the craft, you will simply struggle to have any respectable career. Skills are like manufacturing tools; without them, production is impossible. Likewise, not being proficient in writing basically makes you as average as the layman out there.

Types of Writing Skills

There are various types of writing skills you should be able to confidently exhibit. While some of these skills are closely associated with your talent, others are 100% adopted and require a comprehensive training plan to be mastered.

While there are numerous writing skills that can be used in English Language, these 5 are the most crucial for you if you’re looking to delve into creative writing or any form of content writing.

Here is a list of writing skills for you to incorporate into your craft:

Communication Skill

Vocabulary Usage

Editing Skill

Comprehension Skill

Proofreading Skill

1. Communication Skill

Writing has been established as a form of communication since it involves basic interaction between two parties; the writer and, of course, the reader. Hence if you want to be good at writing, you should be able to write in a way that exhibits good communication skill.

There are numerous people who are incapable of accurately conveying their ideas, concepts, and opinions to others via written texts. These individuals lack the skill that is needed to make written words coherent and engaging.

How to Improve Your Communication Skill

If you wish to improve your communication skill when writing, you should endeavor to read lots of written content. Written works like books (fiction and non-fiction), articles, and blog posts help you understand how effective communication is carried out through writing.




You must also consistently practice the craft if you’re to get better and become a reliable writer.

2. Vocabulary Use

Good writing requires having exemplary command of grammar in the English Language. The astute use of English vocabularies is essential to achieving effective communication because it determines how clear ideas, concepts, and opinions are depicted.

It is one thing to adopt a new set of vocabularies but quite another to aptly use them to communicate with a group of readers. Proper use of vocabularies helps improve the readability of a written piece. It also eliminates any vagueness that may exist within the body of texts.

Improving Your Vocabulary Use

If you want to broaden your knowledge of the English Language and improve the way you use vocabularies, you must combine vast reading along with the study of the dictionary as well as the thesaurus.

3. Editing Skill

Believe it or not, the perfect written piece requires more than a single draft to craft. It must go through rewrites before the final content can be published. The rewriting process is known as editing.

Knowing how to edit your work is necessary if you want to have a successful writing career. Whether you choose to become a novelist or delve into the freelance writing field, you will need this skill if your work is to be appreciated by readers.

It is even possible for you to establish a burgeoning career solely based on the execution of this basic skill as seen in online news sites and the literary industry.

To become an excellent editor, you must actively learn the craft by checking through resources that are both online and offline. You must also consistently practice this skill by regularly rewriting pieces that have already been published.

4. Comprehension Skill

This is a basic skill every writer must have. It helps you to understand your ideas or concepts and properly express them in written texts. With good comprehension skill, you’re basically on top of every writing project before even writing the first words.

One way to develop your comprehension skill is by reading vastly and regularly engaging in well-defined comprehension tasks.

5. Proofreading Skill

Proofreading is perhaps the least impactful of the major types of writing skills. It is, however, a necessary evil that must be practised to ensure that the published content is void of any grammatical error or typo.

The only way to improve your proofreading skill is to always give every written piece a final read before submitting it for publication or passing it across to an audience.