The Six Types of Writers (Reblog)

I stumbled across the above image on Twitter today and felt it was too hilarious to not share.  This image was created by Alexi Maxim Russel, on his blog, The Guerrilla Ronin Writer.  I had to play, follow-the-bread-crumbs, for about ten minutes to finally get back to the source.  I’ve saved you the trouble with the links above, and also the image is linked to a higher resolution version.

If you are unfamiliar with Russel, he has written some gems including: Alexi Maxim Russel’s Field Guide to Assholes, Instruction Manual for the 21st Century Samurai, The New Homeowner’s Guide to House Spirits, and many more.

You can probably tell by those titles that Russel has a unique outlook on the world, and this comes through in his writing and in the image above.  It should be noted, Russel is a bit of a pioneer in that he is also the first author to ever write a detective story with an Autistic protagonist, Trueman Bradley – The Next Great Detective.

In my jaunt along the bread crumb trail, I stumbled across this blog post, The Six Types of (failed) Writers, written by Derek Murphy on his page, CreativIndie (great content there to check out for you indie heroes/heroines).  He links to this image and talks about his issues with writers being lumped into these categories.

Murphy explains in his post that, “Here’s the problem, these aren’t the six types of writers, these are the six types of failed writers. These are the things writers do that make them unsuccessful. They could be called the six sins of writing.”

His solution?  He created a new category, the Magician.  This blends some of the types together and creates a more well-rounded writer archetype.

Murphy explains that the Magician, “…accepts total responsibility over their creative production, (by becoming a fucking literary genius and the best damn writer in the world), and also takes responsibility over their reception, (by writing books for a specific audience, cultivating that audience into rabid fans, and learning how to build an online system that does your marketing for you so you can spend more time producing bestselling books).”

My two cents?

For starters, the Fallout theme used in the image rocked my socks off.  For you non-nerds, Fallout is a post-apocalyptic video game, which is something I play purely for research purposes (at least that’s how I justify the countless hours of my life lost).

I also like that it’s broad generalization.  It does lump writers into six categories and make some sweeping assumptions like Murphy stated in his post.  Is this necessarily a bad thing?  Not if you don’t take yourself too seriously.  I mean you should take writing seriously (i.e. dedicate time to the craft via study, practice, and consumption) if you want to be successful.  But in my opinion, thick skin and sense of humor are the sword and shield a writer should carry.

The image made me laugh, it made me think, and it made my want to share it and link some disconnected dots scattered across the interwebs for you all to peer at with your eye-holes.  In this way, it is a marketing masterpiece for everyone involved.

Which one am I?  I’m going to go with Murphy’s blended category of Magician.  It’s a brilliant viewpoint of what the successful author should look like.  Plus, I’ve always wanted to incinerate my enemies with a wand made out of a demons tailbone.

Which one are you?  Do you defy categorization?  Are you some sort of mutant half breed?  Have you come up with a new type?  I’d love to hear about it.  I’ll just be over here catching things on fire and practicing my wizardry.

Until tomorrow, keep reading, keep writing, and as always – stay sharp!