Versatility

As a writer, you have two parts to the process: research, where you are acquiring information from others, and explanation, where you present all the bits and pieces into a cohesive, thorough report for others to more easily absorb. Each one needs to be discussed separately, but they will both rely on the most important requirement for any professional writer: Versatility.

As a researcher, you need to be able to absorb information in as many forms as possible. You need to be able to speak with the elite and the layperson, the trust fund child and the hoodrat. And most importantly, you need to be able to reach them, to integrate with them. I can infiltrate just about any stratum of society, which I know because I've done it (I've hung out with burnouts, trash collectors, entrepreneurs, and rap stars). I can do this because I can approximate their mannerisms. I can pick up on those buzz words, those relevant subjects; I can imitate their physical mannerisms, too. Between that and knowing how to prod just right, find the right questions to ask and how to say it in just the right way to make the process natural, people don't seem to question or really have a problem with me. I will admit now that this is a skill which is natural to me because I have over a decade of practice, but I also bet that most people who would pursue writing and have enough social skills to get a real job doing it are probably pretty good at it, too.

As a presenter, you need to know what to present and how to present it. This is largely decided by who your audience is and why they are listening to you in the first place. Consider any given subject, such as an inner-city dance school. How would they advertise themselves? Well, that depends on who they're advertising to. If they are talking to a children's advocacy group, they should mention their kids classes and how great it is to have children learning and having fun all together. If they are talking to former students, they should mention how much they have done over the years, and how they plan to continue into the future. If they are asking a foundation for a grant, they may want to talk about how they fill an important need for the arts in the inner city and how they are benefiting the underserved minority population.

Communication is perhaps the most nuanced thing I have ever studied. Of course, anything that I have studied deeply I have found to be incredibly nuanced, but communication is the trickiest one of all, probably because not only are there rules and principles, but they change depending on who you are and they change every time you talk to a different person. It is rare that you get to communicate the same way twice.

Thus, the number one skill that every writer needs is versatility. And they need it for every aspect of writing.