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Location: Idaho | Nathan Bransford asked this question on his blog today. I'm sure many of you read it, but I thought it was an interesting discussion topic. Here's how he put it: Can anyone with enough practice be a good writer? What about a great writer? Is there a part of writing that is innate or can it be learned by anyone? I'm curious what you think about this. Personally, I think people can be taught to write well. With enough practice, they may become good. But I don't think any amount of practice will make a good writer great, anymore than I think that with enough practice, I could be a great ballerina. So there's that. | |
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| I have seen a lot of gifted people waste their talents by not working to develop them. I think it takes a little talent and still a lot of hard work to hone the ability to become good at anything - maybe even great. The people who are the absolutely amazing caliber of writers, I think, have a lot of talent and put in a lot of hard work.
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Location: Somewhere Over the Rainbow... | I took piano lessons years ago in hopes of becoming an accomplished musician. I had no desire to become famous, put on shows, or anything of the like. That was a good thing, because no matter how much I practiced, I could not become a good piano player. I just did not have that special something that it takes to become an accomplished musician. On the other hand, my significant other is a professional musician- he was a kid when he taught himself to play guitar, always knew how to sing, and has always known exactly what to do to be a good musician. However, over the years, he has went through a lot of training in order to become the best that he can be. Well, while not everyone can learn to play an instrument, I think most anyone can learn to write utilizing proper grammar and spelling, sentence structure, and all the elements that create good writing. However, while anyone with the will and want to can learn to write well enough, not everyone can learn to write saleable material. I think writing is part talent and a whole lot of work and honing the writing skills. | |
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Location: Texas, but I try not to think about it | <p>You can teach someone how to write because all that means is they know the grammatical rules and write accordingly. You can't teach talent.</p><p>Jai</p>
Edited by j_joshi 2009-11-05 12:46 AM
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Location: St. Louis, MO | Writing is a craft, and I firmly believe that any craft can be learned if an average person wants to take the time and effort required to master the skill. I haven't proved this to myself yet, but I keep trying.
Understanding the craft of writing will make you a good writer, but great (and "great" is an overused word if there ever was one) writing comes from talent, and the truly great writers elevate writing to a different level.
Writing is also an art (overused word #2...just in case you are keeping track), and I believe that writing must rise to greatness before it can be called art, and art is subjective by nature. There is a lot of trash masquerading as art, and sometimes two people can disagree about what defines great art--and they both can be right.
I think Mark Twain was great, but Stephen King is merely good. Norman Maclean was great, but Norman Mailer was a craftsman who was falsely elevated to greatness. Harper Lee was (and probably still is) great, but Truman Capote was a good writer with a keen sense of self-marketing.
Very few people would disagree with me about Mark Twain, but the others will probably inspire serious (okay...heated) debate if I bring the subject up at a writer's conference.
And it is telling that we often decide that someone is "great" just because that is the prevailing wisdom of the day as distributed by the so-called "experts"--and the experts usually can't agree with each other.
I think Jodi Picoult is a good writer, but she spent five years trying to get published before somebody gave her a chance. Janet Evanovich couldn't sell her first three books, but she's done pretty well since then. The first three books probably weren't publishable, but I'm sure there people kicking themselves because they wrote her off. Dan Brown is everyone's favorite whipping boy, and I can't bring myself to even call him a good writer, but he is a successful writer.
Successful will get you a good seat in a fancy restaurant, and it will help you avoid living in your car. There are days (almost everyday, to be honest) when I would trade "successful" for "good" without a second thought. Too often I seem to be stuck with "none of the above".
Greatness in any field can be hard to spot, and world class talent can take time to develop. The Chicago Cubs probably wouldn't have traded Lou Brock to the Cardinals if the team's management could have seen into the future (actually, the team might have still traded him, given the history of the franchise).
Kurt Warner will probably be in the football hall of fame someday, but he wasn't good enough to start for any NFL team until another quarterback was injured.
Nat King Cole was a piano player would didn't think he could sing, and future hall of fame catcher Mike Piazza was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers and assigned to their minor league farm system basically as a thank-you gesture to his father. Nobody in the Dodger organization expected him to make the major leagues.
Bonnie Riatt spent twenty years singing in obscurity before she made it as a music superstar. I doubt she would make the first cut on "American Idol", because her voice isn't what they are looking for when they evaluate talent.
I know I can learn enough about writing to someday become a decent craftsman, and I've already been lucky enough to have a few essays published. I never thought I had the talent to be a writer, and I never thought I would be published in a magazine. Now I'm published and I still don't think I have the talent to be a writer.
Finding an agent and getting a book deal is another level of accomplishment that has eluded me to date--and it's probably because I'm not good enough to take that next step.
I may never be good enough, but something has changed inside of me in the time since I began writing--and it is something that has made the entire process worthwhile.
I've learned that I can still learn--and that's a big deal for a guy with a high school education. I've learned that writing is worthwhile, even if my efforts never result in a book deal. The process of writing is worth it just because I like the challenge, and writing will challenge me for the rest of my life.
And someday I might just get that book deal. I'm warning everybody right now; I intend to become even more insufferable if that happens. That would be really great.
Jeff C | |
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Location: Land of the Jack Rabbit's | I agree with Jai: you can't teach talent. It's either there or not. That's not to say that some of the most talented writers are not always the most successful. It all depends on sitting down and writing. Period.
We all have certain talents. Although I'd love to be able to sing well enough to win American Idol, I can't and I know that. It's not my gift. Life is too short not to find our true gifts and share them.
Cheers,
Dorraine
www.dorrainedarden.com
Blogging@Free Ice Cream | |
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Location: Somewhere Over the Rainbow... | Dorraine, I agree one hundered percent on finding your true north! | |
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Location: Texas Hill Country | Absolutely, you can teach writing.
Imagination, passion, initiative, intelligence and courage? Not so much. | |
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Location: Virginia Beach, VA | I can't say I disagree with anything that's said here already. Writing can definately be learned, IMO, but sometimes I envy those who were born with the talent to write well (that's envy in a good way though,  ) | |
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Location: Topeka, KS | The simple word "writing" begs for definition, but my simple rejoinder is that if improvement in writing cannot be taught, I wasted 33+ years trying to teach English. Writing is a craft, and anyone, even the "best" writers (I'm talking Nobel and Pulitzer here), can improve their craft by practice and through constructive criticism from others. | |
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| Writing can be tauight, yes. Writing publishable fiction, however, can't be taught. If it could be, we wouldn't have hundreds of tousands of failed writers, all of whom have been through intensive writing courses, have received MFAs, etc, etc. We wouldn't have slush piles of horrible writing stacked to the ceiling, much of it written by writers who have struggled for decades to learn how to write well.
It's true enough that writing is part craft, but it certainly isn't all craft, and while it doesn't take a lot of talent to be a good writer, it does take some, and not everyone has it. Most do not have it. And people take "craft" way too lightly, as if they've never been around areas that are considered pure craft. Even with craftsmen in any area, some are infinitely better than others, even with the same experience. Just because something is a "craft" does not in any way mean everyone can learn to do it equally. And that's teh thing. Good isn't good enough. You have to be, at the very least, in the top one percent, and whether you're dealing with talent or craft, 99% aren't going to be good enough.
I've seen far too many writers struggle for decades, read all the books, write on a daily basis, take workshops and wreiting courses, and even after eight or ten or twelve novels, they're hopeless, and the twelfth novel is worse than the first, and teh first was God-awful. If writing could be learned, there are literally hundreds of thousands out there who should have learned it long, long ago, but who are still hopeless after everything learning could accomplish.
Much as Stephen King says, I do think learning can elevate you one level. A bad writer can become a mediocre writer, a mediorce writer can become a decent writer, a decent writer can become a good writer, and a very good writer may become a great writer. But that's it.
It's also been my experience that, barring self-sabotage, most who do have the talent have some sort of success pretty early on. Five years is the outside edge, I think, and something good usually happens in the first year or two. When talent is present, it shows up early. When talent is absent, it never shows up at all.
As for greatness, it's hard to spot at the moment because before it's achieved it isn't greatness, it's potential, and the classic definition of potential is "You might be great someday, but you ain't much right now." But the test of time always reveals greatness, and equally, it also reveals the lack thereof.
But for me, it all comes back to what I consider absolute proof that you can't simply learn to be a great writer unless you also have talent. If writing well could be learned, it would be, and it isn't. Those hundreds of thousands to millions who spend decades going trhough teh learning process, who dedicate themselves to writing, who do every last thing possible to learn how to write well, but who never, ever manage to write anything worth reading, seem proof to me that learning isn't enough.
"Subjective" is also an overused word. Only good writing is subjective. Is Twain better than King, is King better than Clancy, is Clancy better than Roberst, etc. But bad writing is completely objective, and pretty much everyone, everywhere know truly bad writing when they see it. The troubl eis, very few can see when their own writing is bad, and maybe that's what talent is all about. | |
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Location: Idaho | Leikec, you put my thoughts into words beautifully
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Location: Idaho | And you as well, James | |
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Location: St. Louis, MO | Quote - "But for me, it all comes back to what I consider absolute proof that you can't simply learn to be a great writer unless you also have talent. If writing well could be learned, it would be, and it isn't. Those hundreds of thousands to millions who spend decades going trhough teh learning process, who dedicate themselves to writing, who do every last thing possible to learn how to write well, but who never, ever manage to write anything worth reading, seem proof to me that learning isn't enough.
"Subjective" is also an overused word. Only good writing is subjective. Is Twain better than King, is King better than Clancy, is Clancy better than Roberst, etc. But bad writing is completely objective, and pretty much everyone, everywhere know truly bad writing when they see it. The troubl eis, very few can see when their own writing is bad, and maybe that's what talent is all about.
James, you really need to take a break from the slush pile.
It is possible to spend a great deal of time and effort to educate yourself and not learn a thing. I see this all the time when I'm teaching piano. Most of my students are adults, and all of my students know how to read music and play the piano. I have a few students who are piano teachers. Most of them have developed more technical proficiency than I can muster.
But they are crippled by their educated background when they try to learn how to play blues piano and improvisation. They spend all of their time trying to understand the science and logic of music, but they don't try to understand the emotional aspect of music. They can play Rachmaninoff, but they can't sit in with a band and jam--and too often they sound like they are going through a series of Hanon exercises when they try to play blues; the result is lots of technique, but very little music.
You know more about writing than most people, and I won't even pretend that I know how to write a publishable novel. But I do believe that writing publishable fiction is all about telling a great story and telling the truth about the story and the characters. Everything else about writing fiction can be learned.
Writing courses, how-to books, and all of the other learning techniques are useless without an understanding of what is really important in fiction writing. Grammar and other technical aspects of writing are simply tools for a writer's toolbox, and too often writers spend all of their time learning about the tools when they should be thinking about building a good story instead.
The people you describe in your post, "who do every last thing possible to learn how to write well", are people who don't understand why the rest of us read books. They are simply collectors who spend their whole life accumulating tools without building anything of value.
I'm sure bad writing is easy to spot, but I'm also sure that some bad writers will learn to become great writers--if they can figure out how to unlock the talent inside. Learning may only elevate somebody one level, but learning may be the key that allows talent to reveal itself...and then the possibilities are endless.
Jeff C | |
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| Jamesaritchie - 2009-11-05 12:08 PM
The troubl eis, very few can see when their own writing is bad, and maybe that's what talent is all about.
I have the opposite problem.
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Location: Tinian...a tiny isle in the middle of the farthest | Can anyone with enough practice be a good writer?
...not anyone, but many probably can...
What about a great writer?
...no... only a very rare few reach that lofty pinnacle... and it's not by either learning or practice, imo, but by having an innate ability to use words to their greatest effect... they're natural anomalies, not merely harder working than lesser writers...
Is there a part of writing that is innate or can it be learned by anyone?
...yes, to the first and no to the second, if you're referring to the part that makes one a great writer, as opposed to just a good one... | |
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| leikec - 2009-11-05 1:46 PM Quote - "But for me, it all comes back to what I consider absolute proof that you can't simply learn to be a great writer unless you also have talent. If writing well could be learned, it would be, and it isn't. Those hundreds of thousands to millions who spend decades going trhough teh learning process, who dedicate themselves to writing, who do every last thing possible to learn how to write well, but who never, ever manage to write anything worth reading, seem proof to me that learning isn't enough. "Subjective" is also an overused word. Only good writing is subjective. Is Twain better than King, is King better than Clancy, is Clancy better than Roberst, etc. But bad writing is completely objective, and pretty much everyone, everywhere know truly bad writing when they see it. The troubl eis, very few can see when their own writing is bad, and maybe that's what talent is all about. James, you really need to take a break from the slush pile. It is possible to spend a great deal of time and effort to educate yourself and not learn a thing. I see this all the time when I'm teaching piano. Most of my students are adults, and all of my students know how to read music and play the piano. I have a few students who are piano teachers. Most of them have developed more technical proficiency than I can muster. But they are crippled by their educated background when they try to learn how to play blues piano and improvisation. They spend all of their time trying to understand the science and logic of music, but they don't try to understand the emotional aspect of music. They can play Rachmaninoff, but they can't sit in with a band and jam--and too often they sound like they are going through a series of Hanon exercises when they try to play blues; the result is lots of technique, but very little music. You know more about writing than most people, and I won't even pretend that I know how to write a publishable novel. But I do believe that writing publishable fiction is all about telling a great story and telling the truth about the story and the characters. Everything else about writing fiction can be learned. Writing courses, how-to books, and all of the other learning techniques are useless without an understanding of what is really important in fiction writing. Grammar and other technical aspects of writing are simply tools for a writer's toolbox, and too often writers spend all of their time learning about the tools when they should be thinking about building a good story instead. The people you describe in your post, "who do every last thing possible to learn how to write well", are people who don't understand why the rest of us read books. They are simply collectors who spend their whole life accumulating tools without building anything of value. I'm sure bad writing is easy to spot, but I'm also sure that some bad writers will learn to become great writers--if they can figure out how to unlock the talent inside. Learning may only elevate somebody one level, but learning may be the key that allows talent to reveal itself...and then the possibilities are endless. Jeff C I juist don't see it the same way. Not everyone has talent locked inside. They simply haven't, and you can't base judgements on people because they fail. Failing does not mean a person lacks understanding of why the rest of us read books. I've known far too many writers of the kind I've talked abut to believe this for a second. They know exactly why the rest of us read books. They read them for the same reasons, but their minds simply lack the same ability as ours. I do think you're right about story, but this is also why you're wrong. Anyone can learn to string words together in a reasonably good order, but darned few have the capability to even know what a story really is. Very few have a clue about characterizaion, and almost none can capture the imagination of readers. It's here, not in the words a writer strings together, but in what he has to say, that talent shows up early, or usually never at all. It's here that any good editor can see the potential in a writer, and why we encourage some writers who are not, at the time, remotely pubishable, and discourage other writers who are better at stringing words, but who clearly have no understanding of why they're doing it, or what it is they're supposed to say. And it's just flat wrong to think these failed writers aren't trying to do these very things, to believe for a second that they aren't thinking about them constantly. I've taught far too many such writers, been around hundreds of them, talked to so many writing instrctors about such cases that I can begin to count them. Good writing programs do not concentrate of tools, on grammar, on syntax, on format, or on technicalities. It's assumed, and rightfully so in any good program, that the writer learned these long ago, else they won't get into the program. So the concentration is on story, on character, on truth, etc. But at least 90% of the writers who go through these programs still fail miserably, even though, in many ways, these writers are the cream of the crop. The fallacy, I think, is the belief many have that we are all equal. This may be true in the rights we have, but it isn't remotely true in any other area at all. There are quantifiable differences in brains, rights from the moment of birth, just as there are quantifiable differences in the physical body, and the abilities one body has compared to another. I do believe there's something each of us can do very, very well, but there is no one thing that we can all do very, very well. There is no one thing that even the majority of us can do very, very well. I also think there's this notion that writing is somehow an exception because we all learn to "write" early in school, or even before. But we all learn math early in school, as well, and yet few believe we can all become Einstein or Stephen Hawking. This is because in math we can all clearly see when the practicioner gets something wrong, when he clearly can't grasp the principles, when he's reached the limits of his understanding, when his mind can simply go no further. But because so many want to believe that writing is always subjective, we can't say when a practitioner doesn't get it, when he's wrong, when he's reached the limit of his understanding. But we all have an absolute limit of understanding, an absolute limit of ability in every area, be it math, speed, playing chess, or writing. I'm pretty sure there's an exception to just about everything, but in thirty years I have never once, outside of those technical aspects you mentioned, seen a bad writer become a good writer. Probably 90% of the editors I've known will tell you that you can't know when a new writer will succeed because there are too many factors involved, including determination, discipline, and plain old work ethic, but you can, with pretty much 100% accuracy, tell when a new writer has no chance whatsoever of succeeding, even if he has a train load of determination, sixteen bushels of discipline, and seven helpings of work ethic. Talent doesn't just show up early, it's there right from the start, and you can see it even in the completely unpublishable first short stories, or the crude first novel. Whether the writer will have the determination, the discipline, and the work ethic to develop that talent is another story, and two of the best writers I've ever known will probably never sell anything because they just don't want to. Neither enjoys the writing process, and neither is attracted to the lifestyle of a writer, but both have immense talent. The talent they have outshines most published writers I know, but neither of them has ever read a how-to book, taken a writing course, or spent a minute even thinking about how to tell a good story. Neither of them wrote stories as kids or in high school, neither of them ever, for a second, wanted to be a writer, and the only thing they have in common with most of us is that while neither will set any records, both are reasonably avid readers. I first encountered both of them the same way. Each was forced to write a story for a required English course at a fairly large university, each did so, and what came out was brilliance. Not all the techincal aspects were correct, but either could have, in my opinion, jumped right into the ranks of widely published, well-known, professional writers. That neither wanted to is fine, we should all do what makes us happy, and each has another, much-loved road to travel, but the talent was not only there, it made me, and many others who read those stories, highly envious. Talent shows up early. Even William Saroyan, who received 4,000 rejections before selling his first short story, nevertheless sold that first story, the one that made him famous, at age twenty-five, and had already sold a sketch or two, along with some poetry. Talent, like I.Q., shows up early, and also like I.Q., comes in degrees. The less talent you have, or the lower your I.Q. the harder and longer you must work just to accomplish the same thing someone with more talent or a higher I.Q. can do almost from the start. There's also the pragmatic side. If you put any thousand writers into a group and tell them, "We're only going to take the ten best," then 990 aren't going to make the cut. The question then becomes "Can anyone, with enough practice, determination, discipline, work ethic, etc., get into that top ten percent?" From my experience, the answer to that is no, not a chance in the world. | |
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| In defence of what James is saying, I have sort of seen this.
The most encouraging thing that has happened to me thus far was a rejection letter I received. It was hand written; somebody put a pen to a piece of paper. It basically said, "There is no way I or anybody else will ever publish this turd. Please continue sending me your work."
I have gotten some very nice compliments in my day but that remains the most inspirational thing that has ever happened to me. That letter is the reason I recently decided to give this writing thing a real shot. That is why I've started editing my stories and submitting them again. That rejection letter said to me that I have the part that can't be taught. The stuff I don't have is the stuff I can learn.
I can't say for sure if it's true or not. But, I've read hundreds of novels and an untold number of short stories. Deep down, I believe it's true. I'd rather it weren't. I hope to hell I have it. | |
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Location: Texas Hill Country | Fleurdelis - 2009-11-06 3:13 PM "There is no way I or anybody else will ever publish this turd. Please continue sending me your work." *grin* That's cute. Have you? | |
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Location: San Diego, California | hvnlykarma - 2009-11-04 6:55 PM Nathan Bransford asked this question on his blog today. I'm sure many of you read it, but I thought it was an interesting discussion topic. Here's how he put it: Can anyone with enough practice be a good writer? What about a great writer? Is there a part of writing that is innate or can it be learned by anyone? I saw Bransford's question in his same-day tweet and thought, "Boy that's one huge pile of it I'm not going to step into!" And here I am. Art/schmart. Craft/shmaft. Talent/Schmalent. I don't know what any of those are.
Here's what I do know for sure: verbal skills comprise 99.9% of my supposedly genius I.Q. I'm an utter klutz at dancing, piano, crafts, and a pretty lousy singer. But ask for some words and stand back.
Putting words together is child's play to me. In fact, that WAS what I played with as a child, even as an infant, if my mother was believable (spoke in whole sentences at 12 months). My father told me I had "verbal diarrhea" when I was three years old. I remember: I didn't know what diarrhea was, but I already knew 'verbal' meant words.
I don't think I would have had much success without these genetic traits (verbal skills) and the sense to latch on to what I could do best and better than the average bear person. OCD helps, too. Do you hear what I'm saying? I am not talented, I am lucky!
It was luck that put some kind writers in my path to encourage and advise me along the way. By the time I was standing in the intersection when the big opportunity came rumbling down the street, I was at least minimally prepared to take advantage of that luck, too. I don't see how anyone could teach an innate sense of le mot just, however.
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Location: Topeka, KS | So ... to borrow a useful word or two from Georganna ... all this electronic diarrhea aptly demonstrates that we all have different proportions of talent and motivation in us? Add a touch of luck to open the right door at the right time for us, and we're good?
Now ... if that luck truck would just run over me, too … | |
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Location: Southeastern Indiana | I am just the opposite. I didn't start talking until I was 35 | |
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Location: At my wit's end | Georganna - 2009-11-06 7:08 PM
OCD helps, too. />
According to experts in the mental health field, OCD occurs most often in people with above average intelligence--or so I keep telling myself. | |
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| This has become quite an enthralling conversation.
In my opinion, the two overused words (i.e. "craft" and "art" are overused because they're correct. Those words perfectly and accurately describe the two major components of writing. Here's my take on the two of them:
The craft can be learned. The craft is the, honestly, boring side of writing. Well, boring might be a bit harsh... It's the tedious side of writing. The craft is the concoction of myriad drafts, outlines, research, etc. The craft we learn through continuous study, and, as we study, we become more proficient. We master the craft and re-master the craft constantly. Each time we improve our comprehension, we can more easily enjoy the art - the lovable side of writing that entices us all to cradle the pen in our hands/pound incessantly on the keyboard daily.
The art is the lifeblood of a writer... and this is discovered nearly immediately when a good (or great/fabulous/etc.) writer begins to do what they were ultimately born to do - write. They are the ones who feel and then naturally transform their feelings into words. They are the ones who are thrilled when they read a particularly beautiful sentence. I believe that art cannot be learned, but can be improved once it's there. My preferred way of improving the art is through extensive reading. Honestly, don't we learn everything through observation? We learn to speak by listening to others speak, for example. Why not learn to write immaculately glorious passages by reading other people's immaculately glorious passages?
That's my take on the matter. There's always room for improvement, but that artist is born an artist. Writers are born writers - even if it takes them half a lifetime to discover their potential.
Edited by BirdieSweets 2009-11-07 6:07 PM
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Location: Virginia Beach, VA | wondo - 2009-11-06 11:18 PM I am just the opposite. I didn't start talking until I was 35 My old man tells me he spent the first year of my life teaching me to walk and talk and the next 17 years telling me to sit down and shut up. | |
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Can writing be learned?
