It’s Wednesday of my New York adventure/whirlwind and wow is it great to be here. New York! Must you be so awesome and tempt me back every time I visit you?
Meanwhile, this topic has been percolating in some of the recent posts and we addressed a variation of it in the past, but I thought I’d raise it here.
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?
Absolutely not. Practice and instruction can make a person with talent better, but no amount of training can make a non-writer a Writer. A person can be a good enough writer if they're taught how to write, but in order to be a Great Writer, a person has to know how to think as well, and I don't believe that's something that can be taught to someone with no talent.
Folks without innate talent for writing may be able to learn to write but they have to be humble enough to accept the fact there's something they don't know. I know writers who absolutely will not accept the fact their skills need polishing (I'm probably one of them) and I honestly believe they're never going to be successful writers because of it.
Have fun in New York, Nathan.
To be a good fiction writer, you need to be a good LISTENER. I'm not sure if that can be taught.
No. I don't even think "anyone" can be a good writer. To suggest otherwise imo is to make writing an endeavor for the hobbiest rather than the professional. Most things, writing included, are a lot harder than they look from the outside. And practice alone seldom makes perfect. People need to play to their strengths — I have no talent for sports, so I play for my own enjoyment but I don't expect, even if I put in a billion hours of training, that I am olympic material.
I tend to think of writing as a function of the amount of effort you're willing to put into it. Now while it's true you can put a lot of yourself into something and still not produce "good" writing, those who are passionate about writing are the ones who will stick with it long enough to become good. Not getting discouraged, and genuinely caring about what you have to say–or else just a deep love of stories and desire to share them–are probably more valuable than raw talent.
That being said, can one be predisposed to -be- a writer? Possibly. I've, apparently, always had a fondness for words from when I was a small child, and I certainly always loved stories. So in that sense, it's possible that one might be of a literary bent from birth.
In short, I think my feelings about writing are best summed up my Mignon McLaughlin (quoted in The Complete Book of Scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski): "Anyone can write. The trouble with writers is that they can't do anything else." Which is to say not that writers are incapable of doing other things, but that writing, to them, fills some sort of a need, that they can't just abandon it and choose another dream/career path instead. And I think "anyone" who is that kind of person will be able to find their own voice and produce good writing, but I don't think everyone -can- necessarily care about it that much. Which is probably just as well, because a world with nothing but writer-types in it would probably be a complete disaster.
I guess I'm just sort of a Writing-Determinist, then…
One reason I think there might be some predisposition to writing is it definitely runs in my family. I had a great uncle who was a rather renown editor for one of Canada's biggest (at the time) newspapers. I had an great aunt who was a published poet and my mother wrote most of her life. My brother was also an avid writer when he was young and rebellious. And those are just the ones I know about.
Yes. I don't think anyone can be a great writer, but that's a matter of taste as much as anyone else.
Perhaps I'm biased though, but I look at it the same way I look at my art. Whenever people tell me how 'gifted' I am and that they could never never never do what I've done, I take it as something of a backhanded compliment. Yes, everyone's always going to have a different perspective on things, which creates range, but by claiming that only those with 'innate' skill can create works of art or writing, you take away from the hours and hours of work and practice authors and artists have put into learning to do what they do.
Some people will always have more of a spark or tendency than others, but with enough practice, anyone can learn the techniques to writing or any other creative endeavour. Some will just need more practice than others.
So, I wasn't going to comment on this one (mostly because I didn't think I had much to contribute to the topic) but it just struck me on the way to work this morning:
Write? Yes. Tell stories? No.
Writing is nothing more than a set of tools we use to communicate thought from one person to another. It would be like asking if anyone can learn to speak.
Writing something worthy of publishing, is a different matter altogether. The ability to capture the reader, create drama, urgency, and intrigue are artistic in nature and not something that I believe can be learned by just anyone.
It's like the "learn how to paint" shows on public television. He can show you how to use a brush to create bushes and trees and a pallette knife to create rocks, but those are just the tools. The masterpiece needs to come from within–and that's not something that can be taught.
Hee! Scope ambiguity.
Don't you think it is 10% inspiration 90%perspiration? Like Einstein said–Anyway–My Dad got rejected over 200 times before he sold his first short story…then he sat down and said to himself"what am I doing wrong?" He studied all the authors he loved, Dumas, Tolstoy, Dickens, etc and when he figured out his mistake and put it into practice he started to sell. So here we are over 300 million copies later…That was hard work and desire and stubborness! He never gave up. Oh yeah that was the advice from Churchill, "Never never never never give up."
The stories we write are a gift; the ability to put them on paper, simple mechanics. We can teach you to write, we cannot give you the story.
did you really say {wow{?
Yes. I think that anyone has the capability of doing anything if they have the drive and passion to. If you have drive, passion and motivation, you would do anything that could make a writer "good" The only problem is that the definition of good is very broad and can depend on many things. Good is subjective and that is what we need to figure out before we can determine anything else. All I can say is that I hope the agent I submit to has the same definition of good as I do!
Responses to this question fascinate me. They seem to be an indicator of one's philosophy of life. Lots of upbeat, positive writers here with more than a half-glass of generosity of spirit for everyone.
But, you know, the answer is obviously no.
And each one of you believes in your heart that you are somebody special to be able to do this thing called wrting book-length commercial fiction. Whether it be the work you put into it or the original talent you bring to the craft, or heaps of both, you ARE special and you are rare and it is a hoot to read your blog posts. Thank you all.
And thank you Nathan for always asking the right questions.
No – not anyone can be a good writer.
Without desire and a lot of busting ass it will never happen.
At the Hawaii Writer's Conference this year, Kristin Hannah talked about how she used to be a terrible writer. Then she broke down books she liked into their barest forms and taught herself how to write.
I don't think the poetry of writing can be taught, but the mechanics can.
Depends on if you think great writing is a science or an art. You can teach a science, but you can only develop artistic talent that's already there.
As a high school English teacher, I can honestly (and sadly) say that the odds are stacked against some people. Even speaking aloud can present a difficulty.
But I wake up every morning – Pandora's box emptied, save the bottom – praying that it can be developed.
The alternative is unthinkable.
No, some people just don't have anything meaningful to say. They don't have 'it' the idea/vision.
It's like painting. One is able to utilizae any technques and make a perfect replica of another painting, however they could not create it no matter how hard they tried because they didn't have the idea.
You can have beautiful prose, but without any meaning it's useless.