Writing talent or just plain stubborn?

Nateskate · Oct 24, 2008

When I was a kid I was really slow to get coordination. I hated gym class. And I'd watch these kids climb the rope to the ceiling, while I had trouble just getting up one notch- then the gym teacher would inevitably roll his eyes. "Get out of the way so that the other kids can climb." Nate walks away in shame. Lol. It's funny now and great foder for a novel.

But I became a scholarship athlete. Determination helped me overcome lack of talent in so many areas. I do realize that I'm playing catch-up. But the saving grace is that people love my story. It's just a matter of working my writing up to the same level.

Are you a natural or just plain stubborn enough to fight to make this work? It may take me ten times as long to write this book (series), but I'm determined to make it work.

I'm just curious how you see yourself?

Cranky · Oct 24, 2008

Nateskate said:
When I was a kid I was really slow to get coordination. I hated gym class. And I'd watch these kids climb the rope to the ceiling, while I had trouble just getting up one notch- then the gym teacher would inevitably roll his eyes. "Get out of the way so that the other kids can climb." Nate walks away in shame. Lol. It's funny now and great foder for a novel.

But I became a scholarship athlete. Determination helped me overcome lack of talent in so many areas. I do realize that I'm playing catch-up. But the saving grace is that people love my story. It's just a matter of working my writing up to the same level.

Are you a natural or just plain stubborn enough to fight to make this work? It may take me ten times as long to write this book (series), but I'm determined to make it work.

I'm just curious how you see yourself?

Personally, I think it's a little bit of both. I have some natural ability, I guess (let's not get too much into the ego thing, lol), but without a lot of hard work, it's not much more than having the potential to be successful.

The harder I work (natural ability or no), the better my chances for success. Sharpening the blade, as it were...

Fox The Cave · Oct 24, 2008

I believe 1% or less of good writing is talent.

CaroGirl · Oct 24, 2008

Me? I believe I have some natural facility with language. I have also worked hard at learning and perfecting the craft over the past several years. I send out short stories and novel queries hopefully (albeit somewhat less hopefully than I did when I began).

I believe I'm a good writer. What I don't know is whether I'm good enough.

Bluestone · Oct 24, 2008

I hope I have some natural writing ability, or I'm deeply delusional! But I think ability goes beyond actual writing expertise - perspective, listening and watching for good material, becoming immersed in a scene, getting into our characters' heads, encapsulating a pivotal moment, weaving plot, managing arc, sustaining interest, avoiding excessive info dumping and backstory. In other words, the natural or developed ability to write a story that has a better chance of becoming something publishable.

And taking advantage of the forums on Absolute Write to answer questions or sort out a dilemma.

After that, finishing, editing, hard work, perseverence, luck, timing, more hard work, editing and perseverence, polishing and getting it out there.

And not being so attached to my words that I can't take criticism and advice from people I've actually asked to read my ms and take the time to give me feedback, criticism and suggestions!

Phaeal · Oct 24, 2008

I believe I have a natural facility, but the years have taught me that talent is nothing without hard work and perserverance. I wasted a lot of time wishing for the writing life to be easy. Only now that I've embraced the difficulty am I seeing any progress.

maestrowork · Oct 24, 2008

I have to think I'm coasting on whatever I have -- I don't know if I'd call it talent, but I'd saying there's something that tells me I can be good at this.

But am I stubborn? No. If I were stubborn and as hardworking as I should be, I would have written 20 books by now.

I'm also not stubborn when it comes to something I KNOW I'm not good at: I will never be an astronaut or physicist or football player. That much I can assure you.

I am very lazy, actually.

But when I don't know something, I want to learn. That's one of the biggest driving force for me. So, I didn't know much about fiction writing; I learned. I didn't know anything about publishing; I learned. I didn't know much about writing thrillers; I'm learning. I really like learning new stuff, and that's part of what moves me forward.

Williebee · Oct 24, 2008

Some talent. Some imagination. A large desire to learn new things. But, mostly it's the willingness to work at it.

Feidb · Oct 24, 2008

I have some natural writing ability. I can put sentences together better than the average third grader, and apparently a hell of a lot better than some of the writer's I've seen published. I guess that doesn't really matter though.

I write because I love it. I'm still trying to get published because I have determination and a stubborness to not give up. Some of you already know my track record, which is in my signature block, so you can see this is not an easy task to get published unless you are super good (which may or may not matter) or are just super lucky (I think 99% of what's out there now falls into that category).

So, I have a little bit of skill (talent?), a bit if stubborn attitude, and a hell of a lot of patience.

virtue_summer · Oct 24, 2008

Both. A natural inclination toward storytelling and some natural ease with expressing myself with words but I don't believe I would write anything worthwhile without having taken that inclination and run with it, getting in lots and lots of practice and constantly trying to improve.

kuwisdelu · Oct 24, 2008

I'm pure talent (in my opinion...) bolstered by a ton of practice. I never really had to work at writing well....I just started so early, by the time I hit high school, I already had years of practice writing stories. I swear, relying on my innate abilities for everything will be the end of me one day.

Lyra Jean · Oct 24, 2008

Me I'm just stubborn but I think I'm getting better. People who have read my latest short story draft said it wasn't predictable. Unlike my other short stories which they said was good but knew how it was going to end before halfway through.

DeleyanLee · Oct 24, 2008

I think there's a talent for writing, a talent for story telling and the determination to be the best I can be. I know I have talent--even back before I had skills and techniques, people liked the stories I had to tell, and if 30+ years of writing isn't determination, I don't know what is.

I also believe that you need both skill and talent to make it work. One without the other is like speghetti without the sauce.

Mr Flibble · Oct 24, 2008

Not talent

Just the fact that I never shut up and I don't want my husband to go deaf so I write it down instead.

Charlie Horse · Oct 24, 2008

My theory is that successful writers become so through attrition. The process of writing novels is so damn frustrating that most quit before they're driven to drink, drugs, or insanity, whichever comes first. My plan is to keep at it until everyone else has either quit or is in rehab. Then they'll have to publish my work, won't they?

Please say yes.

willietheshakes · Oct 24, 2008

I am but a mere conduit through which the muse weaves her ageless spell...

Or I'm a persistent hack. Or somewhere in between... I'm really not sure.

Mad Queen · Oct 24, 2008

I really really REALLY like this story I'm working on.

Telstar · Oct 24, 2008

I think I learned the craft around high-school time, and I'm still improving it. I think you never stop learning.

But If I didn't have enough talent and I would struggle to write a few thousand words in a day, I wouldn't attempt being a novelist. I would cultivate other hobbies.

Danthia · Oct 24, 2008

I think that talent is a small part of writing. I think it breaks down like this:

50% is learnable technique. Anyone can study and learn to craft a sentence and put words together.

30% is storytelling skill. You have to know how to weave events together to build toward something larger.

I think anyone can get to this 80% with training, though some have it naturally. That last 20% is trickier.

10% is voice. This can't be taught. You either have it or you don't.

5% is raw talent.

5% is that intangible something that makes a book sing.

I feel you need to hit at least 90% to have a chance at publication. How you make up that 90% varries though. Anything above 90% determines how big a success the book could be. A strong writer, natural storyteller with a great voice who has raw talent and a fantastic premise (hitting 100%) is likely to really take the book world by storm. Someone with everything but raw talent, can also do well with a great idea. You get the idea.

I also feel that some of these skills come more naturally to people than others, which gives them an edge. But if you're a bad storyteller, even if you have raw writing talent, chances are you won't make it. A novel IS a story and you need that skill, no matter how good you are at other things. Same with having all the natural gifts but not learning the technical side. If you can't spell, use bad grammer and have no clue how punctuation works, all the talent in the world won't get you anywhere.

Writing has always come easy to me, but I've also worked hard my whole life to study and learn the craft. I believe in feedback wholeheartly and take my critiques seriously. I'm always interested in things that will allow me to grow and improve as a writer.

So yes, I think if you want it badly enough you can do it, even if you have no raw talent to write.

Nateskate · Oct 24, 2008

Bluestone said:
I hope I have some natural writing ability, or I'm deeply delusional! But I think ability goes beyond actual writing expertise - perspective, listening and watching for good material, becoming immersed in a scene, getting into our characters' heads, encapsulating a pivotal moment, weaving plot, managing arc, sustaining interest, avoiding excessive info dumping and backstory. In other words, the natural or developed ability to write a story that has a better chance of becoming something publishable.

And taking advantage of the forums on Absolute Write to answer questions or sort out a dilemma.

After that, finishing, editing, hard work, perseverence, luck, timing, more hard work, editing and perseverence, polishing and getting it out there.

And not being so attached to my words that I can't take criticism and advice from people I've actually asked to read my ms and take the time to give me feedback, criticism and suggestions!

Your comment covers so much. Indeed, more than one talent goes into writing. And there are variables- our mastery of this language, another language, history, psychology, anthropology.

I guess I was thinking of a pretty narrow gift- the ability to structure sentences, paragraphs and order them into readable pages.

I do believe we all have differening gifts and these vary in degrees. For whatever reason I have this propensity to write interesting but clunky sentences that need to be unscrambled. I can do it, but I don't realize I've done it until I come back and re-read it later.

Another thing I have is an overflow of ideas- and I'll see something I want to expand upon that makes more work for me. But each time I make such changes it adds layers of new edits.

Nateskate · Oct 24, 2008

Danthia said:
I think that talent is a small part of writing. I think it breaks down like this:

50% is learnable technique. Anyone can study and learn to craft a sentence and put words together.

30% is storytelling skill. You have to know how to weave events together to build toward something larger.

I think anyone can get to this 80% with training, though some have it naturally. That last 20% is trickier.

10% is voice. This can't be taught. You either have it or you don't.

5% is raw talent.

5% is that intangible something that makes a book sing.

I feel you need to hit at least 90% to have a chance at publication. How you make up that 90% varries though. Anything above 90% determines how big a success the book could be. A strong writer, natural storyteller with a great voice who has raw talent and a fantastic premise (hitting 100%) is likely to really take the book world by storm. Someone with everything but raw talent, can also do well with a great idea. You get the idea.

I also feel that some of these skills come more naturally to people than others, which gives them an edge. But if you're a bad storyteller, even if you have raw writing talent, chances are you won't make it. A novel IS a story and you need that skill, no matter how good you are at other things. Same with having all the natural gifts but not learning the technical side. If you can't spell, use bad grammer and have no clue how punctuation works, all the talent in the world won't get you anywhere.

Writing has always come easy to me, but I've also worked hard my whole life to study and learn the craft. I believe in feedback wholeheartly and take my critiques seriously. I'm always interested in things that will allow me to grow and improve as a writer.

So yes, I think if you want it badly enough you can do it, even if you have no raw talent to write.

Lol, this makes perfect sense to me, but I still feel somewhat lopsided. Like instead of having 90 percent, I have like 60 percent. My novel is kind of like a beggars' stew. So much has been added over the years it finally is coming together, whereas it wasn't edible before.

waylander · Oct 24, 2008

"Two things get you there. Talent and persistence." - Peter Lavery, editorial director,Tor MacMillan(UK)

NeuroFizz · Oct 24, 2008

I think the question tempts us into quantification where quantification is not possible (Yogi Berra would be just as good a quantitative predictor as anyone else). Writing is such a different animal to each person, as is each person's experience (both in reading/writing but also in life exposures to storytelling and other forms of creativity). Talent isn't exclusively inborn, but can be developed, although some people have a greater propensity for certain types of endeavors so they develop what is considered talent extremely quickly (what we would call "natural talent"). But to me, talent is like that dirty word, "potential." As in, "He has such great potential." Every blossom my peach tree sets has such great potential, but not all of them are pollinated. Of those that are pollinated, as many as half are dropped before they reach thumbnail size. Some others fall later but before ripening, some are picked off by squirrels and birds, bugs get in some so they fall before full sugar. Only a relative few of the original blossom number reach the fully ripe state. This is not success through attrition, though, each developing peach independently faces the trials of survival.

So what are the writer's trials of survival? As a partial list, there is motivation and her twin sister, passion. There is "learning ability," the steepness of one's learning curve. There is experience, including all forms of learning and memory. And there is self-discipline. Despite all of this, the squirrels and birds of "real life" can still pluck the fruit before full ripening. Of all of these things, I see talent as a modulator, a behavioral state (like a motivational state, or arousal system in psychology/neurobiology) which biases all of the other factors toward success.

Despite all of this, I suspect there is still a very broad bell curve on any factor or set of factors (including perceived talent) in relation to success in fiction writing. I bet there are writers out there who have had success based on little more than damn hard work.

Diviner · Oct 24, 2008

Malcolm Gladwell in his essay "Late Bloomers," The New Yorker, Oct 20, 2008, addresses a similar issue, exploring why some creative people explode early and others work very, very hard before achieving significant work. Implicit in his article is that genius may be hidden for a long time before it is recognized.

Whether we acquire the tools to express ourselves in a meaningful and moving way early or not, without sustained work, most of us will never receive much recognition. A writer with a lot of raw talent (kiwi?) may have been working when he thought he was playing, which is the best way to work, but a facility with words, imagination, and a knack for storytelling don't necessarily add up to success or criterary acclaim. The only thing that works for most of us is work, continual, sustained, exploratory work. And even then, the audience of the day, like Melville's, may not be ready for us.

I don't think we can take a small talent and by working hard turn it into a big talent any more than we can take a small IQ and turn it into a big one, but we never really know the limits of our abilities until we have worked hard to explore them. For most of us, we have not yet plumbed our heigths and depths. Some of us start later than others, some of us peak later than others, some of us have to get a lot of writing, living, and reading under our belts before we have stories which excite others. For most of us it takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

NeuroFizz · Oct 24, 2008

As far as I can tell, no one has found a really accurate way to measure intelligence (including the IQ people) because it can take so many forms. The situation is even worse (in terms of quantification) for something like talent because it is not even close to a hardwired neuronal property.

Writing talent or just plain stubborn?

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