How do you know if writing is your "thing"/strength, etc.

Wish I knew what to tell you, Brian.

I'm sort of discovering that I'm in the exact opposite boat, myself, and that writing might be my "thing" after all.
And that's in spite of never even considering it, for more than 50 years.


Hope you find the answer you're looking for.

O.H.

aguywhotypes said:

One of my key questions therefore is:
Does writing come easily to people whose strength is writing?


Just because writing is difficult and doesn't come easy. Does that mean it's my weakness?

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Ah - the ol' "if I can't do it effortlessly I can't do it" trap.

Writing, like drawing and music and sculpting and most anything, takes skill; innate talent's a nice bonus, but not required.

Ultimately, developing that skill requires incentive. The usual incentive is: do you enjoy writing?

If yes, keep working. It may not come easily, especially not while you're still sorting your nouns from your adverbs and figuring out characterization and pacing, but it will come if you want it to, if you work at it, if you make it a thing you're doing instead of a thing you'd kinda like to do but don't really ever get around to.

If no, find something else.

So... do you have stories you want to tell? Do you have ideas you want to share? Is writing the medium that seems to work best for you in telling stories and sharing ideas?

Then sit down, fingers on keys (or on writing implement of your choice), and get to work on developing the skills you'll need. It may not bring you much money, especially not at first, but it will bring other rewards.

I can relate to having failed at so many things one feels like giving up. There seems to be a cultural myth that plays into this, that there's this magic Thing we're supposed to be doing, this one and only task that will fulfill our every need and want, and if we haven't found it by the time we're a given age we're a failure. And some few people do seem to do that: they have this Thing they've always wanted to do, and they get to do that Thing, and it's the only Thing they ever need. The rest of us... not so much, unfortunately. (See also: The Oatmeal's take on happiness and fulfillment - NSFW, crude imagery, but worth the read.)

Good luck!

Both!

I am weak at every aspect of writing. For reals. Worldbuilding, action, characterisation, description, plot structure, narrative shape, drama/melodrama, emotional expression. I write my first drafts in bullet point and fragments. My plots don't make sense until the 10th or so rewrite.

If I have any strength at all, it's in my willingness to revise (and along with that, to absorb appropriate feedback).

Bad writing only happens if you stop revising. I am a huge believer in the concept that everyone can learn to write to a publishable standard, but most people don't have the inclination or economic stability to attempt it, and some people just don't enjoy it enough to persevere. But if you enjoy it, you're willing to work at it, and you understand that no draft need be final till you are satisfied with it, then there is nothing to fear.

Literally the worst that can happen, is you need another round of revision/edits.

Brian--you won't know until you've done it for awhile. Writing is hard. It takes lots of practice to be any good. Everyone who tries it starts at a different place, and some may have an innate advantage that others don't, but even for that person, writing does not spin off their fingertips like Rumpelstiltskin's gold. The skills must be developed. And that takes time, patience, and consistency of effort.

As to stories...as an exercise, try writing just a scene. All you need is a character with a problem, and since this is merely a scene and not a whole story, even a short one, he or she won't actually solve the problem. But at the end of the scene, something will be different. The character will have an idea. Or the character will have tried something and failed. Or another problem will show up, complicating matters. It doesn't matter, because you don't have to worry about how he's going to solve his problem(s). Your job, for this scene, it to work on making the character, the setting, and the problem seem real to you.

Then write another scene. It might be related to the first one. It might be something totally different. Once again, it doesn't matter. You're just playing, creating characters with problems.

At some point, after you write one of these random scenes, it will occur to you what the next part of that scenario you've set up should be. So you write that scene, which may lead you to write a third scene where the problem is ever so much worse, but your character is learning and taking an active role in solving the problem, even through repeated failures and opposition.

Eventually you could end up with a real story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But even if not, or not yet, you're still learning your way around words. You're developing craft. And at some point, maybe some ways down the road, you'll be able to decide whether this writing thing is something you find fulfilling for its own sake.

Meanwhile, in those spaces of free time you have during the day, when you're not writing, playing piano, or selling vitamins, read fiction (listening to audio books counts, too, if that works better for you). If you've never been a big reader, now is the time to start. Because one of the secrets of storytelling ability is that it can be absorbed through repeated and long-term exposure to all kinds of stories, kind of like the way our bodies manufacture Vitamin D out of sunlight.

Good luck!

Harlequin said:

I am weak at every aspect of writing. For reals. Worldbuilding, action, characterisation, description, plot structure, narrative shape, drama/melodrama, emotional expression. I write my first drafts in bullet point and fragments. My plots don't make sense until the 10th or so rewrite.

If I have any strength at all, it's in my willingness to revise (and along with that, to absorb appropriate feedback).

Bad writing only happens if you stop revising. I am a huge believer in the concept that everyone can learn to write to a publishable standard, but most people don't have the inclination or economic stability to attempt it, and some people just don't enjoy it enough to persevere. But if you enjoy it, you're willing to work at it, and you understand that no draft need be final till you are satisfied with it, then there is nothing to fear.

Literally the worst that can happen, is you need another round of revision/edits.

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Harlequin that makes a lot of sense. It seems like writing is unique that way, because an author can revise their product over and over before it's ever consumed. If one takes up, say, singing instead of writing, it would be entirely different. You can't edit the sounds that come out of your mouth, so when you perform, you have to sing well in that moment. Even drawing, people don't tend to work on a single drawing for months or years like I've worked on my WIP. If someone reads my WIP today and assumes it's a fair indication of my ability to write, they would be mistaken. What it really shows is that I've been dedicated enough to spend 21 months revising it. So maybe writing really is one thing that a "try hard" person can succeed at even if they don't have a talent for it.

(although, making money at it is yet another thing, which I don't think always comes along with "successful" writing)


Beth, I hope what I just wrote doesn't contradict what you just wrote! Your post also makes a lot of sense. Yes there are skills to be developed to become a good/great writer. I just meant that someone can "cheat" in a sense, depending on what their goals are. Although this "cheating" is not a short-cut by any means - it's still a long arduous process to produce a solid work. That's when talent, both innate and achieved, makes the process faster.

I think it's important to clarify that there is a difference between writing and storytelling. Writing focuses on sentence structure and grammar and clauses and punctuation and diction—among many other things. Storytelling is a self-explanatory term. Writing can be learned. You can improve your craft. One can be taught how to construct a sentence for maximum clarity, how to switches clauses around to make a sentence stronger, where to properly place a comma, etc. You cannot, however, learn to be a good storyteller. That is something that comes naturally.

To answer your question: No, storytelling is not easy. I don't think it should be. If it comes easy, you aren't doing it right. I have always been both a good writer and storyteller, and it is still difficult to put a story together. It requires a lot of effort.

So, if your problem is writing: You got this! I wish you the best of luck.

If your problem is lack of imagination... yikes.

A non-panicky plan for learning basic writing and story telling

Story content: In order to care about what you write, write about something you care about. On any level. For example you’ve been seething about “Social Issue X” for a year or twenty. OK, that can be the core of the story around which the plot revolves. Or it can be a powerful theme in the background.

Or you watched a film or a series episode or read a book, and you think: “Wait a minute, this character should have done this instead”—so you create a similar setup, but the character does this instead. Or you wonder what would have happened if the baddie did indeed succeed. How would that affect things? So you create a setting in which the baddie succeeded and the story takes this for granted and builds on that. And so on.

Playing with variations which you personally find intriguing and/or important.

Story structure: All forms of basic story structure you may need, unless you plan to be an experimental genius, are already loaded in your subconscious mind. You’ve been exposed to them for decades through every film, serial, book, comic book, and complex video game you’ve ran across. It’s already there. You just need to learn to command the storytelling muscles consciously.

There’s a ton of info on basic story structure all over the Internet, including on Absolute Write. You can also just watch again a favorite film or series episode, with a paper and pen in hand, and reverse engineer the story structure. How it starts, how it gets rolling, how it culminates, and such.

Also, with writing, pay serious attention to POV structure: 1st person, 3rd person, omniscient, or, if you're radical, 2nd person

Characters: On the basic functional level, all they need is one dominant trait each. The nuances around the dominant trait will accumulate automatically in the act of writing (if the genre calls for character nuance). Unless you really, really need to work with long and complex backstories and character trait excell tables and stuff. Which is also OK. Whatever make the writer happy.

Dialogues: It doesn’t matter how people really talk, what matters is how we’ve agreed to pretend they talk as presented in popular fiction, films, and serials. Reverse engineer that.

Prose: Unless you plan to become a master stylist, prose is not a goal, but a means of achieving a goal. This goal, some may say, is to get your story across to the reader. That’s not quite it. The point of your prose is to produce a powerful and exciting hypnotically induced daydream inside the reader.

The reader looks at the black symbols called letters, and if you’ve arranged them correctly, within seconds, or minutes at most, the black symbols called letters disappear, as does the room in which the reader is, as does his very identity. Instead, the reader is in another world, as an observer, or is even wearing a new identity, or several identities, depending on the story structure.

You provide the skeleton of this imaginary world, the readers provide the individual details which make it real for them. You provide the reference points around which the readers automatically create a ‘fake infinity’ with their minds. You say 'rundown village' and maybe describe a house in a sentence. The reader's mind uses this as a core around which to build the rest of the village, for personal experience. It's up to you to choose what to show and how much of it. What matters is not so much peers telling you what is the 'correct way' to do descriptions, but the actual effect on the reader. If your writing places them in the trance you wish to place them in--it works.

NOTE: There are different demographics of readers, who prefer different things, and are used to different conventions. Try to keep in mind who you're writing for.

Again, unless you’re aiming for master stylist, what you need in prose is to place the correct words in the correct order, in order to provoke in the reader a hypnotic virtual experience which they will find satisfying and recommend it to others. In this case too, reverse engineering a favorite writer can do wonders. Up to retyping a few pages to condition the brain to using prose to describe story. Maybe for an hour every day, if that's what it takes.

Dyslexia: Some of my favorite writers have dyslexia. They just edit everything a million times until it looks fine. Writing is not about you showing your capabilities in real time in front of a judgemental audiences. It's you taking as much time as you need to present a product which no one needs to know how much effort and time went into making it. They only see the finished thing. Just like you can write incredibly smart and observant protagonists, for example, without having to be a genius yourself, because you have all the time in the world to figure out stuff they figure out in seconds on the page, and so on.

NOTE: Maybe writing books ain't it. Maybe writing comic books or script is it. Or radio drama. Look around, try stuff.

Do you have to write fiction? And why does it have to be short stories? Novellas / novels / vignettes / etc., are all different types of fiction-writing. Or D&D type adventures? Games writing (e.g., based on real-life like on World War 1 or 2, or the Cold War, etc.)?

If not, what about other types of writing? E.g., articles, shopping lists, greeting cards, etc. Do also even need to stick to prose? What about sonnets, poetry, ballads, scripts (documentaries, etc)? How about creative non-fiction?

Whether or not writing is your strength, only you can say.

My final question: How badly do you want to succeed at writing?

Harlequin made a great post. I'd like to add to it....

Writing requires a lot of hats. You have to be good with grammar/spelling, telling/showing a story.... Mechanics of writing. There are other elements that make good writers, like: Data Management (MGT); Project MGT; Marketing/Sales; Research; Creativity; and so forth.

I never met anyone really good at everything. It's strength-based management, like you said. Focus on what you know best, and improve in the others, over time.

I think part of the answer could be - Do you enjoy reading (or listening to) stories and books? And do you enjoy creating stories?

If the answers are yes and yes, then whether it's easy or difficult (because honestly I suspect the answer is somethings it's easy, sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's thrilling, sometimes it's achingly slow) becomes largely irrelevant. But the more you actively read, and the more of yourself you bring to writing (or making stories) the better you get.

Good luck

I'm dyslexic. It's never stopped me from writing. My spelling would be bad without a spellchecker, but who cares... I have a spellchecker. I find it hard to get my thoughts down on paper in a coherent manner especially when handwriting but I taught myself to touch type and with a word processor I can write stuff down in any order and go back and edit it into shape later. (The school thing of having to churn out perfect prose on a first draft when writing an essay is an artificial requirement that is rarely found in the wider world... at school I struggled with essay writing, but as an adult realised that it wasn't the essay writing I struggled with, but the fact that I was expected to start with the introduction and then write it all in order with good spelling and grammar, neat handwriting and finish with the conclusion. I still can't do that, but I can do a damn good essay on a word processor.)

I would question the way that you're thinking of "strengths", "weaknesses", "my thing" and "not my thing". Things like writing, art, music etc are very broad areas that encompass many different skills. You can't say that any such broad things are "not my thing" unless it's a question of personal taste. Strengths and weaknesses usually involve much more specific things. For example, just because I'm not good at doing maths in my head (also due to dyslexia) doesn't mean I can't be good at maths, I just have to write it all down longhand. Or use a calculator for the arithmetic while I focus on solving the actual problem using logic. Or using a word processor (with a spellchecker) to write stuff doing instead of trying to get it right first time while handwriting. Overcoming weaknesses is about using a method to get there that works for you.

To me, if something's "my thing" or "not my thing" it's a matter of personal taste. Human evolution and palaeoanthropology is my thing because I'm fascinated by it. I don't have any special talents at it; I just find it interesting. People might say something like "oh but you know so much about it" - yeah, only because I've been reading about it for decades... even then I feel like I've forgotten more than I've learned (but I have books and the internet, I can read stuff again and refresh my memory).

I vehemently disagree with the idea that if you're not instantly good at something it means you're "not talented" and shouldn't try. Natural talent gives someone a head start but to be actually good at anything in the objective sense, you have to put in tons of work. Without that ton of work, the most anyone can be is a talented beginner. A lack of natural talent can be overcome through more work or developing strategies to get around your weaknesses. Yes it may take you longer to get there but at the end of the day, people are interested in the finished product/end result much more than the journey. If they're interested in the journey at all then that's out of admiration for the work it took.

There is a theory that ten thousand hours is enough to take you from beginner to expert in any field. I read a BBC article about it a few years ago, and due to the magic of the internet was able to find it again here

I think that I am going against the grain slightly here but whilst I am sure that, with fifty hours a week for a whole year, you could become a very competent and publishable author, I don't think that you will be Shakespeare.

Following up on the BBC article I searched for the guy who quit his day-job to become a professional golfer based on the "ten thousand hour" theory. It seems that he decided after six thousand hours it wasn't going to happen, but he does seem admirably irrepressible. (here)

Right. Back to my keyboard... only another couple of thousand to go...

Natural talent is of course a thing.

However, there is a difference between genius, and career choice. Not everybody is going to be Albert Einstein. But most people are capable to learning enough maths to work a checkout, or keep their finances, or (with some study) being an accountant, or whatever. Basically, learning it to a level where it becomes a daily part of life and/or they make a living off it, somehow. If you're hinging your sense of self-worth and your success on being Einstein, then pack it up and go home.

Ditto on the writing. Most writers aren't geniuses. That hasn't stopped them writing, or finding success/fulfillment in their own way. Sometimes they even make money doing it.

Toto Too said:

Beth, I hope what I just wrote doesn't contradict what you just wrote! Your post also makes a lot of sense. Yes there are skills to be developed to become a good/great writer. I just meant that someone can "cheat" in a sense, depending on what their goals are. Although this "cheating" is not a short-cut by any means - it's still a long arduous process to produce a solid work. That's when talent, both innate and achieved, makes the process faster.

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I don't see a contradiction. Though I'm not sure what you mean by "cheating." You and Harlequin are both right about the importance of revision. In fact, I've always been a believer that writing is revising. It's all part of the process.

One point, though, about comparing writing to singing, playing an instrument, or drawing/painting. All of those also require the same behind-the-scenes, years of practice and honing skills, and sheer hard work that writing does. I don't see a difference in approach there.

gjb817 said:

If your problem is lack of imagination... yikes.

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Maybe not. I think imagination can be cultivated and trained. That's not to say everyone will get equal results, but certainly any latent abilities in that area can be brought to life with practice.

BethS said:

Maybe not. I think imagination can be cultivated and trained. That's not to say everyone will get equal results, but certainly any latent abilities in that area can be brought to life with practice.

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I also think that.

The bottom line is that people can talk themselves into or out of anything.

So all a person really has to do is decide which it's gonna be.

To me, it's about whether or not you enjoy it. I've known a lot of people who wanted to be writers, but didn't actually enjoy the writing part. They had lots of ideas, but couldn't quite put together a coherent story. Anyone can write, storytelling is an art. If you're not very good at storytelling yet and you still want to write, pick something you enjoy doing and write about that. A lot of old writing books used to suggest starting with travelogues (they were supposed to be an easy sell to newspapers).

If you like to write, then it's 'your thing'. I once wanted to be a race car driver. I bought a car and went racing. I enjoyed it, so it didn't matter that I wasn't very good at it. It was still 'my thing'.

OldHat63 said:

The bottom line is that people can talk themselves into or out of anything.

So all a person really has to do is decide which it's gonna be.

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So much of this is just mind frame. The main thing to ask yourself is "Do I enjoy this and would I like to contiunue doing it?" If the answer is yes, then you have to DECIDE to be a writer. Before my first book I had never written anything more than an email. I decided I was going to write a book. I didn't "want" to write a book, I decided I was going to. Once the decision was made, then it just became about acquiring the skills necessary to do it. It's imporant to decide to do things, because once you do, the variable of whether or not it's goign to happen goes away, and the variables shift into how much time and effort it's going to take.

BethS said:

I don't see a contradiction. Though I'm not sure what you mean by "cheating." You and Harlequin are both right about the importance of revision. In fact, I've always been a believer that writing is revising. It's all part of the process.

One point, though, about comparing writing to singing, playing an instrument, or drawing/painting. All of those also require the same behind-the-scenes, years of practice and honing skills, and sheer hard work that writing does. I don't see a difference in approach there.

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Oh definitely. I'm a better writer now than I was a year and a half ago, for sure. But - my WIP reflects a higher level of quality than my actual writing aptitude, because I've had so long to revise and polish it. If I started a first draft of another ms right now, it would be of much lesser quality (although, it would certainly be higher quality than the first draft of my current ms).

I guess I just mean, even if you don't have it in you to become a great writer, you can still produce a quality book if you dedicate yourself to revising it for a long period of time. You don't have to perform your craft "on demand". You can keep polishing until you get it right.

Toto Too said:

Oh definitely. I'm a better writer now than I was a year and a half ago, for sure. But - my WIP reflects a higher level of quality than my actual writing aptitude, because I've had so long to revise and polish it. If I started a first draft of another ms right now, it would be of much lesser quality (although, it would certainly be higher quality than the first draft of my current ms).

I guess I just mean, even if you don't have it in you to become a great writer, you can still produce a quality book if you dedicate yourself to revising it for a long period of time. You don't have to perform your craft "on demand". You can keep polishing until you get it right.

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Yeah but that's part of the process and it's not "cheating". It's part of the skill of good writing. You seem to be judging your own skill as a writer by what you can produce on a first draft. Your WIP cannot possibly have a higher quality of writing than your own writing aptitude because you wrote it. It would only have a higher quality than your own aptitude if someone else was doing it for you. Your ability to revise, edit, etc are all writing skills and count towards making you a good writer.

I realise that this is a common misconception - one that causes some new writers to despair because their first drafts look like first drafts but they think they're supposed to look finished already. I'm not sure if that's due to the education system (so many examples of students only getting a single draft to get everything right, e.g. in exams, and being graded on that single draft) or if it's just that people tend to assume that writers just churn it all out in one go and it's all perfect first time and goes straight to the printing press.

Your advice is certainly correct, but please take credit for all your ability.

nickj47 said:

To me, it's about whether or not you enjoy it. I've known a lot of people who wanted to be writers, but didn't actually enjoy the writing part. They had lots of ideas, but couldn't quite put together a coherent story. Anyone can write, storytelling is an art. If you're not very good at storytelling yet and you still want to write, pick something you enjoy doing and write about that. A lot of old writing books used to suggest starting with travelogues (they were supposed to be an easy sell to newspapers).

If you like to write, then it's 'your thing'. I once wanted to be a race car driver. I bought a car and went racing. I enjoyed it, so it didn't matter that I wasn't very good at it. It was still 'my thing'.

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I think being able to do it and enjoying it are two entirely different things that can exist in concert but don't necessarily. I also know plenty of writers who do not so much enjoy the whole slogging writing part of writing novels at least, and many hate revising with a passion. *shrug*.

I know someone who could get out of bed and run a marathon. Never trained, just could, with a decent time. Was good at it, just because he was innately good at it. He haaaaaated running though, and eventually stopped all together (he mostly only did charity runs or ones friends asked him to do) because he was like, 'this sucks, why am I doing this?'

Toto Too said:

You don't have to perform your craft "on demand". You can keep polishing until you get it right.

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Yes, well...OK, don't tell anyone, but revision is the secret of producing quality work. It's the very rare writer who can produce great work in a first draft. For the majority of writers, even great writers, who have been publishing for years, whatever first lands on the page is doesn't usually stay in that form.

And also, what Neandermagnon said.