Talent or Training?

The question is here framed in the context of writing fiction. It’s the old Nature-vs-Nurture conundrum that keeps so many biologists and psychologists busy researching and disparaging each other’s ancestry. At some point, every writer asks a form of the question, “Do I have talent?” Sometimes they muster the courage to ask in a whisper, as if to ask aloud would ensure an answer in the negative. More often, they don’t ask, their reluctance rooted in a secret certainty they do not want to have confirmed. But the question is there. Always there. Nearly everyone who becomes serious about writing fiction has doubts. And all who doubt ache for an answer that does not destroy their dreams.

For some few, the answer is immediately obvious. There are those rare people who have such a clear voice, have so much to say, or are such natural story tellers that their lack of formal education is a detail that can be filled in later. My mentor, Bill, found a girl so gifted that he arranged to get her into his graduate writing program though she hadn’t much more than half finished an undergrad degree. That she and others may not even know the difference between farther and further, your and you’re or there, they’re and their, is irrelevant. Those are things that can be easily learned once the passion for writing has been discovered.

For others the answer is equally clear. Unless they wrote a check, a treasure map, or directions to a strip joint bachelor party, no one, including their mothers, will read past the first couple sentences. Despite extensive education, they will never write palatable fiction. Included in this group are those writers who harbor an unshakeable conviction that annoying persistence is all that lies between their present anonymous poverty and the wealth and recognition of their genius that is the inevitable result of their being discovered. They are, invariably, hacks. My personal observation is that most are men of high IQ and low EQ—that is, Emotional Quotient, or the ability to effectively and genuinely interact with other humans, most especially women. These men often live in an emotionally stunted world of power fantasy, waking wet dreams and cold technology. They usually write science fiction or fantasy that reinforces their delusions and gives them a chance to show off extensive vocabularies and techie jargon that they think sets them apart in a good way. It doesn’t. Given that the best fiction illuminates the human condition in its many variations and seeks to evoke in its readers deeply felt human emotions, they are ill prepared to write it and rarely do.

At this point, you are probably thinking that I’m arguing in favor of writing talent being innate. While there are people who seem to go from freshman English to Oprah’s couch in one book, and those who struggle to write a coherent shopping list, the mass of people attracted to writing fiction lie somewhere between these extremes. They have some combination of emotional insight, life experience, education, intelligence, curiosity and facility with language necessary to become a good fiction writer. Their initial attempts at writing a story may vary in quality, but most may have what it takes to turn out good fiction. However, like all worthwhile endeavors, whatever initial ability one possesses must be enhanced by learning and—this is the tough part that most people don’t want to hear—years and years of practice.

An observation made by many and confirmed by a few actual studies is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice at nearly anything to master it. If you break that down to a little less than three hours per day, that's about 20 hours each week, or a bit more than a thousand hours every year. So baseball, music, acting, math, fly-fishing, sculpting, dance and, yes, writing all take about a decade of practice to master. Many may take up writing and succeed if they are willing to learn and put in the time. That in no way guarantees success, but for most of us, there really is no way to know if we have the talent until we’ve worked that long and that hard to find out. It is perfectly understandable that most who consider becoming a writer decide not to risk so large a chunk of their life on the chance that they’d become a pretty good writer who can earn a little money. That’s a valid choice, as valid as deciding not to try base jumping. At least in base jumping, you’d only have to deal with one failure. Becoming a fiction writer offers no such comfort.

So I guess my answer to the writing talent question is this: If you just have to know before you start or before you get too far into it, quit. You’re really too timid or too lazy to succeed as a writer even if you have talent.