Talent vs. Craft

Talent is a dirty word.

It makes people who might be quite good at writing shy away from it, because they feel they don’t have enough.  It makes others, whose writing needs help, become complacent and lazy, because they feel they have plenty, and that’s all they need.

Really, what is talent?  It’s the innate affinity one might have for a certain activity.  In writers, it’s an innate affinity for words or for story.  It can’t be taught; if you don’t have it, you never will. 

But it’s such a nebulous thing.  It can’t be measured.  How do you know if you have it?

You don’t.  Stephen King defines talent as “eventual success.”  That’s BS.  Plenty of talented writers never become successful, and I can name a dozen writers, who have no more talent at writing than the eggplant sitting on my kitchen counter, who’ve become wildly successful, largely because of good marketing and enough knowledge of the craft of writing to get by. 

But writers who cling to the idea of talent often neglect the idea that craft is important, too.  You know, craft.  The rules.  The work of writing.

Writing well is not easy.  It might come more easily for some than for others, but that’s not really a good measure of talent, either; some extremely talented writers struggle with things like spelling and grammar, and so producing polished work is difficult.  Writing well, writing successfully, no matter how talented you are, takes work, practice and dedication.  I have very little patience for anyone who says they have a passion for writing, but who say they can’t find time to work at it.

If you want to be successful, you have to take the time to work at your craft.  You have to work at improving your grasp of the basics of storytelling: plot, character, dialogue, setting, voice, etc.  It takes discipline; it takes practice.  It takes work.  Plain and simple.  There’s no getting around it.  A talented woodworker cannot expect to make beautiful furniture, for instance, without learning how to use his tools, and use them well.  Neither can a writer make beautiful stories without learning how to use the tools of the craft.

If you have the passion for writing, you can make time for this in your life.  It might take some sacrifice; you might have to forgo watching your favorite TV show, or playing softball on the weekends.  You might have to give up the Friday night out at the movies, and sit at home instead with pen in hand or fingers on keyboard, working at improving your writing skills.  But if you want to be successful, you can do this, because it’s extremely unlikely that you can be successful on talent alone.

A writer may not know if he/she has talent, but craft is something that can be learned.  Learn your craft, then, and don’t worry about the talent.

Reading like a Writer

I have a friend, who reads a lot but doesn’t write very much, who gets really irritated with me whenever we discuss books.  She claims I’m a snob; she doesn’t understand why I can’t just “relax and and enjoy the book.”

I do enjoy books.  Reading is my absolute favorite thing to do when I’m not studying or writing.  The difference between my friend and me, though, is that as a writer, every book that I read helps me to hone my craft and my art.  It’s not that she doesn’t read well, it’s just that she doesn’t write, and so doesn’t read like a writer.

A writer should not read passively.  When a book is really, really good, I might lose myself in it, but later, when the book is done, I always go back to try to identify just what it was the author did that made his/her book so absorbing.  And when a book is really, really bad, I’m always tempted to put it down and stop torturing myself, but instead, I try to identify just what it is that makes that particular book so unreadable.

So I’ve begun keeping a notebook, a reading journal, in which I jot down my thoughts about what I’m reading at any given moment.  There are a few key elements that I pay special attention to when I read:

• Plot.  I have a hard time with plotting, sometimes, and I think that the best way to learn how to do it effectively is by seeing what works (and what doesn’t) in someone else’s writing.  How does the author move his/her story from point A to point B?  Do the characters actively move the story along?  Does something external (outside the characters’ control) happen that the characters have to react to?
• Characterization.  When I read a book in which I feel that I really get to know a character, I try to identify the cues that the author gives me about the character’s personality, motivation, background, etc.  How much of the character’s personality controls the progress of the novel?
• Dialogue.  Does the dialogue feel authentic?  What kind of tags does the author use in dialogue?  How much slang/idiom do the characters use, and how much formal speech?  How does the author differentiate characters through dialogue?
• Language.  This is especially important to me; the books that I like the best all employ language in such a way that it emphasizes the meaning of a story, the differences between characters, the mood or the setting.  It doesn’t have to be lyrical or poetic; it just has to achieve an effect.
• Setting.  How does the author evoke a sense of place?  What details does he/she use to make the setting come alive?  How, when and where does the author insert these details?  In a good novel, the setting can be a character in and of itself; how does an author achieve this?

Most importantly, though, a writer must read, and read a bit of everything.  It’s how we know what’s being published currently, what’s been done to death, what’s fresh and new, what works and what doesn’t.  Just as a doctor or lawyer does research to stay current in his field, so must a writer.

And, too, read because you enjoy it.  Writing makes a great excuse for reading. 

Ten Terrific Sites for Speculative Fiction Writers

Some of my favorite speculative fiction websites, listed in no particular order:

1. Ralan’s Webstravaganza: A fairly extensive listing of markets, paying and non-paying for horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.

2. Duotrope’s Digest: Another markets database; this one is sortable and includes non-genre markets as well.  Also offers statistics about the markets, such as the acceptance rates, etc.

3. Endicott Studio: If I had to pick a favorite website, this would probably be it. A treasure trove of mythology, folklore, and fairy tales, and information for writers who love them.

4. Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy: Jeffrey Carver’s free online writing course. If you’re an accomplished writer, a lot of this is probably repetition, but some of it probably isn’t, and a refresher never hurt anyone. If you’re just beginning, this site is invaluable.

5. Vision: A Resource for Writers: An online zine dedicated to writers, with all sorts of useful info.

6. Uncle Orson’s Writing Class: Part of Orson Scott Card’s Hatrack River website. Tips, hints and info from one of the masters.

7.  Pitfalls of Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy:  Vonda N. McIntyre’s advice to writers.

8.  David Walton’s Writing Page:  A plethora of advice to spec-fic writers.

9.  Critters Workshop: One of the best writers’ workshops online, and the site includes a number of resources, including market stats.

10. SFWA’s Articles on Writing:  Advice from a number of pros.

This is, of course, far from an extensive list.  If you have any resources you’d like to share, please post them in the comments!

Prompt: Dreams

There’s an interesting post at Writer Chick Talks about dreams.  Not the kind that you have at night, but the dreams that you have for your life.  All of us have dreams; we dream about the kind of life we want to live, the things we want to do, the things we want to see, what we want to accomplish and what kind of mark we want to make.  When we’re little, our dreams are big; too often, though, our dreams diminish as we get older and reality weighs us down.

Since dreams are so universal, it’s a rich area for writers of all types to explore.  What kind of dreams did you have for your life when you were a child?  How have they changed as you’ve gotten older?  What is it you most wanted when you were little, and what is it that you want most now?  What is the difference between your goals and your dreams?

This is an interesting characterization exercise, too, if you write fiction; certainly your characters must have dreams.  How do your characters’ dreams for their lives relate to the story they’re in?  How do they influence the way your character behaves?  How do they influence the way your character sees the world?

 Get writing!

This is not my real life

This is not my real life.

 It can’t be.  Somewhere, somehow, maybe in a parallel universe, there is another me. She does not have to get up before the sun rises just so she can get a paragraph or two written before she gets her son dressed for preschool, makes breakfast, dresses herself and makes herself ready for her “real” day.

I get angry, sometimes, when I have to put my writing up on a shelf to make room for everything else that I have to be responsible for.  Motherhood, marriage and mortgage.  Pursuing a degree that I will probably never really use.  Working in a job that feels like my second choice.

Life is too short for second choices, and my writing is too important to me to be put up on the shelf.  This is my affirmation for today, for every day.  These words are public, now, where I can see them and be reminded.

That this, the workaday, is not my real life.  My real life lives in words.

It’s been so long! (Catching up)

I haven’t written a post in…six months or so. I’ve got a lot to say, nowhere to start.

I submitted an application for the AROHO grant; the A Room of Her Own Foundation awards up to $50,000 to one female American writer so that she can spend a year or two concentrating on actually writing, rather than just on paying the bills. I submitted this on the deadline, Feb. 1. I haven’t heard anything yet. I’m hoping the fact that they haven’t written me a form rejection yet is a good sign. The awards ceremony is in June; I hope I hear something soon

I’m supposed to graduate with my B.A. in English in May; I’m getting really nervous about what I’m actually going to do after that.

So I’ve been looking at freelancing; it seems that a lot of what’s available is completely unsuitable for a fiction writer, but I suppose that I can try to write some non-fiction articles, see what happens.

I’ve been working on my novel; I’ve made quite a lot of progress, but not enough. With the novel in progress, though, I haven’t had much time to devote to the blog.

Which is a shame. Blogging feeds my creativity, lets me say things for public consumption (even if no one reads it) that I wouldn’t say in my fiction. I write more, and better, fiction when I blog.

So here’s my promise to you and to myself: I shall post at least three writings per week. They may not be good or relevant, but they’ll be here.

Genre Snobbery

I recently read a great post that got me thinking about what is considered “literature,” what isn’t, and whether or not we should really care.

As an English major, most of the people that I spend a lot of time with are genre snobs. They might pick up something off the mainstream shelf once in a while, or a mystery if they want something light, but don’t generally browse the fantasy, science fiction, western or romance sections of the bookstore. And heaven forbid that somebody actually might try to write it and be taken seriously.

It irritates me.

I write fantasy. I like to think that my writing is of high quality. I also read fantasy, and I like to think that I’m a reasonably intelligent and discerning person. Why do so many people find the idea of intelligent, quality fantasy to be so impossible?

Yet many of the older works — and some contemporary — that are considered to be “literature” contain elements of the fantastic. Look at Shakespeare, for heaven’s sake! The bard’s works are peppered with fairies, witches, curses, ghosts, spells, etc. All very common, even defining, elements of fantasy. It wasn’t until the Enlightenment, I think, that the fantastic came to be considered childish, not fit for mature thinking. Why? Who knows. The Age of Reason meant that anything not “reasonable” was not fit for intelligent consumption. And for some reason, we’ve carried that into the current age.
There’s a great deal of amazing fantasy literature that gets dismissed by the “educated” public. And it frustrates me that many people are not likely to take my writing as seriously as they would if I didn’t write fiction with fantastic elements.

So why do I persist with the fantastic? Because I think that the “magic” in the fantasy stories is a great tool for touching on things that it’s difficult to approach directly. It’s myth, metaphor, and archetype; it speaks to us on a symbolic level that we understand almost instinctively. I write it because when I read truly excellent fantasy, I see truths about the real world, and about human nature, that I might not have seen before, or I understand them in a different way. That’s my aspiration: to be able to do that in my own writing.

The problem is, there’s probably more really bad fantasy out there than there is good. While this might be true of any genre, or of mainstream or literary fiction, I think it’s especially obvious in fantasy. It seems to me that a lot of novice writers choose to write fantasy because they feel that it’s easier, that since they can make up a world of their own, they don’t really have to pay attention to the details of reality. So what we get is a slew of inconsistency, in plot and setting, and flat cookie-cutter characters with unbelievable motives.
I think that this is changing, though. I think that fantasy readers are demanding, and receiving, better quality fiction. Neil Gaiman springs to mind. There’s really not much of the cliched hack-and-slash type stuff being published these days. There have always been terrific fantasists on the shelves, but I think there are more of them now. Fantasy writers, I think, are much more likely now to see their work in print if they use the fantasy elements as something more than a device to further a plot.

More mainstream literature these days contains fantastic elements as well. While I think that sometimes the mainstream writers don’t use fantasy as well as many fantasy writers, I think that some of the genre snobs should be prepared to have their sensibilities offended more often; as more people read fantastic fiction, more fantastic fiction will be published, and placed in the “literary” and mainstream sections of the bookstores.