Talent vs Skill: The #1 Lie in Writing

[@PhoenixCrown]

Writing a book is such a huge endeavor, I think "writers block" and "the muse" and "the right stuff" and "talented" etc. are all a bunch of excuses. Understandable... because becoming a great writer is really, really, really really hard. But imagine that: If you work hard AND smart at something... you'll get better! Thank you for the right type of encouragement!

[@ArielleLavecchia]

I tell writers to make it make sense...They get trapped in the formula, but don't understand the process. The not working part I see most often is when people copy other people's styles and don't have their own writer voice and make excuses for doing the same thing over and over again. Some of them write a lot but at the end of the day - one can replace the names of the characters and change the titles and it would be their next book.

[@nyxcole9879]

I have gotten frustrated every time someone says it, thank you so much for saying it ❤

[@RachelWallis-xz6ri]

Totally agree! Fabulous video ❤

[@SarahMcAshan]

Great points here Tim. Whoo boy, improvisational Jazz is not random--as Wynton Marsalis says, there is freedom only within structure!

[@PaulRWorthington]

Yes, I recently saw a video here about the development of modal jazz and how excited Miles Davis and others were to have a new structure within which they could improvise.

[@dreamslayer2424]

I recall a writing instructor once saying - in relation to editors only reading a few pages of a manuscript - that the differences between someone who has mastered the form and someone who hasn't is easy to spot. The instructor presented the example of a piano player. When a person sits down to play the piano, you can tell within a few moments if the person can play the piano or if they have no idea what they are doing. I find structural patterns to be educational from the standpoint that they help me to see more deeply into the reading of a work of fiction, nonfiction, master work, etc., and seeing the fundamental pieces that make a story work but more so - and more importantly to me - seeing how they are applied. Application, to me, is very important. So, as I have been doing for some time, I analyze scenes, looking for those fundamental principles seeded into it. I read a scene yesterday, very brief, but immediately saw how one word deftly placed signaled what motivated the character once the inciting incident occurred. I could see the object of desire. I looked at the dialogue and could see how the give-and-take was working. And most importantly, at the climax of the scene, I could see immediately the choices the two characters made as in conflict with how they were presented themselves to each other, which told me a lot about both of the characters. My pet peeve about "writing advice" is often rooted in books sold on Amazon by individuals teaching you how to "write", "make money writing" and etc. I immediately go to search their names and find they've written nothing other than the book on writing. Granted, they might use a pen name, but if they have an author's website, I will check it out too and if they had any books, then I imagine they would list them so people could buy them. I'm always disappointed. So, I will stick with information from individuals who have both the technical know-how and the books to back them up, which is why I keep coming back to Story Grid.

[@robertrdbrooks7658]

So, writing is like playing or performing music the correct way. Out of tune, out of time, going on & on & on & on with no change or progression doesn't groove. Sounds to me like structure, much like building a house. The architecture of writing. hmmm ... I like that. Subjective, yet within the structure. People can write on & on & on about nothing, yet, at the end of the day, it's nonsense. And, who wants to read that? One writing tool I really like, I learned from Jerry Jenkins, is suspense. "I see you're still walking with a limp? How long has it been since, you know." I love that! It keeps the reader asking. What happened? Well? Read on! Tim, any suspenseful writing advice? Thank You. Ronnie Sutton.

[@dcle944]

The problem with writing is that we have learned it for 12-16 years or even more in school, so we think we know the fundamental principles and know how to write. Most people don’t know fiction has its own fundamental principles.

[@tomlewis4748]

I think there might be a clearer way to look at this. It might help us understand it a little better. Writing is a combination of many different things, but it actually falls into two large silos: The first silo is creativity. The second silo is craft and technique, and how that is used in deliberate practice to build skill. There is a difference with a distinction between these two primary aspects of writing. What's important is to understand the difference between these two things so that you can understand how each of them works separately. Then you can stitch them back together and think of it as 'writing', which you will be able to understand a lot better than you could before. Craft and technique can absolutely be taught and absolutely learned, and that is what Story Grid is so good at. That is what they focus on. They seem to not focus whatsoever on creativity, and I think there's a good reason for that, which is that creativity cannot be taught. And no, that is not bullshit. That is a fact. It's proven in the way the human mind works. All creativity originates in the unconscious mind. That's its métier. There are things out in the world that can trigger that, but only your unconscious mind can create something or be inspired to create something. Once it does, your conscious mind, your awareness, gets a clue of what that is, and takes ownership of it, as if it created it (it really was 'you', after all, just not your conscious awareness-craft and technique are not a part of creativity, they can only foster it). In reality, it only 'feels' like we created it consciously. Our unconscious mind also has no language, and so creativity cannot be reduced to a set of words, meaning creativity can't be written down or explained in a how-to book, or a class prospectus, or an academic paper, the way that craft and technique can. You can spend $100,000 on an MFA. But they still cannot teach you creativity-that very important other half of writing. I've seen way too many smart people fall for that, expecting the simple meritocracy of paying attention to the teachers and getting high grades to lead to becoming a great writer. Nope. That's not enough. The good news is we all have the potential to be very creative, and the secret is to find ways to figure that out. There is a Hemingway or a Raymond Chandler inside all of us, just waiting to burst free. That capability is inherent. Did they get there through an MFA or a creative writing class? (Those didn't exist until post-war, so likely not). But awakening that ability is something you have to come up with on your own, because no one can teach that, especially since it can't be put into words or conscious thoughts. Masterclass, for instance, has 9 famous authors, all of whom can give you tons of pointers on craft and technique and skill. I listened to all of them. Not a single one of them had any info whatsoever on how to magically learn to become creative. They had no words on that, bc there simply are none. (I'd like my 180 bucks back, please). They don't even know themselves how it happened for them, because that was never in their conscious awareness. It was something that they taught themselves, without really knowing how they were doing it, based entirely on motivation and deliberate practice. That's what we have to do. Do it ourselves. If you do the work to learn the technique and the craft and build the skills, the rest will come, simply based on you doing that. So it truly is bullshit that 'writing can't be taught', because a great portion of it can be, and Story Grid knows what that is, and that's what they do. The rest is up to you. Because even though creativity can't be taught, how to express your inherent creativity can be learned. And quite honestly, you're not actually learning how to be creative, what you are learning is how to listen to your unconscious mind which already knows everything there is to know about creativity. And how to open a portal between your conscious awareness and your unconscious mind is something you can get good at.

[@susanbuckminster282]

Thank you!

[@kimberlyf331]

I find this confusing. Who decided what a lasagna was? By this definition, I think a crepe cake with marscapone, bacon, and dates would qualify as a lasagna. It has cheese, meat, a flat bread product, and a fruit mixture in it-the same as the original lasagna. It's still a cake though. Then there could be deconstructed lasagna soup. Isn't this what Venn diagrams are for? Outliers exist right?

[@dancingdruid7932]

I've been a published author for years and years, and I teach creative writing at the post-secondary level and I have never heard anyone say that writing doesn't have rules or that it is subjective. Of course there are rules and good writing is NOT subjective at all. Whether you like a piece or not is subjective. Personally, I am not fond of Hemingway but he is objectively a good writer.

[@AnnoyingMoose]

I don't think I've even heard more than 2 of Taylor Swifts songs.

[@lindenstromberg6859]

I agree, but sometimes people teach lies like "all stories follow the three act structure". And, while clearly false to even the most basic reader of fiction, there are a lot of credulous people (not just people, but people who want to be writers) who fall for this nonsense.

[@kingmj87]

This whole video is a thinly vailed attack on Chicago-style deep dish pizza

[@StoryGrid]

Hahaha! Amazing! - Tim

[@grimngruesome8988]

😂

[@harpo345]

If I've ever been told that good or bad writing is a subjective judgement, I didn't fall for it to the extent that I can't even remember it happening. Taste, is a different thing. For example, I've tried and failed to read Virginia Woolf, but I recognise that her prose is marvellous and there is a plot somewhere inside in the pages and pages of poetic imagery.

[@ignamagan]

I don´t get what is the point you try to make

[@iammraat3059]

You won't get it if you're not a writer

[@edubs9828]

I didn't need a reason to make that unbelievably good lasagna from America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated but it's nice to know I have one.

[@Drudenfusz]

Nope, Music is not objective, what we consider music is bound to the human experience, that is why some people might call the songs of birds to be music while others would not say it is actual music. And the same it true for writing, there is no objective art there either, since like every musician so is every writer just a subject and there is no objective arbiter, even if every single human being that every existed would agree on somethin, that would still not make it objective. But I guess you are talking about appeal, and in that regard there are patterns that people find more appealing and thus make it easier to reach more people. But no formula can be objective in any given field that is based on opinions. So, maybe you want to rethink the rhetoric, since it is really bad.

[@humanbeing2282]

I think writing is inherently subjective because so much of what determines quality is based upon the collective likes and dislikes of the public. What connects with one person doesn’t necessarily connect with another and even though we have trends of things that work we don’t have rules. A ph scale is objective because something cannot be acidic on one scale and basic on another. However, that all being said, we should treat writing and art like they are objective fields because without that mindset all critique and improvement is rendered meaningless. It’s kind of like how we pretend that a game of tag matters so we have excuse to have fun, get some exercise, and practice a bit of strategy. But it technically doesn’t matter and at any point you can withdraw from the game citing said fact more or less avoiding consequences. But then why would you play the game in the first place? People who point out that art is subjective are people who point out the meaninglessness of games. It only serves to be technically true but to avoid the overall benefits and strengths of a mindset where we treat these things as objective.

[@futurestoryteller]

There is no "objective lasagna." This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "objectivity" and while in the end it may feel like I'm splitting hairs here, it's one that has dangerous ramification when completely unchecked. Do you like deus ex machina? No, right? Not because it's an overdone cliche, but because you likely feel like it's a lazy, cheap way to resolve a story. But in the ancient Greek tradition, this was _the way_ to resolve a conflict. It had its critics, raising these exact concerns, even back then, but evidently, because they believed in these deities, audiences would be mesmerized by the appearance of a god, and satisfied with the logic that they would have the power to resolve the play's problems. Whether or not you agreed or disagreed that deus ex machina was lazy... _was subjective._ And still is! So why does it feel "less subjective" now than it was back then? (I don't think you'd be quick to argue if anyone claimed this was an "objectively bad" way to end a story, for instance; even if it also, conveniently, has the wiggle room to fall under your "formulas" example.) Maybe because most of us don't live in a culture that can seriously picture gods coming down from the heavens, and altruistically resolving our conflicts for us. - And wait, how can something be _"less_ subjective"? I mean, is a hot dog a sandwich? How about a hamburger? Heck you can find people half-jokingly asking if lasagna is *cake.* Or if cereal is soup. Objectively, cereal is not soup. The communication error here derives from the unintended, virtually invisible insinuation that cereal exists outside of human influence; as if it were a byproduct of the *natural* world, but we have both invented and defined cereal, we invented and defined soup. We made them up. We refine exactly what either means based entirely on our shared understanding, through repeated exposure, after playing with variations, and pushing boundaries until we've eventually, collectively reached reasonably acceptable distinctions between them, unconsciously. Culturally. Intersubjectivity is a term that describes the shared understanding, experiences, and opinions between people. What art is, is not subjective, it's not _objective,_ it is intersubjective - democratic. This distinction is extremely important for various sociopolitical and scientific reason that are too numerous to go into. Suffice it to say I wish everyone would stop treating objectivity and subjectivity as binary. I would say _most_ things people think of as objectively true are intersubjective assumptions. They feel like they've come to objective conclusions because it seems like "everyone" can agree, it's so obvious to "everyone" that it can't possibly be anything other than the "natural" order of things. It should be noted that this may not change the practicality of the advice given in the video, and isn't meant to. Philosophically I feel an obligation to stand in opposition to the framing.

[@SteveJubs]

Instructions unclear … made a delicious lasagna. How do I get this thing published?

[@StoryGrid]

This got a legit LOL from me - Tim

[@AnomalousVixel]

There's one problem with your story about lasagna. Big Mac is a lasagna.

[@StoryGrid]

Did you get this from @piratesoftware? I think I heard that in one of his shorts. - Tim