“Talent Is Cheaper Than Table Salt” and What Stuff Are Good Writers Really Made Of
You know the question intimately: Do you need to hate talent to be a successful writer? What if you don’t?
The notorious Stephen King quotes from Dance Macabre reads:
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
- Stephen King
Now, I don’t know whether Stephen King thinks talent is cheap because it has no real use or because it’s too rare to count on it. Me? I’m on the second stance.
I do think talent is a huge asset for any creative person, but talented people are like the one needle in the haystack, as rare as a white fly, as we say here in Italy — and no, I’ve never seen one. Yet, creative people are many. If we assume we don’t have actual talent — I, for one, certainly don’t have it — what should we rely on?
I entirely agree with Stephen King’s last part of the statement: we should rely on hard work. But we should also be selective. It’s not only about writing a lot. It’s also about learning and fine-tuning skills that initially we may not know we possess or are unsure how to use.
It’s not only about writing a lot. It’s also about learning and fine-tuning skills that initially we may not know we possess
There’s no magical formula here. There’s no “kissed by Fortune”, as talent goes. These are skills everybody possesses to some degree, and writers need to sharpen to write involving, relatable stories.
This is my choice of writing skills that will make us better writers, even if we are quite short of talent.
Intuition
Intuition is the trickiest of the set because it’s a mixed bag. Some people are born with intuition. Some others aren’t. Or better, some people’s intuition is strong, some others’ is weak. It’s a natural gift. And yet, I do believe we can learn to be more intuitive.
Why is intuition so valuable for writers?
Because it helps us make connections.
For example, it helps us see the connection between what we’ve written and the readers’ reactions. What is it that touched them so much? It also helps us choose the most effective words, the most effective expressions, the most effective images — those that will evoke the reader’s deepest emotions.
Intuitive writers may do this partly by instinct, and in this sense, intuition is a little bit like talent (though I’d rather call it a gift). But even intuitive people may sharpen this skill.
Don’t simply take things like readers’ reactions at face value. Instead, observe.
When we look into it and notice everything that’s happening, we start acquiring information we might have missed. There’s more going on under the surface than there is above it. The realisation will ignite observation, and observation will sharpen intuition.
But how do we observe?
Mostly by asking questions.
Why readers reacted to this story more strongly than to the other? Was it the topic? Was it the way we presented it? Was it the words we used? And if so, which words resonated with them?
Don’t simply take things like readers’ reactions at face value. Instead, observe.
Asking questions is a potent tool in a writer’s arsenal, and not just concerning intuition. It enhances our awareness, of which intuition is part. And though it is a process, if we keep asking questions and trying to answer them, the process will soon become second nature. It will become part of us to the point we won’t need to think about it anymore. It will be natural for us to look for ‘whys’. We’ll naturally try to anticipate readers’ reactions. We’ll readily remember what words, expressions, and emotions touched our readers in the past, and we’ll tap into that memory almost instinctively. Ant that’s when knowledge starts to morph into intuition — or something very similar to it.
It’s up to us questioning things. It’s up to us to keep questioning things, even when we think we have already answered the questions.
Curiosity might not be intuition, but certainly, it will help us sharpening it.
Imitation
We often consider imitation something negative. We might think it is the attitude of people who lack imagination or skills and therefore imitate creative people who are more skilful.
Sometimes, this is the case. Indeed, some people just copy what genuinely creative people do and merely replicate the work of others in hopes to replicate also their success. This is what gives imitation its bad name.
But imitation is also the most natural way of learning.
The child observes the adult and imitates their motions so to learn to do new things. The pupil emulates the maestro.
We recognise that we lack something, but we also recognise what that ‘something’ is and who can do it already. Then we imitate them to learn to do the same thing.
This is the stage where imitation can go both ways.
We may stop at this level and keep purely imitating other people’s work.
Or we may learn what we’ve been imitating until it becomes part of us. At which point, we don’t need to imitate anyone anymore. We’ll know. We’ll have learned to do what we were imitating, and we’ll make it our own. We’ll turn it into something that is uniquely ours.
We just have to find the confidence to make that one step. To step away from pure imitation and start doing what we’ve learned.
We just have to find the confidence to make that one step. To step away from pure imitation and start doing what we’ve learned.
When we take that step, imitation ceases to be a way to feed on someone else’s skills and becomes a way to learn our own skills.
I’ve learned most of what I know as a writer by imitation. When I was young, I wrote stories that were imitations of the stories I loved watching on tv. When I became a reader, I discovered my favourite authors and started imitating their style and way of building stories and characters. By imitating what they did best again and again and again, I finally picked up the elements and the structures that I most liked about those stories and increased their use in my writing, using them again and again, every time changing a little bit. Little by little, I stopped imitating, but I kept using what I had learned from my favourite authors. Slowly, I found a way to use that knowledge in my own personal way.
This is a long process, I’ll admit it, but also very educational because imitating isn’t only about ‘copying’, it’s also about discovering. In order to find my favourite authors and start imitating what they did, I needed to read a lot. Being exposed to many different stories, authors, genres opened my imagination to new prompts and experiences, which later helped me find my own style.
Imitation can truly be something extraordinary. A way to learn, to discover, to experiment.
It’s a way to grow.
Practice
This is the mother of all writing skills and supports both intuition and imitation.
Nothing will do us any good if we don’t practice. We can learn the theory of anything, but if we don’t put that knowledge into practice, it will always remain a dream.
You’ll have heard that if you want to be a writer, then write. This is really the only way to learn from authors we admire and sharpen our skills, including a volatile one like intuition.
Nothing will do us any good if we don’t practice.
It’s by trying and repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating that we’ll acquire new skills and will make them our own. Repetition makes a skill second nature to us, to the point that we’ll use it because it is part of us, not because we know how to do it.
Practice is where we experiment. It’s where we actually imitate the authors we admire. It’s where we ask questions and try to answer them.
Our stories, our skills, our own storytelling — nothing exists without practice.
Even talented people need to practice. Talent is useful, but it can’t substitute practice.
Maybe this is what Stephen King means. You can be as talented as you like, but that talent won’t teach you how to do something. It will make it easier for you and make it ‘instinctively’ more effective, but you’ll have to put in the hard work anyway if you want to succeed.
Yes, I do believe there is a level of magic in telling stories, something that can’t be fully explained. But a great part of good writing is simply a lot of work and dedication. And we can always put that in, talented or not.
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