Can Writing Be Taught?
For those who regularly read articles and blogs about writing, this is probably a question you’ve seen raised before. Can a person be taught how to write well, or is it an inborn talent? Good old nature-vs-nurture.
Once upon a time, I firmly believed you’re either born with writing talent or you’re not, and I was afraid my own skills were only mediocre. Oh, I could spin out some decent prose and even a little poetry, but I didn’t feel I was a good storyteller and that meant I never would be.
Mainly that was because I’m a self-made author. I took a couple creative writing courses in college, but they didn’t help much, and so I kept on believing that writers were born, not made.
This view changed slowly, reflecting my own path. It took me almost twenty years to go from bright-eyed kid writer to published author with a multi-book contract, and often that progress was hard for me to see. But the difference between my first attempted novel and my first published novel, almost two decades later, is like night and day. Somewhere along the line, I had learned how to tell a complete story, and well enough for someone to pay me to publish it.
