The thing about talent is that we tend to think of it as something innate, something you are born with, like the color of your eyes or the shape of your nose. According to this idea, some are born with writing talent, and others are not, and if you are not lucky enough to have this gift as part of your DNA, there is little you can do.
However, this idea, although widespread, is not true. Talent is no more and no less aptitude. And aptitude is defined as:
- Ability to operate competently in a given activity.
- A quality that makes an object suitable, adequate or suitable for a certain purpose.
- Capacity and disposition for the excellent performance or exercise of a business, an industry, an art, etc.
- Sufficiency or suitability to obtain and exercise an employment or position.
The first, third, and fourth meanings are the ones that could best fit the “capacity” that a writer needs to be able to perform suitably in his activity, job or art. But, if you notice, in none of these meanings is it said that this aptitude or capacity is something innate, something with which one is born, something connatural to some people but not to others.
In other words, like almost everything in life, talent can be developed. And that is excellent news because it allows you to stop spending energy thinking about whether or not you were born with some kind of divine gift and start focusing on training your talent.
Another way of thinking about talent
So we propose that you stop seeing talent as an innate ability or skill, something you are naturally good at. Because talent is not only about what you’re good at, but above all about what excites, ignites and elevates you, even if you’re bad at it.
Yes, even if you are bad at writing at first, that doesn’t mean you should give up writing if writing is an activity that makes you enjoy it, that connects you with yourself or with others, that awakens in you the constant desire to find a moment to give an outlet to the characters, plots, and worlds that populate your imagination.
If you feel that you need to improve at writing and your texts still need to reach the excellence you aspire to, it is not because you lack talent. What’s happening is that you need to exercise more, read more useful information, and learn from other writers. For example, you can read some free essay writer examples of good writing and try to analyze what makes them so good. You’re on the road to knowing yourself as a writer.
Instead of getting discouraged that you have not been blessed with the gift of writing, focus on learning as much as possible about the mechanisms at work in a literary text and how they are used, read as much as you can, and write assiduously. In this way, you will develop your aptitude for writing and your ability to operate competently in the activity of writing.
Now, studying, reading, practicing… these are activities that require effort. There is no denying it. That is why we said before that talent has less to do with something you are good at than with something you are passionate about. Because it will be that passion that will make you dedicate time and effort to learn what you need to learn and practice as much as you need to. Passion will sustain you, and you will find reward in knowing that you are on the road to talent, to the moment you will be an excellent writer. Some people call that passion a vocation.
So if writing is something you’re good at, if you have a knack for, but it doesn’t elevate you, but you’re not passionate about, writing is simply not your talent. You can do it with relative ease, but you probably don’t want to devote the bulk of your time to it. You will need more motivation to devote hours of learning and practice to writing (because learning and practice are necessary even if you have talent).
Whereas if you doubt whether you have a writing talent because it seems to you that it’s something you may not have mastered as well as you’d like, but writing fires you up, makes you happy, makes the time fly by… then just allow yourself to learn and practice.
Talented people
When we read a work that fascinates us and in which we can recognize the finesse with which the writer has set his or her gears in motion, we think that writer has great talent, which also leads us to believe that the book came about in a simple, effortless way. That’s why we all wish we had talent: to achieve optimal results without working too hard. And, when this is not the case, when writing a reasonable work demands from us a continuous and sometimes atrocious effort, we tend to think that we have no talent because if we had it, writing would not cost us so much.
But let’s ask those whose “talent” we admire: a musician, an athlete, a cook… Surely they will not like it if we take for granted that the excellence they have reached has not cost them any effort because that is to undervalue the dedication, effort, and passion they have put into learning, practicing, training, and tenaciously following their path, regardless of discouragement or failures.
That’s why writing has to be what you want to do above anything else. Your talent will not be that writing is easy for you. On the contrary, your skill will be that you are okay spending hours writing, training, reading, and polishing each text repeatedly. So that, by dint of dedication, you can write better and better (perhaps even more quickly).
Of course, if the facility to write and the desire to do so have come together in you, you are a blessed being. Take advantage of it. But if that’s not the case, remember that talent doesn’t come first, it’s not something you know you have, it’s something you have to develop first.
Talent makes us special
Perhaps this tendency to believe in talent is related to our desire to be special. To recognize that talent is not something connatural, something innate, something that was bestowed upon us as a special gift, is to recognize that we are not unique people but simply like everyone else. We have not been touched. We have not been blessed, and we have not been chosen. And the truth is that we all want to be special, and, in the case of writing, we may want others to see us as someone who has a transcendent grace, something beyond ourselves, something almost magical.
But the truth is that if you forget about talent and start working seriously to achieve that excellence that talent gives, that’s when you’ll be special. Because, in reality, only a few people have the tenacity and commitment necessary to advance along the path of writing without faltering. That’s why we think talent is scarce because talent is nothing more than perseverance and dedication, which are not common qualities.
Remember the words of Stephen King
Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.