“I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire.”
—Gordon Lish, aka Captain Fiction
Is the fourth ingredient of literary success talent?
Many publishers say yes. The unpublished may say no. Let’s examine the question.
First, a definition of terms: What is talent?
In ancient days, it was a weight of gold. Money. The Book of Matthew gives an example: A rich merchant (say, a publisher) gives his first servant (a writer) five Talents, his second two Talents, his third one Talent. The first two servants put their Talents to work and double their money; the third buries his and makes nothing. The master blesses the first two as “good and faithful,” inviting them to “come and join my happiness.” He curses the third as “wicked and worthless,” takes away his one Talent, and throws him “into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
For our purposes, the first servant was J.K. Rowling, the second Stephen King, and the third an MFA graduate who tries to make a living writing the next Finnegans Wake or Gravity’s Rainbow.
The ancient definition of talent has been revived in today’s Babylon: Hollywood. The million-dollar star is called “The Talent.” Similarly, in publishing, if you make Talents, you’ve got talent. If you make a million Talents, you’re a genius.
But as one genius, Stephen King, points out, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” Which brings us back to Pluck.
Practically speaking, what is literary talent? Most would agree that it is the ability to write well and tell a story well. Twain, Dickens, Stendhal, Tolstoy, and others could do both. Today, many good writers are not good storytellers, and many good storytellers are not good writers.
On one hand is the Me Talk Pretty One Day school; on the other, the hard-boiled Patterson storyteller school. The first focuses on the How: voice, imagery, nuance. The second on the What: blood, semen, and surprise.
The stylist enriches; the storyteller entertains. The stylist is nutritious, offering organic eggs and fresh produce; the storyteller is delicious, serving Chicken McNuggets, biscuits, and pie.
Is talent essential to literary success?
Storytelling talent, yes; stylistic talent, no. The latter can sometimes be a handicap. As Elmore Leonard writes in 10 Rules of Writing: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
Most experts agree that the art of writing cannot be taught, but the craft can; that by following the right rules, a writer can polish his or her talent and, in doing so, have a better shot at publication. So, for nearly a century now, publishers, adopting a No Writer Left Behind educational program, have been mass-producing instruction manuals. Academics have started schools. Entrepreneurs have gone mail order.