© 2011 Mark Canter
To
win big, every fiction writer needs three allies: life experience, craft and
talent. The first two can be (and must be) acquired. But the third ally, talent, is something you’re born with—or
not. No amount of real life adventures or writer’s workshops will earn you more
talent. By definition, talent means gift.
And every aspiring writer must face the scary question: Do I have enough
talent—am I gifted?
One
way to answer that question is to see how closely your personal muse matches a
collection of traits that most successful fiction writers possess. As an
obvious example, just as painters and photographers are engrossed by light in
all of its moods, natural storytellers are fascinated by language in all of its
voices. A person who is not easily enthralled by the power and grandeur of
words probably lacks a true gift for writing.
What
follows is a quick test for gauging your writing aptitude. Okay, it’s utterly
unscientific—but the chances are pretty fair that a high score means you’ve got
the bard’s gift, and a low score—well, don’t quit your day job until you’re
forced into retirement.
How
to score: On a scale of 1 to 5, mark whether you strongly agree (5), or
strongly disagree (1), with each statement as it relates to your own character
traits.
THE FICTION WRITER’S (gulp) TALENT
ASSAY
or D.I.P.S.T.I.C.K. TEST
(Do I Possess Sufficient Talent
Independent of Craft or Knowledge?)
1.
YOU MAKE UP
STORIES ABOUT PERFECT STRANGERS. That silver-haired executive-type in the
theater seat in front of you ditched his wife half a year ago for the trophy
blonde now clinging to his arm. His new sex life is hotter in some ways, but
lying awake tonight, he’ll remember his love for his ex-wife and ache for all
that he traded away.
2.
YOU OFTEN
PLAY THE IMAGINATION GAME, “WHAT IF?
What if you had the secret power to heal people by stripping off your clothes
in churches? To destroy a person at any distance simply by blinking your eyes
three times and saying, “Begone.”?
3.
YOUR
CURIOSITY HAS BIG MUSCLES FROM CONSTANT EXERCISE. Curiosity may get you killed,
as it did the cat, but perhaps you’ll die as a bestselling novelist. A jetliner
passes above—Who’s in it? Where are they going? What are they doing right now?
That’s the way your mind works.
4.
YOU’RE NOSY
ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS. If you receive a letter with some words crossed out,
you’ve got to snoop and see what it
said before revision.
5.
YOU STUDY
PHOTOS OF CROWDS, FACE BY FACE. A crowd in Mogadishu surrounds the smoking,
blackened corpse of a Marine airman. Projecting yourself behind each set of
eyes, you try to imagine the experience from that person’s viewpoint.
6.
YOU SPY
INSIDE OTHER PEOPLE’S MINDS. This is closely related to the above trait. You
almost can’t keep yourself from wondering about the psyche of others; not only
the horror of a murder victim, but what the hell was going on in the killer’s
mind.
7.
YOU’VE GOT A
“WEAK EGO BOUNDARY”. This term, coined by Freud, describes people who have a
hard time telling where they end and another person—or the whole planet—begins.
At its worse, this kind of fuzzy self-border makes you looney. At its best, it
helps you to be a mystic, a damn fine novelist, or both.
8.
YOU HAVE AN
ARTIST’S EYE FOR DETAILS. Most will notice that the shed roof is rusty; but you
see that the orange rust on the steel roof branches as it runs to the porch
eaves like a river fanning into a delta.
9.
FOR YOU,
HEARING IS BELIEVING. Listening to a radio drama or a story read aloud can move
you just as much as watching a dramatic movie.
10. YOU WRITE FOR THE EAR. You’ve got to like the sound of the words,
not just their meaning, so you often read your writing aloud to yourself. “For
the ear trieth words, as the mouth tastesth meat; let us choose...what is
good.” (Job xxiv. 3,4)
11. THE DICTIONARY IS YOUR READING COMPANION. You never let an
unfamiliar word pass by and remain a stranger. When you look up a word, you
also browse all the interesting words around it. Word origins are especially
revelatory. (You do have an etymological dictionary, don’t you?)
12. YOU’RE A COMPULSIVE READER. Of billboards, cereal boxes,
T-shirts—whatever. You tailgate so that you can read the bumper sticker up
ahead. (It says, “Don’t tailgate me, or I’ll flick a booger on your
windshield.”)
13. SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME. Since childhood, you’ve devoured
books of all kinds. Walking into a superb library or bookstore is like entering
a temple of earthly delights. For you, life without reading would be like
procreation without pleasure—entirely possible, but why bother?
14. YOU CAN’T BEAR TO SPEED-READ. Try as you might to read faster, you
automatically slow down with a good book—like a gourmet hovering over steaming
Peking duck—to savor the rhythm, the nuance, the mouth-feel of the words. The
more satisfying the writing, the slower you read.
15. YOU ENJOY WORD GAMES. Crossword puzzles, anagrams, Scrabble ™,
puns, acronyms, palindromes—you name it. (My favorite palindrome—a sentence
that reads the same way backward as forward: A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.)
16. YOU ACE VERBAL TESTS. On the verbal portion of the Scholastic
Aptitude Test, you scored in the high 600s or better (a perfect score is 800).
If you took the Graduate Record Exam, your reading comprehension/verbal skills
score was in the top 20 percentile or better.
17. YOU WRITE WITH YOUR WHOLE BODY. Books on the craft of fiction
advise you to include aromas, textures, flavors and sounds in each of your
scenes—not just what the eyes perceive. If this has to be learned, it is mere
technique. For a sensualist it comes naturally, and is, therefore, a gift.
18. A GOOD STORY KIDNAPS YOU INTO ITS WORLD. According to genetics
researchers, of all inheritable personality traits one of the strongest is the
ability to become absorbed. So, thank mom and dad if you can easily abandon
yourself to fiction—reading it, or writing it.
19. YOU EXTEND STORIES BEYOND THEIR FINAL SCENE. What happens now that
E.T. has gone home? You tend to create sequels in your head for stories that
have grabbed you. Characters linger in your imagination and show you their
further adventures.
20. YOUR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS TAKE ON A LIFE OF THEIR OWN. You make up
story people, plop them in the middle of an intriguing conflict, and they
quickly become so real to you that you get the feeling you’re simply a reporter,
observing and describing what they say and do and what happens as a result.
21. YOU’VE GOT TERRIFIC PERIPHERAL VISION. You aren’t just interested
in the heavyweights slugging it out in the ring. What about the teen-ager
selling popcorn? The guy over there who’s sipping from a hip-pocket flask? Why
is that great-grandmother sitting ringside? You hear a cat mewing somewhere
under the bleachers. You risk boring your readers into a coma if you include
too many details, but it helps your characters come alive if you’re the type of
author who notices the little things in your fictional world.
22. YOU SHRINK FROM CLICHES LIKE A GARDEN SLUG SHRINKS FROM SALT. “If
wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” That’s wonderfully vivid language, or
at least it must have been when it was first used back in Chaucer’s day. Now
it’s weaker than three-time tea.
23. GETTING THE WORDS RIGHT IS SATISFACTION ITSELF. Maybe you’re not
as obsessive as Ernest Hemmingway, who rewrote the last chapter of A
Farewell to Arms 119 times. But in your own writing you strive for
something very close to perfection.
24. PEOPLE OFTEN TELL YOU, “YOU OUGHTA WRITE A NOVEL.” Hear this
enough and it means there’s something special in the way you sling words
together. At the least, it means you’ve got the storyteller’s knack. At best,
it means you not only tell stories well, but you’ve got your own voice. The
crucial advice: Write the same way you talk.
25.
YOU’VE ALWAYS
WANTED TO WRITE FICTION. Maybe it’s because you are a fiction writer, disguised as some other professional. It’s
your destiny to write fiction, and in your heart you know it.
INTERPRETING THE F.Q. TEST RESULTS:
ADD YOUR SCORE, THEN GIVE YOURSELF 10 BONUS
POINTS FOR BEING BRAVE AND FOOLISH ENOUGH TO TAKE THIS SILLY TEST.
110 to 135 points: Wonderful. You may be the next John Grisham. A worldwide readership
awaits you; topnotch literary agents cry, “Me! Pick me!”
85 to 110 points: Excellent. You’ve definitely got what it takes. Begin that novel
now. Never give up until you see your byline in the bookstores.
50 to 85 points: Good. You’ve got some pizazz. But read everything you can on the
craft of fiction to bolster your talent.
35 to 50 points: Okay. What you need here is a real life that seems like a thriller.
For example, it would help to be a retired S.E.A.L.S. commando leader. Just be
sure to hire a talented ghostwriter.
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