Skill or Talent

Writing is easy.

No, seriously, it is. Anyone can do it. Just about anyone can learn to do it well. It's like all art. That's right, I'm saying all art is within the grasp of every idiot out there. The only question is a question of quality. And that quality comes from a combination of two things: talent and skill.

You can get pretty far with one of those two things, even if you have practically none of the other. The really talented writer might have ideas so brilliant, so pervasive, that the whole world will want to read the stories, even if they aren't very well written or, worse, include vampires that sparkle. On the other hand, with enough skill, you can be very successful. Enough skill and you can tell a story about a midget bringing a ring to a volcano, and people will forgive your obsessions with languages, your incredible predictability, and even Tom Bombadil.

But put the two together, and you get magic. You get Mozart. Picasso. Hemmingway. Rowling.


Yeah, I put Rowling in that category. I don't think she's as skilled as she could be, but she's got a lot of talent. She had an idea that was as pervasive as they get. What kid doesn't, at some point, imagine someone coming and saying "your life isn't going to be boring anymore. I'm going to show you a wonderful and magical new world. And by the way, you're rich and famous." ESPECIALLY a kid around 11, when puberty is first starting to have its way. Everyone wants that.

The first Potter book is perfect, in my opinion. Not a word out of place, not a scene superflous, not a character out of place. The rest, not so much. But if you don't include the first one on a list of the hundred greatest books, there's something wrong with you. Particularly if you include Dan Brown on there for some reason.

But let me get back to the point about talent and skill. There's one major problem with the formula. You can increase skill, but you CAN'T increase talent. Whatever talent you have, that's it. No more. You can work and learn, and that skill can get you really far. But without the talent, you DO have a limit. For every Mozart, there are a thousand Salierris. For every Tom Clancy, there are a hundred people who just weren't quite good enough.

I don't know how to spot these people. I wish I did. If I did, I wouldn't wonder if I was one of them. I know I have the skill. I have the skill at writing that is shared by maybe five percent of the people in the whole world. I've worked a LONG time to be able to write as well as I do, to learn the tricks and techniques that make me this good. But, I ask, do I have the TALENT?

A little bit of talent can get someone like me really far. Maybe it would help if we talked about a scale. So let's pretend that talent and skill are on a scale from 0-100. And let's say that to be a successful artist, you need to cross the 100 point threshold. To be a famous artist, you have to break 150. And to be legendary, you have to cross the 175 point mark.

If I have 25 points of talent, then my skill, which I will call 95, puts me well into the successful artist area. Which would explain why a million people think it's a good idea to read this blog.

But if I have 55 points of talent, I could be famous. Like, world famous. If I have 80, I could be Mozart.

The trouble is, you can't know. You can't ever find out your talent score. It just doesn't work that way. So how do you go about your life? If you KNEW how talented you were, you'd know where to shoot for. A talent of 10 pretty well tells you to throw away any dreams of international fame. A talent of 90 tells you that you can do anything you want. But when you don't know, you have no idea.

Which is why, dear friends, I will give you the following advice. No one knows what your score is. Not even you. But the odds of your talent being 1 are the same as they are of being 100. One in a hundred. So live your life like you're super talented. That way, you know that it's just a matter of work to reach your goals.

And if you put in all that work, and you still can't meet your goals, then maybe you aren't as talented as you think you are. But at the very least, you can be certain that you tried your best, and that your skill is way beyond what some of the most successful people in the world have. Because skill you control. Talent is luck.