The Writer's Calling: Gifts

Grace, gifts, and usefulness. These are means by which a minister recognizes the calling of God to be a minister. Last post I considered how these may also mark the calling of one to be a writer, and what grace would be for the writer--not the grace that saves you, but the grace that is evidence of a calling.

Today I'll consider gifts. It seems to me the writer should certainly have specific gifts:
- to be able to find, combine, and manipulate words to communicate effectively
- to be able to tell a story in a compelling manner
- to have ideas, things to write about, or
- to be able to communicate the idea of another with words.

The use of words may or may not be an inherent gift for the writer. We generally call this craft, and it ranges from the breadth of vocabulary to correctness of grammar. Grammar can be learned. Vocabulary can be expanded. Dictionaries and thesauruses can be consulted. Perhaps this is a "gift" the writer can learn.

Or maybe not, or only partially. Much learning in this area is no doubt possible, but I wonder if some special inherent gift of words is still essential. Knowing the words and grammar, and knowing how to use them effectively seem to be two different things. I don't want this to sound snobbish, as if I'm saying unless you are born to be a writer you can't be a writer. Not at all. Appropriating teaching and expansion of skills should be possible. But I think some kind of gift for words should be present to produce the spark that later ignites the tinder and kindling of ideas in presence of desire.

Yet, words are not enough. Story-telling is critical. Is this something learned, or something given to the writer? I wish I knew. You can certainly study plots, and learn the essentials of a story told in a way to capture an audience. Or, with non-fiction, you can learn how the "plot" is the organization, and how to pace the material to keep the reader's interest. Either way, both fiction and non-fiction require their own brand of story-telling. As with words, how much of this is a gift given and how much is a gift learned is beyond my ability to say.

The transformation of an idea into a story first requires the capturing of an idea; recognition of something in life that registers on the brain, which then says, "Ah ha! I must write about that!" Or, when someone says, "I have this idea for a story", to be able to recognize whether that is truly a workable story or not. Not all ideas can be made into stories (though maybe more can than we realize). I ask (myself) again: how much of this is a gift given, and how much is learned by experience, by trial and error? It seems much is gift, which can be enhance by experience and trial and error.

I may just be talking to myself here, because I'm not sure about all this. But it seems to me, at this stage of my pondering, that a writer must have certain inherent gifts, of language ability and of story-telling and idea recognition, which become the sparks that eventually must be built on and expanded to fuel the finished product.

Next time: usefulness.