Talent vs. Hard Work: Which is More Important in Writing? 

Beautifully said. Some people burn themselves out trying to get good at writing (or other things) to the point that they end up hating it, and some of those keep doing what they hate just because they're trying to prove something to themselves and others. If you end up hating it, stop. End of.

True

Struggle comes naturally if it is informative. How does one make better choices without the prospect of suffering. Once you learn that the root of suffering is knowing there is a way out, but not taking it, wisdom occurs. ;)

Art requires dedication

Carolina G. No one is ever born an artist, that is a development not a trait

Music, sinning, sports, art... I have done all of those at pro to semi pro level and set a lot of top las k talent. I would say all of these take just as much work to master and talent show okay a role, but also isn't the while story. I love Alexa, but felt a need to say this for myself.

Skill grows talent.

Diana Parparita preach. Like, people say I am blessed at my writing but don't know how much effort it was. It took a lot of reading

I agree that it's good to feed your talent with hard work to improve it, but talent is more than hard work. Sometimes you have zero talent for something and you will never be good at it, no matter what you do. My father for example, has studied Spanish for a year now - 2 hours every day and he still can't speak it any close to fluently. He forgets words hr has already practiced a lot. He just has no talent for learning languages

I agree with Miss Marmade on this. Talent is a natural aptitude to a certain kind of work. Talented people study faster and do the thing better. Though a person can also be talented but lazy. Such a person won't achieve anything without putting an effort in it. But without talent you won't go too far no matter how hard you try. For example, I used to play cello for 8 years in childhood but my abilities were average. Being a perfectionist I studied and practiced a lot, and put a lot of work even in classes I hated. And I graduated from the musical school with good marks. But there was always a younger and more talented girl who used to play compositions far more complicated than other kids her age. She could beat me almost any day when she didn't slack (she wasn't always putting 100% effort and sometimes relied on her ears more). I stopped playing music and sold my cello after I passed the exams and she aspired to become a professional musician. True miracles happen when talent is combined with hard work. H.G. Wells is an example of such a creative genius. He was prolific as a writer but also came up with so many innovative ideas that he is named the father of science fiction. He established the genre and introduced the concepts of time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, space travel and many more. Thousands of other authors used his ideas afterwards and not many were able to create something new. Wells can only be compared to Tolkien who also created a new genre by himself.

I agree. There is no such thing as 'talent'. Talent is just the amount of hard work and practice you put into something. Nobody is born able to play guitar, or paint a portrait, or ballet dance, or draw... all these 'talents' are a result of many hours of practice. The earlier you learn a thing, the easier it is pick up the talent because the mind is most hungry for knowledge when you are young. The more hard work and practice you put into your craft, the more talented you will become.

@@EasyZee69 let me disagree with you, please. I have described my experience with music above. I played cello for 8 years and managed to graduate from musical school with good marks. But all the hours I spent with the instrument were not enough to make me just as good as kids with superior musical hearing. They just heard what I could not. And the fact that I reached the glass ceiling made me quit music all together. But I have found that my talent is something else. Some people are just better in something naturally. Look at Usain Bolt, for example. He is the fastest man on earth and his record for the 100-meter dash made in 2009 wasn't broken to this day though I'm sure many have tried. His exceptional results were studied by many scientists who came to the conclusion that he has a lot more fast-contracting muscles than the average person. Also his height and the fact that one of his legs is slightly longer play the role. He also has an exceptional technique. But the combination of both natural abilities and hard work is what made him unstoppable. He learned to use his body to his advantage.

Very True

So profound

The system is also often scared of things that are new, different, or challenging. It's an imperfect system!

I would add AUTHORS WHO HAVE NO CONNECTIONS IN PUBLISHING to the list of voices who are more likely not to succeed.

I find people with talent often squander it through lack of perseverance. They’ve never had to work to be good so they don’t power through/lose interest when it’s no longer easy for them. People who had to work hard to get somewhere will continue to work hard.

"it’s hard to judge one’s own natural talent" This. Bad writers also think they're talented.

Luck is the one that determines everything imo

It’s a combination of luck, talent, & hard work.

I like this comparison - people who are talented might start out higher, but unless they keep working at it, someone who is diligent but maybe not as talented initially will eventually catch up

True, but that's only because she lost interest. If she decides to get back in the game, she gan reach new heights. It took you years to reach her staring level. If she works just a little, you simply will never be able to reach ler, let alone surpass her. It's a bit too negative, but it's how it is. Life simply isn't fair

@@Pizza_Party not fair to say because we don't know her level of talent nor her friend's.

@@Pizza_Party not true, because time is also limited. You can't get back lost time. So if you spend ten years not working on something, and somebody less talented than you has been working on it diligently for ten years, you'll have a significant drawback when you decide to get back into it ten years later, because the other person would have 10 years of practice, experience, reputation, and industry knowledge behind them. Not to say you can't catch up, but it'll be VERY VERY hard. I say it from the perspective of someone who was in the position of the friend who "lost interest". It's nowhere near as easy as you make it sound, and sometimes not even possible at all.

@@zetaforever4953 10 years is a lot, so it makes for a setback. Though hard at the beginning, in 5 years a talented person can surpass a normal hard working person who had been working for 15 years already. People hate this because no one can control how much talent they're born with, but they can control how much they work. But, the truth is, talent can only lose if absolutely no effort is put into it.

In history, some famous people become famous after death. Like Vincent Van Gogh, when he die, most of his paintings become famous in public and sent to an Art Museum. It tragic for dead famous people not get to see their works widespread across the globe.

Man musical theater is a whole other animal, too--anything w/ musical talent, I think. Like you can't work hard and turn a bad voice into a good one. I think one can improve acting, even dancing from a lower talent threshold, but singing is different IMO. Obviously voice training exists but you have to start with a decent voice, you know? Unless you're a character actor going for very specific musicals, or are cough ahem, able to write your own masterpieces where it doesn't matter if you're the best singer (guess the shade!), I feel like for musical theater you really need to have raw talent (and then work hard to mold it). Writing has a lot more subjectivity, re: storytelling built into it that I don't think music does.

@@AlexaDonne idc bc you learn from every teacher that "good voices" are oftenly just stethic very melodic voices and yeah most people reeeally don't have that, but with enough training any voice will sound good - wich does not mean they will have a place in the market in the near future... It's something kinda messed up imo But you can think about Kristen Chenowich or Lea Michele, women who heard so many times by teachers and producers that they will never fit into the market bc of their "very annoying voice" and ended up having a very solid career in MT and television. Bc they're monstrous technic singers and were a little lucky to be in the right time for specific parts that their voice fit so well... At the end it's a little the same but a little soooo different I think

@@lylilupin9388 well yeah but neither Michele or Chenowich had bad voices. I think there's a difference between clearly having talent but being unconventional or "not mainstream" enough and having an actual unpleasant, untrained voice. I'm thinking like, American Idol reject level of bad voice. Sure those people can probably get to a point where there aren't horrific to listen to but I think it's dishonest to act as if they have a career in music theater or music in front of them. They just don't.

I like that.

Basically my view in a nutshell! :D

I feel similarly about myself. Well-said.

Lol same xD

I can relate

True. But honestly, I'd rather have a flourishing career while I'm alive and be forgotten after I die, than struggle throughout my life only to be hailed as a genius once I'm dead. 😋

@@zetaforever4953 Probably true for a lot of us LOL!!

The problem there isn't talent versus hard work, it's that one person is just being selfish, that's a personality deficit.

Yup!

Agree. That's also been my experience with writing.

Exactly. You work smarter when you are trained well in the craft.

Faceache? New name for Facebook from all the facepalming, or what?😂😅

Got it in one 😂 all the eye rolls give me headaches

@@mandiingham7608 which is why I don't bother with it. Though the comment section of RU-vid can be just as bad. 😩

@UCkuP7SqUuc3gmLeUFRoP8pA I thought Jurassic Park would be a great read given the movie. However, I was heavily disappointed. It is not like the Harry Potter series which I enjoyed both as novels, which I have read first, and as films. I know that movies are a different art form so they tend not to do justice to the novels but some movies based on novels were able to approximate the intent of the books and were successful at it. As for talent vs hard work, people are confusing the two. It is not an either or situation. If you have the talent but you won't even do the work, you won't get very far on talent alone and that is why some lazy but talented people fizzle out. John Lennon did a lot of composing. I call that talent and hard work. No one will call John Lennon lazy. Same goes with Da Vinci and other great artists of any art form. But if they didn't have any innate talent, their work wouldn't be called masterpieces or brilliant. Now, even if you work so hard to hone in your craft but you really don't have the talent, you will be mediocre at best. It is the sad truth that if you don't have it, you just don't have it. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule but those exceptions do not negate the rule. Plus luck and timing should be factored in. This is the reason why we all can't be writers, singers, dancers, actors, doctors, engineers, athletes, teachers, and any endeavor that require a lot of skills based on an innate talent for it. Talent for me is not just the natural creative genius like in the arts but also natural superior abilities that put a person above the rest. Usain Bolt is a talented athlete. Thomas Edison was a talented inventor. Jeff Bezos is a talented businessman. Of course, I mentioned the giants, but in our everyday lives, we know whether someone has the artistic or non-artistic talent/gift or not. It can that talented choirboy in church, or that gifted carpenter neighbor who designed a certain furniture, or that weird cousin who loves to sew and makes a spectacular costume every Halloween, or that grandma who can just whip up a yummy snack at the snap of a finger. We just know when someone is above average in any endeavor. Yes, they may have learned the skills needed to sing, build, sew, or cook but I bet that when they were very young, they were already showing their natural predisposition towards singing, building, sewing, cooking. They were already creating and experimenting at such a young age. I see it in preschool and elementary children all the time. I consider myself a talented teacher and also a hardworking one. Not everyone can teach well, especially at the lower levels. I have this innate ability to impart concepts that students can easily understand (and they love learning with me). Yes, I learned theories of education and their application in college just like my co-teachers. I can say that we are all hardworking, but when given the same topic to teach, for example, my lesson will be more creative and appealing to the students (and my lessons are used as examples by my superiors). That is why my students, who are in the next grade-level, always come back to me for explanation or tutorials For some reason, I just have this natural ability of imparting skills and content knowledge to young learners, even to adults when needed. I have had this ability without anyone teaching me how since I was young (I am the oldest of 4 children). What I learned in college just strengthened what I already have. It is not a popular concept that even though we do try our best, we can only produce mediocre or even below average results if we don't have the innate talent for it. It is easier to live in denial or say we can do it all or we can have it all if we just try hard enough. But there is such a thing as an inborn talent/gift/superior ability. Those who have it will produce something a lot better that some of us. Do people think that Stephen King is just all hard work and no talent? Is talent equated as hard work? Is success the only measure of innate talent or hard work? Is success based on hard work alone or talent alone or both? How about luck and timing? Sorry, this has become soooo long. It is the teacher in me hehehe.

so talented, hardworking people publish great works. That seems about right.

I know a ton of people who write book after book after book or revise the same book for years (working hard, surely) but they just don't have it--they lack that magic something to make their writing stand out/work. It's not nice, but it happens. Really based on sheet numbers of people who want to write, a TON of people work hard (b/c writing a novel is hard work) but don't write anything good. Vast majority, really. So the thing is to be the person who overcomes that hurdle successfully--without natural talent it's honestly way way harder/statistically less likely. Enthusiasm/hard work/wanting something doesn't make something good. I've read a lot of stilted, awkward, boring prose from people who wanted it really really bad and worked hard to finish something (or multiple somethings). The question of course always becomes: if a person continues to work hard, can the "skill building" aspect of writing trump the talent part? Sometimes, yes. Often, no. But equally sad is the talented writer who can never finish anything...