[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 1.14 MB, 1508x2048, 1617424378512.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19916356 No.19916356 [Reply] [Original]

How exactly do you become a "great" writer? Is it a skill that you hone through many years of practice, or just natural talent where you're either born with it or you're not? Take Tolstoy for example: he never professionally studied literature as his career, he was a military man, and already in his 20s was producing works of tremendous merit. What about Tolstoy made him great, and how did he achieve it?

>> No.19916388

>>19916356
A bit of everything. Anybody can become a decent writer with discipline and practice, as with almost everything. Plenty of reading and plenty of writing is your best bet for becoming an author.

However, not everybody can be a good author, let alone an exceptional author. That’s where the debate comes in. Most of the brilliant authors had iron disciplines, but that alone doesn’t merit instant success.

The most likely answer is the union between raw talent, will and vital experience. Of course, you must also have that “something” in you, the sauce, if you will.

>> No.19917028

>>19916356
Genetics. Not only as an author but as a people's reader.

>> No.19917035

>>19916356
You get popular with the right people who
make you know to normies and suddenly you're great.

>> No.19917040

Suffering. Mental illness. Humour.

>> No.19917056

>>19916356
Obviously you must have a talent for expression coupled with the experience to add weight to your prose.
But more importantly you must be connected. You will never be recorded as a great writer in history if you aren't connected to those in power, either through blood relations or sly networking.

>> No.19917078

>>19917056
>people actually believe this
Try writing something that's actually good. What were Pynchon's connections? Cormac's?

>> No.19917083

As of today it's literally impossible because it entirely depends on corporate sponsorship.

>> No.19917090

>>19917078
>What were Pynchon's connections? Cormac's?
Not him but they belong to literally another era.

>> No.19917095

>>19917056
>>19917083
OP asked how to become a great writer, not a commercially successful writer, or even a well known writer. You guys are doing it for the wrong reason.

>> No.19917103

>>19917095
"Great writer" is meaningless. We are currently on a board where people think visual novels are good literature.

>> No.19917143
File: 694 KB, 1623x2048, one arm bandit.jfif.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19917143

>>19916356
masturbation

>> No.19917156

>>19917103
Great means entertaining. Kafa was not commercially sucessful but is wildly entertaining. Just admit your cupidity, wallet nerd

>> No.19917579

>>19916356
I have met, or have heard stories of through a connected friend, a few really great writers, Paul Auster (directly), Eudora Welty and Walker Percy (knew someone who knew them personally), a poet who was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (knew directly), and they were/are intelligent people, but the main thing that I noticed about them was a singlemindedness. They were very selfish in terms of their friends and family, everything was in service to their art, their time, their effort, their focus. In everything outside of that they were like children practically. Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella or ever learn to drive. His wife did everything so that he could focus all of his intellect on his art. This is the way with most writers of great ability. It's a less glamorous truth, but it is the truth.

>> No.19917675
File: 12 KB, 236x233, ae4d0dd0101e7fb4d648b351585f66a6.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19917675

>>19916356
You know what I've realized? People who tell you "it's all natural talent" are full of shit. Nobody is automatically good at anything the first time they've tried. Anyone who tells you that is trying to make you doubt yourself. They might not even know they're doing it, or they may even use it as an opportunity to humble brag about their own work. Don't listen to them.
Just practice

>> No.19917690

>>19917675
Given equal amount of work, talent is what's left. It's what separates Joyce from King.

>> No.19917700

>>19917675
>who is rimbaud

>> No.19917749

>>19917579
>Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella or ever learn to drive. His wife did everything so that he could focus all of his intellect on his art.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/02/10/the-genius-and-mrs-genius
Now that's a woman.

>> No.19917780
File: 138 KB, 660x330, dunning-kruger-0011.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19917780

>>19917690
Two writers can be familiar with the same techniques, have the same amount of hours invested, and one will end up being more entertaining than the other. That's true.
You should still put in as many hours as you can though. That's how you master any subject. It requires consistent practice

>> No.19917800

>>19916356

Writing is just a more organized form of thinking you know. If you can think a great thought you can write one too.
Do you need practice or education to do this? For most people who have the capacity I would think no.

>> No.19917885

>>19917579
Today my brother was watching one of those home renewal shows and the discussion veered into art. I have given up art a long time ago and he reproached me saying (paraphrasing) >but the people who work doing things they like surely did a whole lot of shit they hated to get there
He just doesn't get that you never manage to get out of it. Like with visual art you have to do something so specific and alienating that any second you switch you'll burn everything you've built up to that point. You simply cannot get unstuck. You either become a complete servant forever or you quit. At least since the Internet era it's practically impossible and I have not a single example of someone who started off pandering to achieve popularity and then went on doing something of true artistic value. Not in art, not in any other field.

>> No.19917893

>>19917156
Vast majority of people would say that visual novels are entertaining. More than Kafka, actually.

>> No.19917930

Talent, hard work, and luck are usually what you need to be successful. Keep in mind a lot of great writers were not successful in their lifetimes. Faulkner had to sell out in a way to actually reach success. It's a bit different now as some talented writers can get grants and stuff, but that's only for the critically successful as well. You need to write first of all, as much as you can, and try to get a good editor or agent to give advice on your work.

>> No.19917938

>>19917930
>It's a bit different now as some talented writers can get grants and stuff
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA *WHEEZE*

>> No.19917968

>>19916356
As with any great artist, the great writer is in touch with his Divine Self. He learns to strengthen that connection with the transcendent. Everything superfluous sloughs off and only the kernel of the Virtuous, True, and Beautiful remains. That is what guides him and makes his work last for centuries.

>> No.19917985

>>19917675
The genius artist takes 6-7 years on average to master his craft. The average person may take ten years at least or may never master it. You also have to be high in trait Psychoticism to be truly creative. High intelligence and Psychoticism are a rare combination but necessary for artistic genius.

>> No.19917987

>>19917938
What's your problem? That's very antisocial behavior

>> No.19917995

>>19917987
Where the fuck are the *talented* writers today? grants are given to people based on politics, not merit

>> No.19917996

>>19917995
Oh I see. You've already determined yourself a failure

>> No.19918005

>>19917996
>already
I've been around for a while. It's all bullshit. Social media, politics, marketing, sucking dick, pandering. Your "talent" and "dedication" are all bullshit. You need talent, yeah, for marketing. You need dedication for selling yourself like a whore. This is why everything in the past 20 years has been a steaming pile of shit and will only get worse.

>> No.19918018

>>19916356
I heard having sex helps but I wouldn't know

>> No.19918083

Generally speaking the whole narrative about the arts is that you're a worthless piece of shit lazy idiot until you make it, then you're a talented hard working genius. The evaluation of your worth comes literally after you become a person of worth (and this ALWAYS means material success today) and basically every person "of worth" who got to get stamped with the worth label through nepotism, pandering, cutting corners, fraud, theft, sucking dick, pouring tons of money into marketing, having "friends", being born rich in America gets to say "oh yeah I worked hard, that's why I made it". Even if you have obvious proof that this is false. Americans have spread this cancerous worship of money and success to every other place on Earth and because of this fucking mindset, this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are successful you are always good, and if you are not successful you're always bad and it's your fault. Literally all this discourse is so filled with doublethink I don't even know where to begin.
>If you don't make it you are bad, it's all merit based.
>Many great authors were unsuccessful in their time (which is false since none of them had to worry about money at all and/or had related jobs)
So they were these people bad?
>The people who made it worked sooo hard
>You should do it as a hobby when you come back from your day job
Which one again? How do I work soooooo hard if I'm supposed to waste all of my day on a stupid fucking job that makes me want to kill myself?
It's like punching water. In the end this is the world we live in where people will bend themselves backwards to confirm their narrative no matter how schizophrenic and nonsensical it is.

>> No.19919304

>>19916356
I'd say it's a combination of education and talent. You need to be very familiar with many different writers and thinkers, as well as have the ability and drive to produce a great work of art yourself. There's plenty of writers who practice their craft everyday yet are doomed to be mid.

>> No.19919315

>>19917893
and?

>> No.19919339

>>19918083
If you see it as a waste of time because you aren't getting recognition, then it probably is a huge waste of time.
Your mind has been poisoned by greed and daydreams of fame.

>> No.19919352

>>19919339
None of you people have ever made anything. My "daydreams of fame" were just being able to live in poverty while doing something I loved. But I am sure that all the smut and consumer garbage and propaganda were not a waste of time. Indeed they are exactly what you deserve.

>> No.19919385

>>19919352
I remember you. You made a whole thread about this. Post writing then.
I've been published. That's going to sound like an affront or brag to you, but I literally didn't think about it, was pushed by some friends to submit, and then it happened and I just kept on writing.

So call me a liar, or smut writer or whatever it is you need in order to cope and feel like the world has wronged you, when you've just wronged yourself.

>> No.19919420

>>19919385
If he posts it's only fair if you disclose what you got published. You can be vague, but ar least give us the genre. I, at least, won't judge you. I fucking write smut out of genuine passion, not monetary motivation.

>> No.19919434

>>19919420
>I fucking write smut out of genuine passion, not monetary motivation.

That's based af. Would to read.

Poetry. I've published in about eleven different reviews/magazines and have one collection of poems out atm. Currently working on my second.

>> No.19919462

Honestly, in the case of some people like Tolstoy, it's just natural genius. He wrote more simplistically than most writers and he still mogs everyone.

>> No.19919464

>>19917078
>What were Pynchon's connections?
Oh, anon. Don’t tell me you don’t know.

>> No.19919530

>>19919385
>You made a whole thread about this.
I never did and I'm not a writer.
>>19919434
>That's based af. Would to read.
BAAAAASED
kys

>> No.19919546

>>19916356
All you need is an imaginative mind and some experience in the language of your choice. This is of course if you consider a great author as someone who just writes great books.

>> No.19919621

>>19919530
Then what are you bitching about?
Your non-work not being published?

>> No.19919946

>>19917780
You seem to be mistaking greatness with entertainment value. They're not synonymous. Related, but very distinct.

>> No.19920221

>>19917579
>and they were/are intelligent people, but the main thing that I noticed about them was a singlemindedness.
This is true for big artists - the greats are like this but not totally

>> No.19921574

>>19916356
>be a genius
>have a knack for writing
Its really that simple, and no, I'm not being ironic.

>> No.19921584

>>19916356
funny thing I watched a documentary about the difference in anglo countries and France about how to make good literature.
basically in France they don't have any school/college/universities that teach you style on how to write to hopefully become a great author like in anglo-sphere countries.
they believe the authors will reveal themselves as they are born with such skills like if it was genetics and through life experiences.