While some claim to be born with the storytelling gene, I believe it’s more an outcome of the learning, or not, that has led them to where they are.įailure is never unfair. If you aren’t aware of those criteria - or worse, if you reject the notion that they exist - then you are stuck in a paradox of your own creation.
Rather, we should realize where we are on the learning curve and use our early story experiences to learn what we need to learn… perhaps realizing for the first time that there is something out there that we must learn.Īn underdeveloped instinct simply means that not all of the part-specific criteria for professional-level storytelling are being considered. It’s like expecting to shoot par at Augusta when all you’ve played is your neighborhood course. It is, perhaps, more apt that we shouldn’t expect it to go anywhere. It isn’t that we shouldn’t try to write a novel when we’re starting out. It is good to remember that perhaps we should not try to write like ( insert your favorite A-list author here) until you know what ( same author) knows. And often it takes years of practice and study and near misses. Instincts that work are, in fact, grounded in the same principles that the newer writer has yet to internalize. It’s like asking a star high school pitcher to start a game in the major leagues… they can throw, but they aren’t ready yet. They land on an idea, and commit to it as a story - or in some cases, begin plotting the story as they write a draft, working solely from their instincts - from instinct that is uninformed, or at least under-informed.
My hypothesis is this: Too many writers aren’t doing the work from an instinct, a storytelling muscle, that is strong enough. Let’s try to understand why that ratio-96 percent of submissions are rejected, while only 4 percent land an agent, and from there, only a fraction those land a publisher-is what it is.