Imagine a classroom filled with creative writing students. They have just finished their semester on poetry and studying the text, “Understanding Poetry” by Dr. Evans Pritchard, once made famous by Professor John Keating in “Dead Poets Society.” Now they have moved on to my unit on writing novels.
A student raises his hand. “I want to write a story but I don’t know where to start.”
“Sure you do,” I say. “You pick up a pen or put your fingers on the keyboard and you start writing. It’s really that simple. Ba-da-bing! You’ve started your novel.”
“But what about my outline? My character journals? My story web? Those aren’t done yet.”
“What a relief!” I say. “Think of all the extra time you have to play with your imaginary friends. They’re ready to go. They’ve been waiting for you all this time.”
The student looks confused. Maybe a little panicky. “They’re not ready. I don’t even know who they are yet.”
“You’ve got an idea for a story, right?” I ask.
“Yeah. Well, I have a premise.”
“If you’ve got a premise, then you’ve got a compass point to head toward. Just start walking. Your imaginary friends will find you. They have to. Otherwise there’s no story. You know what they say about necessity and inventions, right?”
“But I don’t know where the story is going to go.”
“How could you?” I ask. “You haven’t started playing with your imaginary friends yet. Once you get in their heads and in their space, things will happen. Trust me on this.”
“Suppose it’s no good?” the student asks.
“Who cares? If you’ve come this far in your writing journey–Lord, I hate that phrase–you’ve got all the basics. Everything else is subjective. Just sit down, try to ignore everything you’ve learned in classes before this one, and try having fun with your characters.”
The student’s face is a mask of confusion. “One of my problems is structural. My critique group tells me I can’t have a prologue.”
“Do you like your prologue?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a good prologue? Necessary to the story?”
“They think it’s not.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s both good and necessary.”
“Then tell your critique group to kiss your hind quarters. They can do it individually or together with one giant pucker.”
Another hand goes up. It belongs to a young lady with purple hair and a pound of steel hanging out her ears and nose. “Excuse me, Professor Gilstrap,” she says. “You seem to think that anyone can write a story.”
“Yes.”
“You mean anyone who’s trained for creative writing, right?”
“Nope. I mean anyone. Just as anyone can sing Irish ballads on St. Patrick’s Day.”
Purple Hair scoffs, “A drunk on a bar stool isn’t exactly Pavarotti.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “Maybe he’s only Frank Sinatra. I’ll bet Little Boy Frankie started off singing because it was fun. I’ll bet he was singing even before he knew what an F sharp or B flat were. I’ll bet he sang because it gave him pleasure. Just like the guy on the barstool.”
“I call bull fritters on that,” Purple declares. “There’s only one Frank Sinatra.”
“There’s only one you,” I say. “And only one me. Only one Michael Bublé, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand or Justin Bieber. In each case, I’ll bet that their fame and fortune began with the simple enjoyment of their art.”
Another hand. Given the curve in his nose, I’m betting its owner plays rugby. “Most of us could sing all day and study our butts off in music class and we’d never be a Pavarotti or a Sinatra.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because they were born with a gift.”
“What gift?” I ask. “I’ve got a larynx and a set of lungs just like they do. If I wanted to, why couldn’t I go to music school, learn breath control and diction and be a gifted singer? I did a lot of musical theater in high school.”
“It’s not that kind of gift,” Rugby Boy says. “Crooners like Sinatra made the words of a song come alive. It’s like he lived the songs he wrote.”
“Kind of like he saw the world in a different way?” I ask. “A unique way?”
“Exactly,” Rugby Boy says.
“Suppose I went to Julliard and studied the performances of the masters of music?” I ask. “Couldn’t I do just like them?”
“A paint by numbers Rembrandt will never be a real Rembrandt,” says the student who started this.
“You make a good point,” I say. I’m enjoying the Socratic exercise. “Now, remind me which music schools Sinatra and Streisand went to. Did they even have art schools when young Rembrandt was causing trouble?”
The class stares back at me.
“Here’s the thing,” I say. “While anyone can write, not everyone can capture the hearts of readers. The mechanics of writing can be taught, but the soul of the story must flow from the soul of the writer, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call talent. So it is with all of the arts–acting, singing, painting, sculpting, and, yes, writing. Writers born with talent can be coached to hone it and improve it. But no amount of training and schooling can create talent where none exists.”
“Are you saying that some of us are wasting our time here at school?” Purple Hair asks.
“Only you can answer that question,” I say. “But you’ll never have that answer unless you write, and you’ll never have the stamina to produce the required number of words to make it matter unless you write because you love the process.”
Okay, TKZers, I know there’s red meat here for some of you. Have at it, but please be polite. And as an aside, I am on vacation as you read this, living in Zulu time. Maybe Zulu+1. I’ll be monitoring the responses, but my own responses will be oddly timed, I’m sure.
USA Today bestselling author Karen Odden received her PhD in English from NYU, writing her dissertation on Victorian literature, and taught at UW-Milwaukee before writing mysteries set in 1870s London. Her fifth, Under a Veiled Moon (2022), features Michael Corravan, a former thief turned Scotland Yard Inspector; it was nominated for the Agatha, Lefty, and Anthony Awards for Best Historical Mystery. Karen serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime, and she lives in Arizona where she hikes the desert while plotting murder. Find out more about Karen’s books and writing workshops at 
First things first. As I write this, it’s Book Launch Day! Harm’s Way, the 15th entry in my Jonathan Grave thriller series drops today. In this story, Jonathan is summoned by FBI Director Irene Rivers to rescue someone special from the grips of a drug cartel that has taken a group of missionaries hostage in Venezuela. Once the team arrives, however, they discover trouble far more horrifying than a standard hostage rescue. When the first book in the series appeared in 2009, I never would have thought it would have the kind of legs that it has.