Deb, it'll sting, but someone gave me much the same message long ago, and it made all the difference in the world. You did the right thing.

I'm not so elitist that I believe fiction writing can't be taught--i.e. with work and study, IMO a mediocre talent could do good work,

But it's like martial arts. ita could walk into krav maga and be a solid student immediately, because she had a foundation of solid technique. I just started tai chi, and I kept falling off balance and forgetting what move I'd just been shown. The difference is that I'm starting from ignorance and ita is starting from experience.

Deb's friends are starting far enough down that they don't need her help. They need Creative Writing 101.

You know, it's basics. A novel begins with characters, individuals: they don't have to be likeable or sympathetic by they do have to be distinct, have failures, have quirks, eat cookies or like to rollerblade or any damned thing you like, but they must, must, must have something to which the reader can respond, if only by recognition.

This thing has none. You can interchange dialogue between the male and female characters. And the ones that are "quirky"? You can see the author with a cheatsheet.

In a novel, those characters go on a journey. They begin, they do things, there are things they want and things to fear and all the paraphenalia of humanity, that makes a story. Something resolves, however gently or loudly.

See point one: no believable characters. If you have no individual real characters, how can they go on a journey? They don't exist.

Ditto what I personally define as plot (hey, they asked me to help, they get my definition), which in my writing reality is the mechanics of the story: how the characters get from point A to point B to point C.

They've got nothing. The characters are unreal, everything sounds like it's being pitched to Tim Robbins' character in "The Player", you can see the authors tossing back the "ooh, let's make this have an abusive show biz managing mama!"

I hate this. I hate hate hate this. How did I wind up doing no work on Matty all weekend, to deal with this?

I'm sorry to hear this...that would be my fear. But also kind of Nelson Muntz because it isn't mine so I can point and say "Ha Ha!". Poor Deb, though.

But it's like martial arts. ita could walk into krav maga and be a solid student immediately, because she had a foundation of solid technique. I just started tai chi, and I kept falling off balance and forgetting what move I'd just been shown. The difference is that I'm starting from ignorance and ita is starting from experience.

Deb's friends are starting far enough down that they don't need her help. They need Creative Writing 101.

Hmm. I don't think I have an iota of natural skating talent, but I have learned how to skate--it just took me longer than it does more talented people. However, sports are pretty much just more complicated versions of moving your body and manipulating objects. So if you can walk, you can learn to skate, and if you can pick up an object, you can learn to swing a baseball bat--some people are just a heck of a lot better at it than others.

So maybe I am being arrogant here in thinking there are people out there who just can't write fiction. But I still think the music analogy might hold more than the sports one. And AFAIK, there really ARE people who are truly tone deaf, and therefore could never be turned into singers no matter how much they tried. I'm inclined to believe the same is true of any of the arts (I don't think I could ever learn to paint passably well, for example). But, of course I could be wrong.

Off to get groceries and go skating--back in a few hours.

I'm not saying these people can't be taught. I'm saying that they can't waltz into a high-level course, which is what Deb has to offer. They need to start in the beginner class.

There are people who are very very good at teaching beginners, and who enjoy it. Deb isn't enjoying it, by her own telling. She's happy to brush up competent work, but miserable trying to correct fundamental mistakes.

And AFAIK, there really ARE people who are truly tone deaf, and therefore could never be turned into singers no matter how much they tried.

Recent research proves this false. Nobody is tone deaf. Some people haven't been taught to listen, or learn to listen slowly. But anybody can be taught to distinguish musical tones, and to produce them him/herself. This makes me happy.

So if you can walk, you can learn to skate, and if you can pick up an object, you can learn to swing a baseball bat--some people are just a heck of a lot better at it than others.

Well, sure. But just as some people can't hit a note correctly, some people can't swing a baseball bat at all. It's a different scale of disability, true, but they're both limitations.

So I do think that some people just can't write a readable story. Some people can't even write readable sentences. But I do think that the majority of people can grasp the basics and improve through learning and practice. Whatever inner spark makes a person a good writer can also be improved with learning and practice. Even Olympic atheletes practice, after all.

See point one: no believable characters. If you have no individual real characters, how can they go on a journey? They don't exist.

Heh. Sure they can - it's just that the reader doesn't give a damn and puts the book down.

And it takes me so long to write a post, Betsy's making me look crazy. :)

Deb's friends are starting far enough down that they don't need her help. They need Creative Writing 101.

This, to me, makes me wonder how much, and how widely, they've read of other people.

You cannot write without reading, you really can't, you're just going to be clueless. My mother says that in recent years she's started being overwhelmed with students who haven't read novels that weren't assigned for classes. (Instead, what they know is movies.) And they want to start writing, and they want to be told they're brilliant, and what they produce drives her crazy.