There's an excellent interview in the current edition of Words & Pictures (the SCBWI UK newsletter) with Charlie Sheppard, Senior Commissioning Editor at Random House children's books. One of the questions she's asked is "what has to happen in a story for it to be good?" This is her response:

There is no magic formula. I always tell my authors that a good book consists of two parts - a good style/voice and a good idea/plot. If an author has the former but not the latter there is hope for them. The ideas will come; the editor can help and encourage them. But if an author has a good story but no original way of telling it then there is little hope of them ever being published. The majority of people out there with a "book" in them have a great story to tell but not the tools to tell it with. An editor can improve a writer's style but they can't create it.

So can you learn to be a good writer, to have a good style/voice?

Sue

This reminds me of the phrase "finding your voice". Or finding your style. Some lucky people start out with a distinctive voice; others have to experiment and develop a voice.

Which leads to another question - just what IS the difference between the writer's voice and the character's voice?

But in my opinion the answer to your question is that good writers are both born and made.

Diamonds need to be polished. But they need to be diamonds first and not lumps of coal.

Adele.

Though coal and diamonds are made up of the same constituent atoms, so by some complicated and probably far-off process, a lump of coal writing a good story isn't impossible. Coal's carbon right? Could you change your point to 'but they need to be diamonds first and not a lump of carbon'? That'd help me out. I dropped chemistry at A2. Bleh.

As to 'writers voice' and 'characters voice'- I don't know. My English teacher always has a go at me, saying each piece I write has the same voice, but that can't be true as I know the characters I write about change- they're stupid or witty or depressed or manically happy or whatever. This confuses me somewhat and also makes me rather timid handing in creative writing coursework. She underlines stuff and goes 'that's James.' I suppose she means narrative voice but a lot of stuff I write is in the first person, so what's the difference? Egad.

I wonder if Charlie Sheppard meant 'good' writers or 'saleable' writers?

Sorry to sound a tad cynical, but I am sure a publishing house will look at the entire package and think - yeah, this will sell.

There will probably be something that stands out, great plot, unique writing (!), a fashionable subject matter, an interesting author.

I'm sure his two parts to a book theory is true, but ultimately I believe that publishers will say that most literary diamonds needs a bit of spin to make them shine...

beadle

Okk, you are right about the carbon theme. I did A level Chemistry a very long time ago but didn't pay much attention. However, I enjoyed drawing organic molecules with benzine rings in them (btw did you know that Kekele had a dream about snakes which gave him the shape of the benzine ring). Hmm, this seems to have turned into a Peter Cook sketch.

Bye,

Adele.

PS I have a vague idea that if you put carbon under extreme pressure, it turns into diamonds, however I don't think the same applies to writers...

<Added>

Benzine man was Kekule, not to be confused with ukulele or George Fornby...

I'm surprise more people don't agree with this idea. By posting our work on this site, listening to comments, considering alternative ideas, reworking, reposting and listening to new comments all contribute to the long, long process of becoming a writer. This isn't easy, at least I don't find it easy. My first drafts are always rubbish; it takes time, lots of time and lots of work to turn that shite into something readable, something I'm happy to post up in the first place.

Any idiot can come up with a good story idea, just the same as any idiot can whistle a good tune. It takes a craftsman to take that same idea, or tune to the next level.

Colin M

I agree with you Colin, 100% about the need to practice and learn... but - the impression I got from the quote was that Charlie Sheppard was suggesting that the important thing was an inherent style or voice. That if there was a certain something there by default...the rest could come later. A star quality maybe...or originality.

I'm not sure if that's how it was intended...or really how true that it is anyway. But it's true in so many other creative fields...so I guess it fits into writing too.

Again I agree totally that you can't even begin to show that style until you've learned the craft... But I also think that with enough training almost anyone can learn almost any craft to a very high level, but that doesn't make the special spark.

You can learn to write, I think: that is, you can learn the mechanics of writing a good piece, and you can learn to write efficient, concise prose. But as for writing the prizewinning stuff, well, that's another matter entirely.

I remember being told by the poet A E Markham (who was course-leader on the writing MA that I did) that the one thing that is impossible to learn is a writerly tone, and that that tone is what separates the good writers from the merely proficient.

I understand what he means. But having been involved in teaching creative writing for a while now, I am not so sure that this tone is so elusive. I've seen lots of writers start out without a shred of talent, and turn themselves into quite special writers--but only by working incredibly hard. It is as if by exposing themselves to literature, and words (and by putting an incredibly large number of hours into it) they manage to cultivate a talent which was invisible beforehand.

Having said that, I have seen some quite dreadful writers work very hard and end up as dreadful writers with a lot of writing experience under their belts. Not good. And it's difficult to know what to say to them, at the end of it. Thankfully, the courses I have taught have always come to an end so I have had an out!