By Pete Klismet
(Continued from Part II last month)
My
research into the ability to write had to go a few steps beyond where I had
taken it to that point, which wasn’t very far. So I searched under the topic of “Are Talented Authors Endowed with an
Innate Writing Ability?” and found an article by one Mathew Kulas, who claims
to be a professor of writing (do they really have these?).
In
his article, Mr. Kulas proposes: “Many people argue that accomplished storytellers are born with this
skill, however I am in no way certain. Maybe you might have a degree of predisposition, yet I think
that authors are created (my emphasis
added). In my opinion certain authors are highly gifted but even so these
individuals still had to develop the gift by way of extensive learning,
practice, in addition to thinking. For
that reason, I think writing to be all three — a skill, a craft as well as a
talent.”
That
didn’t help a lot, but I also realize research means you form a hypothesis (a
theory) and then seek to either prove or disprove it. Thus, Mr. Kulas didn’t help much,
because he seemed to equivocate, claiming all three are factors. But maybe he’s also saying if you have the
native ability and hone it, you could become a skilled writer. Makes sense. However, I have also learned the idea behind investigating or
researching something is to avoid coming up with a theory, and then finding
facts to fit the theory, not disprove it. So I needed to press on.
Next I came
across an article by one James M. Jaspar. Reviewing his website, Mr. Jaspar appears to be interested in teaching
people how to write, particularly when he says: “Anyone can learn to write well. This is not some innate skill like
perfect pitch. Solid, even elegant writing is an ability we acquire little by little,
learning the proper uses of one verb or preposition at a time, mastering long
sentences then short ones -- and then figuring out how to combine the two. We learn to compensate for our own
stylistic idiosyncrasies, whether these are an excessive use of adverbs or logical
connectors or a tendency to write one paragraph after another of exactly the same
length.” His website is located at: http://www.jamesmjasper.org/Writing.html.
So I concluded: Either he’s
wrong, or I’m wrong, but I’ll go with him being wrong, since I have little clue
what he’s trying to say. Albert Einstein
once said “If you can’t explain your topic simply, you don’t understand it yourself.” I didn’t find Mr. Jasper’s article to be
simple. Plus, he seems to want to make
money by teaching those who can’t write how to write, so I had to conclude we’d
have to agree to disagree. Mr. Jaspar’s
article definitely didn’t advance my theory much farther than where it had
already been.
Part
of the reason for even looking into this somewhat esoteric topic was based
on thirteen years of teaching in a community college. I found out that reading the written work of
some of my students was almost impossible. Many couldn’t spell, but worse than that those same students were not
able to carry out a thought beyond one sentence. Others did quite well. So I was stuck in a quandary, wondering if I
was truly accomplishing anything in trying to make my poor students write yet
more while frustrating themselves to death (not to mention me having to read
what they were trying to say). It took
some time to figure out that there was a direct correlation between those who
were poor writers, and those who got poor grades.
“Ah-ha!” I thought. “Now I’m onto something.” Perhaps the ability to learn is based on one’s intelligence level. Contrary to what the U.S. Constitution says,
my theory is that “All men are NOT created equal.” I had a living laboratory right there in
front of me. So, I had a meeting with
myself, tried to think outside the box, and formed my own theory: “The
ability to write well is based on one’s level of intelligence.” Good writers tend to be brighter people. They can interpret information and think
critically about what the information means. Then they can explain it in understandable
terms. Those who don’t have this ability are only capable of parroting back
rote information.
Absolute proof of this came in my Human
Relations and Social Conflict classes. Part of my final exam consisted of doing
essays on topics we’d covered over the course of the semester. Being the nice professor I was (!), I let
them use their notes to do the essays. I
would pose eight questions related to topics we’d covered, tell them to pick
the four they liked, and finally to create essays on those four. Without fail, the better students could take
their notes and explain what we were covering. By contrast, the poor students would simply re-write their notes,
meaning they had written down the information, but had no clue how to explain it, so they just simply parroted
their notes back to me.
In the Criminal Profiling class I taught, I did the same thing, only with
a higher degree of difficulty, since it was the most advanced course in our
program. I’d give them four fact
patterns and ask them to do a ‘profile’ of an unknown offender, based on the
fact pattern of a murder case or a sexual assault. Voila! Exactly the same results. Some would just re-write a laundry list, but
could not explain how they’d come to the conclusions. The better students would do an in-depth
analysis and explain every point they were making. It was a pleasure to read the latter, and
whether they were right or wrong was less important than how they explained the
conclusions they arrived at.
In conclusion, I believe you’ve either
got it or you ain’t got it. I’ve thought
that for years, and I now have myself even further convinced. If your intellect isn’t fairly high, you
probably have failed to learn the basics you needed to learn about writing well in the early grades. And if you
missed that, or ignored it, then it will influence your ability to write the
rest of your life. I’d like to think I
proved my theory, but I’m still not sure. It was fun thinking about something I’ve wondered about for years. The question would then be, am I a good
enough writer that you understand why I wrote this and what it all means? If the answer is “yes,” then I’ve done my job
in expressing my opinion.
About
the Author: About thirty years ago, a small cadre of FBI
agents were hand-picked by the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) to receive
training in what was then a highly-controversial and ground breaking concept:
Psychological Profiling. Pete Klismet
was fortunate enough to have been chosen to become one of the original FBI
“profilers.” He received additional training, was temporarily assigned to work
with the BSU in Quantico, Virginia, and put that training and experience to
work in assisting state, federal and local law enforcement agencies in
investigating violent crimes.
He was named National Law Enforcement
Officer of the Year in 1999, the same year he retired from the FBI. For the next 13 years he taught in colleges,
and is now retired as a professor emeritus. He and his wife Nancy live in
Colorado Springs.
