Are you destined to be one kind of writer?

by George @ Tumblemoose

I’ve been a very fortunate writer. The very first article I wrote for my company newsletter – which was the very first article I ever wrote – took off like its pants were on fire and its butt was catchin’. That led to publication in trade journals and contracts to write textbooks and workbooks and such. At that time the closest thing to fiction for me was an entry into a literary competition that was based on an EMS call and it got me an Honorable Mention. I figure, “Yeah, I’ve been pretty fortunate as a writer.”

In the past year or so, since I decided to be a writer on a full time basis, almost all of my writing (and certainly any writing that has brought in money) has been non-fiction. I’ve been blessed with a writing style and conversational voice that lends itself very well to writing blog posts, SEO optimized articles and lots of “how to” stuff. I’m happy to do it and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I got no story

As a writer, the crowning jewel of achievement would be a novel that ends up a best-seller. In my mind, all of the other writing that I do is kind of a prep school for that achievement. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other writers who feel just the same way.

So I’ve got this great writing voice, most of the grammar chops and an understanding -albeit basic- about the business end of things. Cranking out a novel should be no problem. That’s what I thought. There’s only one problem:

I got no story. None. Sure, I’ve written some short fiction and a flash fiction piece or two but nothing stands out as remarkable. I do ok with the short fiction because I can start and finish strong. Both of my novels however, are stalled at about the 20 page mark. Why? ‘Cause I got no story. Both of them have -ahem- awesome starts. Great dialogue and I feel like the reader would be captured. At about 20 pages in they fizzle because I’ve got NFI where to go. The canvas is too wide open, too broad.

What to do

The way I see it, there are two ways to go:

I could start outlining, get some coaching and use some story organization software. I’m not sure that would help with not being able to story my way out of a paper bag, but I probably owe it to myself to try.

or

I could resign myself to the fact that maybe some writers aren’t fiction writers. It may be that writing talent does not universally cross all types of writing. I could focus on publishing non-fiction books and continue ghostwriting and such.

Which leads me to the title of this post. Do you think that writers can do it all? Are writers inherently “gifted” in one particular area?

Tell me what you think. Do you feel destined to be one kind of writer?