It depends what you mean by writing. Literacy can certainly be taught. One can learn grammar, punctuation, vocab, and the structure of language.
However, creative writing involves imagination and the ability to select the right word in terms of both sound, rhythm, and meaning. These things cannot be taught.
I signed up for a writing class - how to write short stories = more as a way of gaining human contact and getting out of the house in the face of Cvoid than anything else. I am stunned that the professor is suggesting ways of stimulating the imagination.
For instance, he will tell us to eavesdrop on a conversation during the week, and then the next week, we must write a story about that. This week, he also told us to think of an idiom, and then write a story about it 10 minutes later.
Everybody, up to this time, has been taking real life incidences from their own life. I concocted something weird and wonderful in 10 minutes.
He couldn't believe that. He said in stunned amazement. "I can't believe you did that in 10 minutes."
Earlier, on another exercise he said, "You have quite an imagination."
In London, two decades ago, two different professors told me the same thing. One guy, on a course on how to sc reenwrite, gave us 10 minutes to think of a story. I did it in five. The guy was gobsmacked. He said I would be welcome on any movie writing crew because I had characterize,sumarmarized, and a whole lot of other things in 10 minutes. As I said, I had done it in 5 and was bored the other 5.
These things are talents, Priyam. They cannot be taught. David Baldaci wrote his recent bestseller in the back of a taxi cab in three weeks. When he wanted to write, he hired a cab to drive him around, and then he wrote in the back seat.
The nonsense one learns on writing courses is just that - nonsense. One of J. K. Rowling's professor's said that they didn't teach her to write. She could already write by the time she got to university.
Imagination (or creativity or intelligence) has something to do with the structure of the brain. Einstein's brain, on his death was found to have substantially more synapses correcting the different aspects of the brain. Some months ago, I read that they're discovering that the higher one's intelligence is, the more connection there is between the different aspects of the brain.
Thirty years ago, I read that all international bestselling authors had one thing in common - they were intellectually gifted - in the top 1%.
My IQ was measured at 165 (25 points above genius) when I was 9 or 10 years old At 45. I had a series of tests. One doctor told me I had the highest creativity score he had seen in his 30-year practice. Another told me that I was off the graph and fitted every rare category. I had done a -hour test in 90 minutes - a very strange one. They measured my brain activity while I was doing it. She also said I had the rare capacity to arrive at an accurate answer without full supporting evidence. I have that in writing from the doctor who tested me.
Creative writing in a talent. It is genetic. You have to be highly intelligent to do it successfully. Literacy is something everybody can be taught. People can become journalists, technical writers, etc.
Write like Asimov or Herbert or Tolkien or Patterosn or Cussler, etc. where you create plots, characters, and keep the reader reading?
That is something completely different.
This ability shows up very young. I was published by the time I was 10 or 11 years old.
