Last updated on October 24, 2024
Wizards and scribes – storytellers are born not made
Storytellers are writers who wield their pens (er, or keyboards) with a brilliance and finesse that appears to defy logic and the writing rules in some cases. You’ve seen them. You know who they are. Wizards with a pen or keyboard is what we all aspire to become. But to reach that, or work toward that or to even know if that’s possible means understanding what makes a writer a writer.
Um, they write, right?
Okay, cheekiness aside, there are various schools of thought on this storyteller business. I’m in the camp that believe writers of the storyteller variety are born, not made. I’m not saying that there aren’t all varieties of great writers or writers who create inventive, complex and well-threaded yarns that leave you saying “Hey, that was damn good, I really liked that” when you finish reading a piece. That’s not what I’m talking about. There are tonnes of excellent, solid writers around this rock and they work hard at their profession every day. I’m talking about the other kind.
The natural storytellers. The wizards.
Natural storytellers may not always be the most technically perfect writer or even formally trained. But they have something else you can’t teach. The ability to infuse words with spirit. It’s the magic part. Don’t believe in magic in words? I shun you, non-believer! Okay, you can stay. How about I enlighten you, instead?
Storytellers and the history of spelling
Writing is the oldest form of magic. Honestly, it used to scare the pants off people. Hey, don’t take my word for it–look it up.
Back when almost no culture on earth had a system of writing, of the ones that did, very few people were educated in it. People revered those educated in writing and also feared them–they were considered magical persons. It’s where the belief in written spells having power arose. It wasn’t so much the words themselves people feared, but the skill of the ones wielding them and what the words they made represented.
To the uneducated, the perception of what happened when someone wrote was this…
The mechanics of writing involved these skilled people taking a thought or an idea from inside their head, or even an emotion tied to it, and then encapsulating it in a concrete form, in a word or multiple words. That concrete form could then be transported across a distance to another person, even a stranger, who would decode it, read the words. In doing so, they would feel the same emotion that had been inside the writer, think the same thought that had been inside the writer’s head. To affect another person at a distance, to put your thoughts and emotions inside someone else, to manipulate their thoughts and emotions in this way was what gave rise to the belief that writing was a form of magic. When you think of it that way, it most certainly is.
Taking a thought out of your own head and putting it into someone else’s? That’s crazy! And terrifying in some cases.
Then there are these guys…
This is what I’m talking about when I say storyteller writers are born, not made. There are scribes who definitely do a bang-up job, but then there are wizards, the storytellers who can tap into that magic dusted over words hocus-pocus and make you feel what they feel and see what they see and forget there’s anything else around you. These people are in another class.
I agree with Stephen King’s belief that a good writer can become great with practice, no question. But writing is also an art form and just like any other art, there are practitioners and there are masters. Masters are born with innate ability. That little something extra beyond techniques learned, beyond what thousands of hours of practice and polish can accrue. It’s that brilliant, natural and unteachable ability that sets them apart from the rest. It’s the part you can’t describe.
The magic part.
Scribes and Wizards – the difference between “writers” and storytellers
The difference between reading something written by a scribe as opposed to one of these wizard storytellers? Okay, well it’s the difference between reading something from someone who’s a great writer and reading something that sucks you in so far you forget where you are, makes you cry when a character who feels like your best friend dies, makes you angry and yell unabashed in an empty room when the villain doesn’t get his comeuppance and then feel emotionally drained and yet strangely, deeply sated when it’s over. It’s the difference between a great book and a classic that’s enduring in its ability to affect people across decades and ages and never dulls with the passage of time. It’s what everyone who writes wants to produce, but few achieve.
There are a lot of people calling themselves “writers”. To me, that title is at the top with “bard” and reserved for those with that natural born ability to affect people at a distance. I see it very simply–there are people who write, the scribes, and then there are natural born storytellers and masters. Those are the wizards. Just my personal opinion, but, then again, I’ve been called a giant snob and am perfectly comfortable with that.
Really, I’m just very serious and careful and thoughtful about all artists. I feel they deserve their proper credit and respect. Look, you can’t tell me that someone using text generating software to pop off a boilerplate blog article can remotely consider themselves in the same class as Shakespeare or C. S. Lewis or Arthur C. Clarke. Puh-lease.
Are they a scribe or a wizard?
In an age where we have software that can help anyone produce just about anything artistic, I feel as though anyone with any natural born ability in any art needs defending. These things must be said outloud as well as recognising the subtle distinctions.
Let’s remember, not everyone who produces artwork in Photoshop is an artist. Not everyone who captures images on their iPhone camera and puts it up on YouTube is a filmmaker. Not everyone capable of writing a formula story using the Microsoft Word default thesaurus to expand their vocabulary is a writer. I think all that is fair.
Next time someone tells you they’re a writer, think about these things. Are they a scribe? Or are they one of the natural born storytellers, a wizard.
