Okay, so recently I asked a bunch of people what they think their flaws and strengths are in writing, and I have noticed something (which I always knew, actually, but this time for some reason I thought about it more.) Specifically, I have noticed that the good, talented writers tend to have these very long lists of bitches about their own work and much shorter lists of things they actually like, whereas the crappy writers tend to have the reverse. Further, the good writers tend to have deeper concerns: they write about how bad their characterization, dialogue, plotting, structure, etc is, whereas the notsogreat writers tend to say things like "I use too many commas" or "I'm weak on my research." Now, what I'm wondering is this: Is it that the better writers are better because they perceive their own flaws whereas the others are kinda clueless? Or is it that the better writers perceive their own flaws because they're better, whereas the others don't have the skill to recognize the flaws? And what about talent? Does having a natural talent for writing tend to make you notice your own flaws more than someone who doesn't have that instinct? At the moment, I'm tending toward the latter (they see the flaws because they're better) and "yes, it does." I'm thinking that people who are less talented don't have a knack for noticing the problems in their writing, therefore they cannot improve because they don't see what's wrong to begin with?

Here's the deal. If you are aware of things like theme and rhythm of the voice in your head when you read (that's poetry concerns, but you get the drift) you will hone them and learn and get better at it as you focus on it. Like any skill, right? Now, some folks do have an easier time with perceiving patterns in specific materials. But if a person can be taught to recognize the patterns and convinced of their importance suddenly they are a talented beginner. But conferring talent on someone is hard because you have to do it backward-they have to be convinced the patterns are important before they can learn to recognize them. And the person who sees into the material directly has a huge head start...but if they slop off they can be surpassed.