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I’ve been following an online writers’ forum that asks the question, “Are you a writer or a storyteller?”

It’s a good question, and one that everyone who writes should consider. The fact is, there are some wonderful writers out there and there are some wonderful storytellers. To have either talent in abundance places you in an elite club. But to have a high degree of both talents makes you a literary miracle.

I’ve recently read books by two contemporary authors: Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road, All the Pretty Horses, etc.) and Stephenie Meyer (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, etc.). Where do these eminently popular authors fall on the writer/storyteller continuum? I believe McCarthy is a better writer than storyteller, while Meyer is a better storyteller than writer. (Both, however, are very good at both, but exceptional at one, in my humble opinion.)

Many authors of the classics are high on both the writer and the storyteller scales: Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Leo Tolstoy … to name a few. These giants of literature could weave spellbinding stories. But they could also communicate them with writing that was nothing short of remarkable. That’s why their books are classics.

So what are you: a writer or a storyteller? Or are you both? And how high up the scale are you in each category? Assess your writing. Take an inventory of your talents. Identify where you fall short, then do what you have to do to push your natural talents higher through conscious effort. Even the classic writers had to work to augment the talents they were born with through conscious effort.
If you’re willing to do that, you may surprise yourself with the results.

I once read something Ernest Hemingway said about writing: “The most essential gift for a good writer,” he claimed, “is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”

The statement hit me like a bullet and has stayed with me ever since. When I’m not completely sincere in my writing, when I’m not keeping it “real,” when I’m not writing as well as I should be just to get it done, Hemingway’s words come back to haunt me and make me vow to do better.

Another quote from a writer has comforted me I don’t know how many times as I struggled to get writing projects off the ground: “Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” – Gene Fowler

Granted, what Fowler said doesn’t help much in terms of offering a solution, but isn’t it comforting to know you’re not the only one with this problem? (I should mention here that a few years ago I figured out a way to avoid the problem, or at least mitigate it, with a step-by-step pre-writing process that really does work for me, and apparently for others I’ve taught.)

But I digress. Back to writers’ quotes about writing. Beyond the two I just mentioned, here are a few others that are well worth reading:

“Less is more.” – Robert Browning

“If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.” – Epictetus

“I struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth, so help me God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn’t. Nobody can write the absolute truth.” – Henry Miller

“I have only made this letter long because I have not had time to make it shorter.” – Blaise Pascal

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” – Henry David Thoreau

“(Writing) – the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” – Mary Heaton Vorse

“Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.” – Logan Pearsall Smith

“Never believe anything a writer tell you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.” – Laurence Sterne

“Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.” – William Wordsworth

“Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.” – Aldous Huxley

There’s a wonderful exercise for getting off the starting block quickly when you have something to write. It’s called timed, nonstop writing and here’s how to do it:

1. Get in front of your screen or paper.
2. Start writing whatever comes to your mind about what you want or need to write about.
3. Don’t stop writing for anything for at least 10 minutes.

That’s it. It’s a great way to force yourself to make the world go away, get your project into your mind and get started. It’s like a warm-up when weightlifters go to the gym. Unless they’re fools, they don’t go to the bench and immediately try to press 300 pounds. They start with much smaller weights and do several sets of numerous repetitions to warm up their muscles and prepare themselves mentally for the big one. That’s what this exercise will do for your writing.

Here’s what will happen when you do a timed, nonstop writing exercise: You will force yourself to concentrate on what you are writing because you have to keep writing without stopping. You will want to stop writing to change what you’ve written, look up a word or ponder just the right way of stating something. But you can’t stop. You have to keep writing. Painful as that may be at first, it will build your ability to focus your mind and produce content. Plus, as you get used to it, you will find that you can go back to what you wrote during the exercise and pluck out some very nice words, phrases, full sentences and ideas to use in your finished writing.

I assure you, you will regularly surprise yourself with what you put down.

PS. This exercise does not replace the pre-writing process I describe in the manual, The Magic of Pre-Writing. That process is a full-bodied, step-by-step way to set up non-fiction writing projects for success and save yourself time to boot. The timed, nonstop writing exercise can be used as a powerful transitional step between a project’s pre-writing and writing phases.