Young Writers Society

The question whether skill or soul is more important writing has been eating at me for a while now, so I'd like to ask for your opinions.

Is it more important for a writer to be skilled at their craft, knowing how to use imagery, literary devices, and silver-lined words? Or is the amount of soul, emotion, and heart the real key to good writing?

-Shina

"Skill" is a very broad category for me. I find that it also covers characters, and if you've done your characters well there should be emotion in the work. Also, if you're not skilled in the craft of storytelling and keeping readers interested, the amount of emotion can be hard to see. (I also consider "characters/viewpoint," the key to creating emotion, part of skill. ) If you just have soul, then there can still be places where readers don't get it. Another way to think about it is: If you were given two stories with the same plot, same characters, same everything, which would you prefer? The one that was chock-full of metaphors, good description and clear sentences, or the one that was raw emotion?

I vote skill because it leads to everything in writing.

~Rosey

Absolutely SOUL. Skill can do a lot of great things for you and both attributes together would be best but in my mind its no contest, soul over skill every time.

Skill. You can have all the soul in the world, but if you don't have the skill to craft it into a good story, no one's going to even give your soulful work a second glance.

Hmmm, tricky.
I believe that to be a writer you have to have the soul, but to be a good one you need skill.

^^Yeah, that's basically sums it up, what Rhesus(if you're okay with me calling you that) said.

Skill, hands down.

Soul but no skill is what your stereotypical "emo" poet has. There's a lot of emotion behind what they're writing, but there's not much skill, so it often gets panned or insulted.

I think that it’s a matter of balance between the two. Without soul, the story, characters, and emotions seem dead. It’s one of the reasons I think so many readers struggle to show rather then tell. When you lack soul and emotion for the piece that you’re writing, then you aren’t going to be able to spin the story the way it’s meant to be spun.
Still, without skill, the basics of writing, your story is going to fall flat. Skills like grammar and characterization are essential in writing a good story.
Thing is, if you have more of one then the other, your story is either going to sound like an essay on the reasons why you think your government is the bestest, or its going to sound like something that popped out of a five year olds mouth on the spur of a moment.
Another thing is that I think soul is the essential. Skill can be learned and mistakes in the mechanics of a story can be fixed, but if a writer doesn’t have the soul and passion for they’re story, then what?

Honestly, you need to have both.

Favoring one over the other simply doesn't work. It's like deciding between shooting an arrow harder or shooting closer to the center.

Hmm...thinking about it, I really like that metaphor.

Skill, in the metaphor, is how accurate your shot is. Soul is how hard you shoot it.

Now, think of the target as your target audience. You want to have a great affect on them - in other words, hit the center, and hit it hard.

You can shoot the bow marvelously hard, but if you miss the target due to a lack of accuracy, it's no good.

You can hit the center of the target, but if you lack the power, it's no good.

You need to have both. Nail the center of the target AND hit it hard.

(Please, ignore the fact that professional archers score based on accuracy. It kills the metaphor.)

Both.

I say both, too. You need soul to stir up emotion in your readers, and skill to deliver it.

Both, but perhaps more skill than soul. You could say that Paolini put his soul into Eragon but he lacked the skill to make it a good read.

You break writing into two parts "soul" and "skill." Depending on if I understand what you mean, I think you could better definde the two categories as "idea" and "writing." What i mean by "idea" is the story itself as well as the characters the stuff the "writing" side portrays. Simply put I think you need to have a blend of both to have a good story but the reader is what it really comes it come down to. I like soul more skill personally

To be a writer of any sort I believe you have to have soul. If you don't have any soul, why would you want to write at all? Writing without soul is what you get in all those thousands of English papers we were forced to write in highschool/college. If you don't have any desire it write it, you won't put any heart into it, and then what's the point anyway?

But while soul is important to write at all, skill is important to write in such a way that other people see your writing with an understanding of every bit of emotion, drama, and action you mean for it to express. So I think while you need a solid foundation of soul, you need to build upon it with as much skill as possible.

Probably "soul," because with soul comes the passion necessary to writing.
However, I believe people with the drive are the only ones who are going to bother developing their writing abilities, and thus skill.
All the best writers have both.