Not to beat a dead horse, but... there's that word again, "Passion." I appreciate her qualifying statement before using the P-word, "Their vision and the determination necessary to bring that vision to fruition must be extraordinary and driven by the utmost passion." That's what I buy into; the Passion that fuels determination to make a vision/screenplay come to fruition, "...against tremendous odds...is mandatory for writers." Passion compels me to finish what I start, then rewrite what I've finished, then polish what I've rewritten until it is shiny enough to grab someone's attention.

I've been thinking about something tangent to this for a few weeks now. I know some extremely intelligent people, people who know some structure theories way more than myself - yet, having read their work, I'm left... uninspired. It takes more than intelligence, structure and passion. There's another key ingredient that's missing and I'm not sure it can be learned (perhaps to some degree). First, let me make an analogy having been an all-star in several sports growing up. At 6'4", I could jump out of the gym... naturally. It wasn't something I had to work at, it just was. When people would ask me how the heck I could jump so high, I just shrugged. It wasn't through passion. Certainly I'd known a few people around my same height and build who worked their butts off trying, yet never able to dunk a basketball. Me... I could just about hit my head on the rim. Was it technique? Something I was doing differently than other people? Perhaps a tad - a lot is determined by an athlete's core, but not that much. Nobody taught me to jump, either, so it wasn't something I learned to do. So I remained perplexed somewhat. When it comes to writing, I think there's something similar that can't really be explained. Something... innate. Creativity. Some people are just more creative than others. We can perhaps learn some things to be more creative, learn techniques and have the same passion as a Michelangelo, but in the end, we ARE NOT Michelangelo. Some people excel in that particular concentration but lack discipline (structure), though it's something they can learn over time. But I'm not sure it can work the other way. Is creativity something innate that can't readily be explained? Learned? In a way, it's like the flip side of passion. And like our coach used to say, you can't teach hustle.

TBBB, I'm 5'9" and can barely see the bottom of the basketball rim. But I can write. I know exactly what you're talking about. When I meet people in the 'real' world... you know bankers, lawyers, doctors, people with real offices and real jobs... invariably when they find out what I do, they'll say something, "Wow, how do you do that? I could never write a story." A great deal of that ability I learned, but something of it is, I guess, innate. Writing stories is one of my earliest memories. I've been writing songs since I was 14. OTOH whenever I meet someone who works with their hands -- craftsmen, mechanics, painters, sculptors -- I stand in awe of them. While I can play guitar and type like a machine, I'm just not good at things like building or repairing, and certainly not drawing or anything to do with art. So I agree with the subtext of your comment: Each of us brings our own unique skill-set to what we do, and that includes writing. Having worked with two different screenwriting partners, then on my own writing throughout my years in LA up through now, the whole skill-set thing came into pretty stark relief. Early on I was good with structure, themes, and coming up with movie moments. Character and dialogue, not so much. Over time, as I have worked on the craft, I have found myself focusing more and more on character, really digging into them. Now I'd say that's one of my strengths. Dialogue is still a challenge, the best happening when I find my characters and they 'speak' to me. I know writers who write beautiful dialogue, it just seems to flow from their fingertips. Maybe they're not as strong with structure. Or theme. I think all writers can improve through study, analysis, and lots and lots of writing. But there is always some measure of magic involved in the creative process. All we can do is immerse ourselves in the craft, try to keep learning, and hope to wrangle that magic.

Thanks for the reply and your thoughts, Scott. I'm a big fan of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance and after listening to the audiobook for the nth time recently, the whole notion of defining quality as a scientific vs. artistic (classicist vs. romanticist) started growing in my head as it relates to writing and structure. In the end of that book, he ultimately believes Quality shouldn't be (or can't be) defined, that it takes both. We know it when we see it, though.