I never taught creative writing, but this weekend I teach a workshop creative writing at a liberal arts college.
Among the texts we read was chapter 2 (“The story”) of E.M. Forster’s “Aspects of the Novel”.
Forster writes about Walter Scott: “If he had passion he would be a great writer – no amount of clumsiness or artificiality would matter then.”

One of the students asked rightly what Forster meant by “passion”.