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[Oxidus]

Hello, I have a small problem that drives me crazy. I'm making a load of quires, but only people writing on them, are scholar visitors. My scholar has dabbling writing and wordsmith skills, but he didn't write on any quire yet, while other scholars already produced around 10 written-on quires. What's going on?

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, if he didn't start with dabbling writing skills, he definitely has written something.

However, scholars can take years to make discoveries and such, so if they don't have any life experiences, etc. to write about, they won't. Visitors have gone for a while without writing, typically, as the creation of new books offsite at least used to stop at the end of worldgen, so they have more to write.

[Rafatio]

What other skills does that scholar have? A few levels of mechanic are easy to do, hopefully giving him something to write about. Or any other relevant skills, whatever you have around. Isn't wordsmith used for poetry instead?

[Fleeting Frames]

Sometimes wordsmithing is used to write books. Relatively rarely, but still. Looking at one of my previous forts, all dwarves with writing experience and only those dwarves have wordsmithing experience, mostly at 1/4 of writing though 1/10 in one case. I'd check previous library threads to be sure what it governs; it's been a while since I read them.

[Oxidus]

What other skills does that scholar have? A few levels of mechanic are easy to do, hopefully giving him something to write about. Or any other relevant skills, whatever you have around. Isn't wordsmith used for poetry instead?

He has most of the farming skills on novice+ (I know it's weird, but he was one of the few people who had both writing and wordsmith)

[Oxidus]

Sometimes wordsmithing is used to write books. Relatively rarely, but still. Looking at one of my previous forts, all dwarves with writing experience and only those dwarves have wordsmithing experience, mostly at 1/4 of writing though 1/10 in one case. I'd check previous library threads to be sure what it governs; it's been a while since I read them.

He is a dabbling wordsmith too.

[Rafatio]

Farming isn't a library relevant skill, so it comes back to fleeting frames' suggestion of giving him something to write about. I embarked with a writer/crit thinker who liked knowledge, not a single book in years form him, should take my own advice. Those who do write don't seem to need writing skill. Doctors are good library fodder too if they aren't too busy.

The wordsmith thing was just something I read, not sure either way, my scholars have to learn on the job usually.

[TheEqualsE]

It takes years for one scholar to write one book normally.  If your library isn't set to demand more books they won't even try.  Writing is also a very low priority task so they will do anything, haul rocks before writing.  To get scholars and scribes to do their jobs you have to take all other jobs away from them.

When I look for someone to assign to scholar the two things I look for are first values knowledge highly, and second any amount of writing experience at all.  Because in my experience if they don't have one of those two things, they won't write under any conditions.

I had a group of 5 scholars in my fort they could crank out one book in a bad year, two or three in a good one.

[Fleeting Frames]

Not my experience, TheEqualsE:

I've had numerous fortress mechanics (none valuing knowledge more than average) crank out books on their topic, with not even a visiting scholar to suggest it. (I've also had embark-brought 5 scholarly skill scholars make discoveries, but as I didn't give them anything to write on in that test can not be completely certain if they'd have written it down like all other scholars I've seen make discoveries.)

Also, I've found that library follows similar rules to other zones; expect the discussing is always done in purple even if their need for abstract thinking is in the green. Not even a pull it now task will pull them out once out even if they absolutely hate knowledge, but once they leave the library to eat and drink they might do something else, especially if pulled with do it now, until they step a foot in library. Active military training also overrides pondering, but when they revert to inactive they switch back to it. Thus you can force them to be in library by having their sleeping and dining favourites inside it.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Tip:
If there are any blocks in the library, be sure to remove them.