That’s a good question, if you can learn it or not. I used to think it was too bad that learning to write couldn’t be more like learning a musical instrument, before you write your own songs you learn to play someone else’s. Then I read an interview with Elmore Leonard (one of my favourite writers) who said to learn to write he would start by typing the beginning of Hemingway story, maybe half a page, and then then continue in his own direction trying to see if he could capture Hemingway’s voice. This was long before fanfic which I now think is a good way to learn, much like playing other people’s music is for learning an instrument. I have worked in two writers’ rooms on TV shows and in some ways it’s kind of like writing fanfic, you need to be able to capture the voice of the show runner.

Anyway, I think you can learn to write the way you want to but you do have to trust the readers a lot. And you have to write a lot.

As for Carver, there is a lot of discussion about how much he was edited by Gordon Lish. That’s the other thing, every book we read was also edited by someone other than the author.

https://blog.pshares.org/raymond-carver-gordon-lish-and-the-editor-as-enabler/