Hi Why do we write? Everyone has their own secret about why they write, but why do humans like to tell stories? Overall, why does our race tell stories? Feel free to give me your secret about why you write too. For me, I think it is just the feeling of letting my imagination run wild, and just being able to write!
Because there are worlds in my head that don't like being there and if I don't get them out they'll turn into a tumor. Honestly, writing for me is just one form of creativity that I could be content living with. It's new to me, but creating is not. I have drawn, painted, sculpted, written screenplays, designed video games, and written poetry. At this point, I've turned to writing short stories and a novel which I hope I can stick with since it seems to be the most enjoyable and rewarding option for me right now. I create because it's the only thing I can be happy doing. It's the only thing that makes me feel accomplished when the day is over, whereas a conventional job does not. Perhaps I will never make a cent writing, but that's the goal. My body and brain are not built to work in a warehouse or garage. My personality isn't suited for working with the public and every type of heavy "man" work makes me miserable.
If you seriously want to explore this question in greater detail, I think some of the works by Joseph Campbell would help you out. I think it's one those things that's hardwired into us, it fills a need.
Stories unite us - both with each other and with those that exist only within them. Millions of people have read millions of stories and millions of writers write them. Even today, when it seems to me that reading is a dying art, think of any other thing that can get one hundred strangers to sit silently in a dark room like a movie can. Stories are a part of us as much as our skin and bones. We believe in happy endings despite what reality throws at us. The unhappy girl will find her prince. The good guys will win. The bad guys will know justice. And the cool thing is that stories can make this stuff real... well, more possible at any rate. I write because I am a writer. I'm not a good writer but I don't think I'm a bad writer either. Writing is what makes me happy so I write.
I think the human race, and individual nationalities, have different traditions of stories and poetry. Asian ghost stories, Gaelic ballads, English drama, etc. It's the need for entertainment and to better understand human emotions that made the first writers write, and it's not too different now. And writing will always be one of the most effective ways to convey a message that would be impossible to get across through speech or video. Personally, I write to preserve the knowledge I've gained from oral stories about Gaelic history. When I started researching them, I went to the Western Isles, expecting to hear a few old songs. Now I'm searching for these stories around the world, in Gaelic America, Canada, England, and Australia, through expatriate Gaels I've found on the Internet. I intended to fill in the blanks - when a few leaders were born, etc. But I have found out that, rather than backwards agrarian warlords and unclean peasant classes, we are dealing with dynamic cosmopolitan nobility and well-fed and valued clansmen when discussing Gaelic history. I did not expect to be able to use the words socialist, equality, tolerance, and multi-cultural society to describe the 13th century Kingdom of the Hebrides. But I can do so with justice, and that information needs preserving. Look for yourself. It also needs getting across to a wider audience and to be Hollywood compatible, so I span a fiction story based on the plots of various oral histories put together, and am writing it.
Its a social adaptation. Read any of the current Darwinian literary critics. Start with Brian Boyd's On the Origin of Stories.
I do not have a choice when it comes to writing. I can't describe it other than an addiction which fuels me to perpetually abuse myself in terms of social graces, an ability to make friends, enjoy the outside world, and have a proper job. In all ways my compulsion to write will most likely be my downfall. Though, I suppose if I weren't slightly insane I probably wouldn't be a very good writer, assuming of course that I am in fact a good writer. Oh God, if I am terrible then I am royally screwed. Oh well. It makes me happy. As for why we as a society tend to write? Who the hell knows. Maybe it's some gift from Christ or Vishnu that we feel compelled to use or else we'll be letting our grand creators down... or maybe we picked it up because no one was listening to us when we spoke out loud. Then again, in all fairness, there is a certain power in writing. Why do people speak? Well, to be heard. So, why do we write? To be read. On the other hand, I've been writing habitually since I was a wee little boy and I've only ever felt the need to have something published twice - one of which I did so myself entirely so nobody else would read it other than family and friends.
TRUE! But for me it's a bit different - most scenes are my dearest pet tumors. They *never* leave. I've had this one story for a year and a half, and it's still not ripe enough to be put into words. But the other reason I write is because I'm a narcissist. I love it when people recognize my work and are moved by it, wowed by it, encouraged by it, or even when all it does is get a good laugh out of a gloomy friend. I *love* reading my stories over and over again, fixing little things here and there, a never-ending tale.
It's because of the sense of wonder. When I come across something cool or interesting it fills me with a sense of awe, and I want to share that feeling with all the people around me who just don't seem to get it.
I personally cannot say why society has been driven to write, or what drives them to write. I can say however, that most of the reasons I have come across is because of an undescribable(sp?) passion that cannot be denied. I can however, say why I write. To me, it's just something I've always wanted to do. Since I was little I've always created stories, even before I really knew how to write. My siblings used to tape my mouth shut because I would go on and on about a story I had thought up - their efforts never stopped me. Then when I did learn how to write(not by much) I just let it come to me. I love writing, I love the imagination and effort it takes to do it. I love the challenge of making believable characters and plots. But most of all, I just love the feeling of a pen flowing across the paper, letting the words in my mind seep from my fingers, staining the paper with wonderous words that form the story. Or in some cases, the feel of the keys.
The real world is too restricting for me. Too uninteresting. Writing is the closest I can get to reshaping the world to be how I wish it would have turned out. In other words, it's the closest I can get to being God.
I haven't written anything lately, but I've been thinking about writing a lot. A thought occurred to me yesterday that I'm still trying to flesh out, so I hope I don't look too silly or inarticulate when I say this. It's probably been said before about writing and other art forms, but I've never heard it anywhere before and I'd really like to share it, so here it is: I'm wondering if, maybe, the best place a writer can possibly come from, as far as their motivation for putting pen to paper is concerned, is to look at their work as a gift to the world, a totally gratuitous act of love. To just write from the desire to birth something into the world that is earnest, from the bottom of your heart, like a lover saying “Here is something beautiful I’ve made for you!” Not because he hopes to gain anything from it, but because he loves her. I know a guy whose wife was in a coma (she‘s dead now), but he loved her so much he was constantly at her bedside doing little things for her and telling her how much he loved her. He gained nothing from this; it was a completely unnecessary act of love. I think that’s a good example of what I’m getting at here. If one can approach their art in this way, then it shouldn’t matter what the critics say. If they like it, great! Then they’re one of the ones you wrote it for. You gave them something and it improved their lives in some way. If not, then that’s fine, too; you already got everything you wanted, just by giving them something from your heart in a pure spirit. I think that’s how I’m going to approach this whole writing thing from now on. I’m just going to try and birth beautiful things into the world because I love the world, and people can publish it, praise it, throw it in the garbage or ignore it entirely. If there is constructive criticism, then cool, that will make me better at something I love. But my satisfaction will come from the giving, and I believe my writing will be better for this. Well, yeah. That’s all I have to say about that. Thanks for reading.
I think Ray Bradbury summed up the art of writing the best when he said, "You must love what you do if you want to be a writer." I would assume that people write for many different reasons, but unless you love what you do, you're not going to want to write. I tend to suffer from not enjoying the act of writing when I'm writing something I don't care about. So if I become bored with something I'm writing, I'll move onto something else. Remember, it's supposed to be enjoyable, not work. There are so many things that one can write, that it would be quite a task to become bored with the act of writing itself, unless you just have no interest in writing. One doesn't always have to write literature, and I think this is a problem that many people seem to believe. They think they must write anything that is science fiction or fantasy or mystery related, and they don't have to. One can write essays, philosophy; one can write about their observations of nature and life (think Walden, which is excellent), politics, anything. So, this goes out to everyone here: don't think that you have to write literature only, branch out a bit. I'd also urge that many don't attempt to pigeon-hole themselves into a particular genre, which I see all the time. If you're writing fantasy, make the attempt at writing a mystery story or science fiction, but ultimately write what you love. And if it is only science fiction you like to write, then write that. Just keep writing and doing what you love. Au revoir.
I view my writing as my gift to the world; absolutely. I am going to die one day, hell, maybe one day soon. I want to leave something beautiful behind. I want to try and capture the way I see things and share it with someone else. I don't think it's a selfless act though, because nothing brings me greater joy than writing. But yes, it's an act of love, no doubt.
since i gave up writing for a living and now write philosophical essays and what i call 'philosetry,' i would have to agree that my writing is a 'gift to the world'... but, though it's definitely 'an act of love,' it's not to leave something 'beautiful' behind... it's more to leave some 'truth' behind, presenting an unvarnished view of the human race to its members, hoping it may inspire some to 'clean up their act'... and, like starseed, i can't consider it totally 'selfless' since writing has always been a joy for me, never a chore... [in re my own writing, that is... not the writing i do while mentoring/helping aspiring writers, which can be somewhat of a 'chore' on occasion... though it's never an onerous one, as it does feel good to help someone else]
I agree with you that there are some very close parallels between the act of writing and the act of loving. Both, I think, reflect a passion to connect in some way with someone beyond yourself and, in that respect, it's not entirely selfless--and needn't be, in my mind. The passion to improve one's self or one's writing, when it actually succeeds in some way serves to validate the effort. But, the real fascination, for me, will always lie in the unfolding journey itself.
Yeah, exactly; I think a big part of this is that it's more important to find happiness as a writer than success. I've probably always known that, but have had trouble figuring out a philosophy from which to concretely approach it. And, like jazz musicians, if you're obviously enjoying what you're doing, the audience will probably enjoy themselves more, too. I don't think I'd call it 'selfless' either. Selflessness is, like, throwing yourself on a grenade for your comrades, or waking up from a dead sleep to get your wife a drink of water even though she's bloody well capable of getting it herself. It's doing something you probably wouldn't want to do under normal circumstances, but you choose to put the others' needs before your own. What I'm talking about is like a gratuitous phone call in the middle of the day, just calling your love to tell them you love them. Not selfless, because it's what you want to do anyway, and whether the beloved gets as much out of it as the lover is almost beside the point. I think a second part to all this that I didn't get at clearly is that, for me, once a piece is completed, it is necessary to let it go. Once it has been (I apologize for the over-use of this phrase, but it popped into my head the other day and I'm stuck on it) birthed into the world, the writer's job is finished, and it's time to move on to something else. It can still be shown to agents and publishers and whatnot, but it should be in a spirit of total detachment, because, as I said before, the joy came in its entirety from the giving of the gift. A lover doesn't fret over what the beloved will do with the last kiss that he blew, he just blows another.
I think it really depends on what someone wants to achieve... some people write very good works as an act of vengeance or vendetta. Many authors write to push their own moral issues. Some are misogynists or racists. The point, though, is that they pour their passion into what they are doing. When I was at the bookstore, I heard some guy with a big head talking about his published works. He believed that you could only write when you're angry, and so he only wrote when he was angry at a woman. I'm guessing his work came out sloppy and misogynistic, which is why it didn't sell. Anyone who creates a story must do it with a purpose. Anne Rice created Interview with the Vampire expressly to show the evil people as "human" with suffering and problems of their own. Even though Loui is responsible for killing hundreds of people you still feel sorry for him. I have to also assume that some people write simply for the paycheck.
I can easily relate to that, myself. I have heard lots of writers, though, who are strongly attached to their published work--moreso, they claim, than to the work they're currently writing. I rarely think about my own published work at all (and there isn't very much of it). I don't think of those stories as belonging to me anymore, but to readers who think about (or ignore) them in ways I'll probably never even know. Like those little gifts and gestures you mention, they've probably long since disappeared into the night. But it was their creation and the illusion that someone could possibly enjoy them, which gave me pleasure in writing them. I have a feeling that's different for different writers, maybe. I suspect we have that variety to thank for the grand scope of fiction that's available to us to read, enjoy, argue about, and to learn from.
