It should not come as a surprise to anyone that people also write for a wide variety of reasons. And trying to explain these reasons presents the same difficulties we encountered in the previous post. There are many kinds of stories and people write them for a wide variety of reasons. Further, any given writer may write any given story for any number of different reasons. Some of the reasons why people write match up with reasons for reading. For example, a writer may write a travel log to learn more about a distant place and the reader may read it for the same reason. Generally, however, the writers’ reasons and the readers reasons do not coincide. Of course, some writers will write to market which means they are writing something because the think it will sell, or they think it is what readers want. However, in this case the writer is writing for the money, recognition or reputation while the reader is reading for quite different reasons. In general, the reasons why any given writer writes a given story won’t correspond to the reader’s reasons for reading it.
The first reason that we saw for why readers read was for enjoyment and entertainment. This is true for writers in extremely limited circumstances. When the muse is speaking and the words are flowing, the writing experience can be sublime. The writer is the scribe furiously typing away as the characters speak or the plot unfolds. This moment of engaged epiphany is so glorious that the writer is willing so suffer any number of agonies from unpaid bills to unrealistic deadlines, to writer’s block, to plot snags that seem impossible to resolve, to characters that won’t behave the way you want them to, just to get to the next rare occurrence of the sublime glory. When the writer is in this mode the world feels like a benevolent place and everything makes sense. Sadly, these experiences can be few and far between and there are other reasons why writers write.
Even if the writer is not experiencing one of those moments of otherworldly bliss, writing can be enjoyable. Writing can help you organize your thoughts. If you are one of those people whose mind is filled with random thoughts, you can pick one and write about it. The process will help you organize your thinking. People often write daily journals for this purpose. For several years, I wrote daily essays where I would begin with a topic sentence or question and no idea where it might go. By the end of the essay, I would have figured something out. If you have ever cleaned out a messy closet and experienced that feeling of satisfaction, you already know what it is like to write something to organize your thoughts.
But there are other enjoyable aspects of writing. Some writers enjoy the mental exercise of working out a plot; the psychological exercise of describing characters; the artistic expression of describing a scene, or the conceptual exercise of constructing narrative arguments to explain human behavior. Some enjoy the anticipation of writing something that somebody else would like to read. But, not everybody who writes wants people to read what they write. For example, people who write diaries would prefer to keep them personal. Marcus Aurelius, when on his deathbed, ordered that his Meditations be burned. Fortunately, they did not carry out his wishes.
Some people see writing as an enjoyable lifestyle. You can work alone to a large extent. This is particularly appealing to introverts or people with limited social skills. Some see writing as having the potential to be very profitable. After all, if your books sell, you continue to receive a stream of income long after the work is done. If they sell very well, you may be set for life. What other job would allow you to avoid annoying people and keep paying you long after you did the work? It’s a sweet deal!
Some people write to learn. In fact, William Zinsser, author of the classic instruction book for writing nonfiction On Writing Well also wrote Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All. Many writers do that. It is one thing to read about something you want to learn about. But that is full of pitfalls. For example, understanding a page of text as you read it can lead you to think you know the material better than you do. However, trying to explain it to someone will quickly reveal how little you actually do understand. Demonstrating your mastery by explaining the material in writing will further reveal the depth of your illusion as anyone who has taken an essay exam can attest to.
Perhaps you want to share some knowledge you have with other people. It is one thing to corner people in the snack room and try to explain something to them. It is something else entirely to commit your thoughts to writing and share what you have written. They can read it at their leisure, perhaps re-reading and taking notes and asking questions. What you have written will, almost certainly, be more coherent than your random thoughts over the coffee machine. And you can provide your wisdom to others who are not easily accessible geographically or temporally. This is the basis of scientific research publication but is also useful in sharing wisdom on experiences or political views. On that last point, it is far easier to organize, express and share your ideas in writing than it is in the middle of a heated argument.
Picking up on the geographic point, the initial reason the World Wide Web was created was so that scientists could more easily share their papers. And, picking up on the temporal point, writing allows us to share our acquired knowledge with future generations. The importance of this point cannot be overstated. Animals, other that humans, cannot create and store knowledge for future generations. The most they can learn is what they can learn in a short period in which the parents pass on what they know. For human offspring that learning period may go on for years, decades or even a lifetime due to that body of knowledge we have committed to writing. So, it is fair to say that some writers will write in order to communicate and share knowledge across generations.
Here are a few more reason with may fall within those already covered, but bear bringing to the foreground. Some people wish to record their memories or pass their experiences on to others. A lot of historical insights have been gained by reading personal correspondences between people who were alive at the time. Today's blogs serve a similar role as personal correspondences since they provide information for the historical record. Journalism may be the first draft of history. But, blogs, diaries, email and personal correspondences are notes which precede the first draft. And finally, people write, consciously or subconsciously, to pass on values to readers in the present or the future.
I doubt very seriously that I have covered the full range of reasons why the scriveners of the world put their pens to paper. If further ideas pop into your head as you read this, you are helping me make my point that people write for a wide variety of reasons. And, in keeping with the topic of the book for which I am writing this, I would suggest that writing is currently underused for exploring possible worlds but will hopeful address that challenge more aggressively in the future.
