This is a simple question with potentially un-simple answers.
So, I’ll just ask it:
Why do you write?
More to the point: why do you tell stories?
I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.
Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
This is a simple question with potentially un-simple answers.
So, I’ll just ask it:
Why do you write?
More to the point: why do you tell stories?
I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.
Stephan says:
I thought about this a while ago, when last asked, and wrote up my response here: http://endlessrealms.org/2011/06/why-i-write/
September 19, 2012 — 6:28 AM
Dave Redman says:
I write therefore I am? To drown out the voices in my head? Worse, to provide a medium for the voices in my head? To prove that I can? To entertain? To show I am a storyteller capable of causing aneurisms with the power of metaphor? To make people’s brains EXPLODE? Why am I hungry now?
In truth. Could be any of the above. I don’t really know. I just do. It’s not a choice. Nothing ever is. Everyone is wired. When presented with a choice your eventual decision is based on the sum of self, environment and others who have influenced you – therefore, there is only ever one possible outcome. The path you will pick. In reality, you would never take the other path, no matter how conflicted you might feel. Choice is an illusion. You do what you do. Choose what you choose. Write what you write.
In short? JFDI. Just-Fucking-Do-It.
PS- Does anyone else think that keyboards should have a ‘Fuck It’ button?
September 19, 2012 — 6:48 AM
Mitch Marty says:
A friend of mine who is a musician and I had a conversation that unintentionally ended up revolving around this question last night. Depending on the day, I imagine I might answer this slightly different. But for now I have to say that I write, and am in school learning about it and reading a variety of authors, styles, and rhetorics, because it causes me to think in a much different way. I realized when I was younger that if I pushed myself I could go to college, get a degree in something (originally it was Computer Science), and then strike out into the the world and be in a comfortable position (monetarily). While I will say that Computer Science does offer a different way of thinking outside of most fields (like accounting, for example), it still wasn’t for me. Writing causes me to constantly reflect on what I value, what others value, and how my own experiences have caused me to readjust my view of the world. I’ve wanted to write since I was in second grade, and have been writing periodically since then (until the last few years where there was a considerable change of pace and “periodically” shifted to “in a shitstorm-like frenzy”). Through four transfers to different schools in college and three shifts of major, the only constant was writing. I realized I needed to stop listening to others about the supposed instability of writing, and just do what I wanted to do in school while busting my ass to do it. There are stories I want to tell, stories I think other people can appreciate, question, and potentially learn something from. If I were to only cause one person to question some aspect of their thinking with my writing, I’d consider that a successful start.
September 19, 2012 — 7:04 AM
Christopher Gronlund says:
I write because I want to. I enjoy it — the challenge that comes with the solitude. Sure, there’s a compulsion involved, but it’s not like the whole, “I’d die if I couldn’t write!”
I wouldn’t.
I’d just be…not as happy.
And so…
I write.
September 19, 2012 — 7:07 AM
Jonathan D. Beer says:
To entertain.
It’s a simple answer, for sure, but the most accurate one. I have little time for nose-in-the-air types who sneer at pulp and genre fiction. I read because I want to be entertained and engaged and, if possible, made to think a little, and so that’s what I try to write.
Anything else largely intellectual masturbation, if you ask me.
September 19, 2012 — 7:22 AM
Kyle Winters says:
I write because I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. No matter how hard things get and how miserable I am, writing is all I want to do.
September 19, 2012 — 7:32 AM
CjEggett says:
I kept asking myself: “What do you want to do?” and “What do you want to be?”
Everything else feels like treading water.
September 19, 2012 — 7:36 AM
Shiri Sondheimer says:
Because I have to.
September 19, 2012 — 7:49 AM
Fraser Alexander says:
I’ve relied on escapism all my life. Then I realised I could make my own, and I haven’t stopped since.
September 19, 2012 — 7:56 AM
Lindsay Mawson says:
I write to escape, simple as that, same reason that I read. My hope is that my writing inspires others to feel that they have escaped their own lives with me.
When I write, I can be who I want, when I want, mold my (character’s) world and situation to be what I want it to be.
I don’t have that kind of control in real life. If I did, the world might be a stranger place.
September 19, 2012 — 7:57 AM
D. Moonfire says:
I love telling stories. I have a lot of strange ideas in my head and people seem to enjoy them.
I also write because it is a hard path to go. Initial talnet only takes you so far and I’m at the point where I have to improve my skill to get better (and maybe get published again). So, it is also the challenege to write something that people enjoy (and pay for would be nice).
But, even without money, I’m going to keep writing. Every time I say I’m going to stop, I don’t. When Iowa flooded in 2008, I found out something. I don’t need the Internet. I don’t need Facebook, IM, or anything else. I *do* need a word processor and I must write. It isn’t a choice anymore.
September 19, 2012 — 8:19 AM
Maria Lima says:
Because there is no other choice. Even if I am not writing on a keyboard, I am writing in my head.
September 19, 2012 — 8:28 AM
Arturo Robertazzi says:
I would love to say things like “I write to be alive”, “I write because I need to”, oh, and my favourite “I write therefore I am”.
I would love to say these things, but the truth is I haven’t understood why I write. I do. And I hope to do it well. That’s it.
September 19, 2012 — 8:30 AM
Dan Thompson says:
Somewhere between “I love telling stories” and “I have to get the voices out of my head!”
I’ve loved telling stories since I was a kid. Writing them down was a natural extension, so I started with short fiction in my teen years.
Now, 30 years later, the stories take root in my mind so firmly that the only way to get them out — to keep them from taking over my day-to-day conscious — is to write them out in exacting detail.
Now, why I publish? Ah, that’s another question entirely.
September 19, 2012 — 8:33 AM
Sarah Z. says:
I write because I always have. I have been telling stories since I was a child. I did it to amuse myself or to escape. I have folders and notebooks full of scribbling and stories I wrote on bits of scrap paper and register tape from when I would get bored working retail jobs as a teenager. Now my writing notebook is a flash drive I carry in my purse.
I write because if I don’t, it feels like half of me is missing. I feel strange and out of sorts. I’ve tried to be a grown-up, as my mother puts it, but it feels like I’m trying to be someone else.
I write because it’s who I am. I do it because there are hundreds of characters in me and I am their conduit to become real in this world. They whisper their stories to me and I give them voice to share their lives so that maybe we will understand our own a little better.
September 19, 2012 — 8:35 AM
Ali says:
Because without it, I am less myself. Because the words have to come out. Because I want to tell stories and create words. Because I want people to feel something (harkening back to the Didion quote, about how writing is an act of trying to get someone to see something a certain way).
I write to entertain, to exorcise, to share.
September 19, 2012 — 8:52 AM
James McShane says:
Because if I don’t, I’ll go back to sniffing glue.
September 19, 2012 — 8:56 AM
Anninyn says:
I’m not sure I have much of a choice in the matter.
I was always imaginative, always making up stories, from the moment I could speak. As I could older, I started to write them down. Then I started to want to read books that didn’t exist on the shelves and my dad told me ;if you want to read them, write them’. So I did.
When I stopped writing for a while, I became frustrated, self-hating and miserable. When I write, I feel like me. It’s what I do. You may as well ask a fish why it swims.
Now, why i seek publication is an easier answer. I do so because writing is the thing I’m best at, the thing I enjoy, and doesn’t everyone want to have a job that they like and that they’re good at?
September 19, 2012 — 8:57 AM
Kim says:
The best answer I’ve found to this is Gloria Steinem’s : “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”
And that’s it. When I write, it feels… right. It feels like I’m not wasting the precious time I have on this spinning ball of stuff*.
*Geography was clearly NOT one of the things that when I was doing it, I didn’t feel like I should be doing something else.
September 19, 2012 — 8:57 AM
Guinea Pig says:
Um… Ah… *scratches head* … Erm…
Hang on…
Nope, thought I had it there for a second.
*sigh* Beats me.
Seriously though I write for three reasons:
1: Because I literally don’t know how to do anything else. I can grow a mean carrot or cook a tasty cake but electricity companies don’t accept carrots or cake as bill payments (although they should).
2: Because I like stories.
3: Because I don’t want to get to my 90’s and not have done anything of note except that one time I managed to “fall” off a wall and break my arm (I jumped).
September 19, 2012 — 8:58 AM
Denise says:
‘If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.’ Lord Byron.
That’s one of the reasons I write. I have all of these people, characters, in my mind and I need to write their stories to clear my head. In my writing, whether it is fiction or writing reviews, I find the freedom to be myself. My voice in words lets me be me.
September 19, 2012 — 9:00 AM
Gary Weller says:
It started out as an escape.
It was an avenue to play in a land that I could control and where my opinions mattered. Writing was a necessary tool in a black time in my life. Blood and ink mixed to help me through my own struggles.
Now, it serves much the same purpose except for the fact that now I understand it’s a part of me. I would be less of myself if I didn’t write. The maelstrom of negativity that roils around would overpower me if I didn’t get control of those feelings and dispense them into characters and story.
I write because I hear the calling. And whilst I hope that folks understand the words I put down, I don’t expect them to do so. I write for me.
September 19, 2012 — 9:02 AM
Elspeth Cooper says:
I write because I want to, and because I can, and because not writing makes me uncomfortable, restless and fidgety. But mostly because I want to find out what happens next.
September 19, 2012 — 9:07 AM
Eric H. says:
You know what? I thought about this, expecting it to be complicated or profound. But it’s not. I tell stories because I enjoy it. And I enjoy learning what people think of my stories.
Why am I writing a novel? Because I’m telling a long story.
September 19, 2012 — 9:15 AM
Raechel Hudson says:
I also write to entertain. I love watching people read my stories and be affected in someway. I love taking them on some sort of journey. It’s very satisfying to see people enjoy the mad things I’ve wrestled from my head and pinned to the page.
September 19, 2012 — 9:20 AM
Kira says:
Because I think I can produce work that’s better than “50 Shades of Grey” and in doing so, feel that I haven’t had my soul sucked out through my nose in the process.
September 19, 2012 — 9:22 AM
Dunx says:
I write because I have stories to tell, and because it is who I am.
September 19, 2012 — 9:32 AM
Anthony Laffan says:
Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I ignore it for days, even weeks at a time, but the fact is I always return to writing. Sometimes its for me. Sometimes its for others. Sometimes its just to try and get an idea out of my head. I’m bad at finishing, but I’m working on it. It’s just this thing that sometimes I have to do. Good or bad, I think I’m hooked on it.
Some days, I get my word count in and it just feels so good. Like, even on the worst day putting in just 1500 words, or just 2k words, can make me feel like I at least did something for the day. When I get more. Those rare 5k or even the vaunted 10k day and it’s like magic. I’ve only ever finished one work before and that at only 50k. It felt amazing. I want that feeling again.
I don’t know how much I write to entertain. I mean, I show people the stories, post them online, send them in for submission, so clearly it is a part of it. I want people to read my stories, but the act of doing that also makes me a nervous wreck. So, maybe I’m just hunting for praise on that? A pat on the head and “that’s a good boy.”
Somewhere in here is why I write.
September 19, 2012 — 9:36 AM
Jon says:
‘s what I do.
In my life, as time has gone by and demands on my time got harsher I’ve had to give up almost all of the things I used as outlets for creativity and socialization: first art, then theater, then sports, then martial arts, then music. Except for sports and martial arts it was in order of skills; I was least talented as an artist, then as an actor, then as a singer, and as my time got more precious (work, relationship, then marriage, now kids) I’ve had to pare back, pare back, pare back, to the thing I’m really good at and still enjoy, which is words.
Some day, when my wife’s bored with me and my kids are out of the house, I might get back into all of the above (except martial arts, I was always too prone to physical breakdown and enjoyed getting punched too little for that anyway 🙂 ). But for now, I carve out a few hours a week to do one thing, and that one thing is writing.
September 19, 2012 — 9:39 AM
Todd Moody says:
I’ve been doing dialogue in my head and replaying moments that just happened to try to improve them since I can remember, but coming to the point in my life where I wanted to write novels was a long and winding road. I have loved to play video games, any games since was was a wee lad and it sucked most of my free time. I reached a point in my life where I was tired of “wasting” my time playing games and having nothing really to show for it at the end of the day. I needed a hobby that would produce something of value.
I started writing. Maybe nothing would come of it, but I found that not only did I not feel like I was wasting my time, but I realized that time spent writing was time that I never regretted. I could write for 12 straight hours and never feel like I should be doing soemthing else. That revelation confirmed for me that I want to do this for the rest of my life. I still have a day job, but the goal is clear.
September 19, 2012 — 9:52 AM
Luke says:
It’s not so much that I need to “get the voices out of my head”, as I’d be doing a disservice to my characters if I didn’t at least try and channel them into some form of reality. I’m trying to immortalise their stories so that I never forget them, because really, it breaks my heart that they’ll never really exist.
… Maybe I’m delusional. O_O
September 19, 2012 — 10:05 AM
Corey says:
I don’t know. Sigh.
September 19, 2012 — 10:08 AM
Dave Turner says:
This is essentially my answer: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f4d6f80a-fc29-11e1-aef9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz26vQxtoB2
September 19, 2012 — 10:19 AM
Ed Skinner says:
I find myself.
September 19, 2012 — 10:32 AM
Mieke Zamora-Mackay says:
To leave something tangible with my name in this world.
September 19, 2012 — 11:07 AM
A. Steele says:
When I was young (around eight years old) I loved the look on my little sister’s face when I told her ghost stories, and then I never grew out of it and decided I wanted to scare everyone else too.
There’s a real thrill in having the power to control people’s emotions like that. Seeing someone’s eyes light up when I tell a damn good story, or seeing their brain-wheels spinning when they read something that kicks the grey matter, is what I’m in it for.
September 19, 2012 — 11:30 AM
Mark H says:
I’m a storyteller and writing is just one way to tell the stories I have to tell.
September 19, 2012 — 11:44 AM
Molly Dugger Brennan says:
I used to tell lies and got punished for it. Now I write those same lies down on paper and get paid for it.
September 19, 2012 — 11:46 AM
Michael Montoure says:
I’m in it for the groupies.
I mean, sure, the stuff everyone else said, too. But mainly the groupies.
September 19, 2012 — 11:49 AM
UrsulaV says:
I was an artist before I was a writer, and my answer to “Why make art?” was “Because the art has to get made.” It’s not that I always enjoy it (sometimes I’d rather gouge my eyes out) or that I was terribly good at it (no one is at first) but art had to get made and I was apparently the one in the way. So I made art.
Being a writer isn’t much different, except that it’s harder to tell if you’re any good at it. There’s no literary equivalent of “does my chicken look like a chicken, or a sewing machine with feet?” I think the lack of comparison like that is why everybody thinks they could write a novel, if they wanted to, and nobody thinks they could paint the Sistine Chapel.
September 19, 2012 — 11:50 AM
bryon says:
When I write — when I tell stories, when I entertain (and maybe make the reader think a little) — that’s when I feel at least mildly engaged with life, unlike the rest of the time. That’s why I have four years’ worth of short stories and haiku posted at my blog. I need that connection to life, and I want to entertain people.
September 19, 2012 — 11:56 AM
Kyoko says:
Because it’d be too damn expensive to build a dam in my head. Words pour out of me constantly and I couldn’t do anything else even if I wanted to. I’m constantly reading and writing and watching things I love that give me new ideas and change my perception of the world around me. Writing allows me an outlet. It is pure creation. It is the only thing in my life that I can control.
Plus, there are so many bad writers out there in the world and so I write to spite them. For every Laurell K. Hamilton and E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer, there is a Ray Bradbury or a Neil Gaiman or a Junot Diaz. I will become those authors and prove that not all writers are lazy, offensive hacks. I will make a great story that will help someone know that they are not alone, because that is what literature has done for me.
September 19, 2012 — 12:04 PM
marlanesque says:
I am 40 years old. I wasted a decade of my life playing WoW, EvE, Everquest. I wasted the ten years before that working at jobs I hated with people I didn’t like.
Call it a midlife crisis, but I don’t want to be lying on my deathbed thinking about my level 85 druid.
September 19, 2012 — 12:09 PM
churnage says:
To go deeper into the light.
September 19, 2012 — 12:28 PM
Sue says:
To examine how characters act in uneasy situations. And to play with language.
September 19, 2012 — 12:59 PM
Chris Lites says:
Broadly speaking, I write to contribute a thread to the human tapestry. We are storytellers, everything we do is couched in story. From Campbell’s monomyth to the horrors of Nazi Germany, everything people do is a story.
Personally, I suspect I write in order to wield some measure of control on a fictional universe which I suspect has not real world analog. Life may inherently be absurd, but the created life can be full of meaning so long as you bring your own. Ostensibly that would apply to the former, but for me it does not.
September 19, 2012 — 1:06 PM
Sandra Lindsey says:
I tell stories because I do: writing them down just means I’m sharing them in a less-invasive way. Otherwise I’d just be mumbling to myself in the corner.
September 19, 2012 — 1:42 PM
Darlene Underdahl says:
It’s in my blood. My Dad was a storyteller. I never give a simple answer to a question if I can tell a story instead.
Dad didn’t write his stories up and that’s a shame, but I remember them and can do that for him; with my own strange twists, of course. He was an extremely brave man, but I’m more socially daring.
September 19, 2012 — 1:46 PM
Beth L. says:
Short answer is “because I’m lucky.”
Long answer found here if you’d like me to drill down on that a bit.
http://knotachance.tumblr.com/
September 19, 2012 — 2:27 PM
James Clark says:
I consider the impetus behind my writing urge as a three pronged attack:
Prong 1 (I will call this prong Operation Invictus… no reason)
I love science fiction and fantasy more than I feel I should. I will plough through books filled with dreck for one good idea, or wade through exposition to get to the big reveal. I will read long series for no good reason and not even feel that annoyed with the meandering 4th, 6th and 8th novels. I’ve always felt that while contemporary fiction is interesting and apposite and full of subtlety, the lack of a shared context means that SF&F can allow characters to grow in stature (in text and in terms of significance), that concepts can be separated out and explored in a more focused way. Contemporary fiction can be big, but SF&F can be of mythic proportions… and I want to join in.
Prong 2 (Prong-a-doodle-do)
I like sharing stories with friends; what happened at work, funny stories, this great night out where everything went fucking crazy – I’m the storytelling guy. I love that moment where everyone is leaning in without realising it, or ignoring their beer just to listen, or that great moment when the tension pops with a great big laugh and everyone is crying with mirth (I’m probably over-selling, but hey, it’s my story).
The idea of doing the same things in print is quite attractive.
Prong 3 (The Octagon, James Westfall and Doctor Kenneth Noisewater)
I read a lot of genre stuff. I read lots of bad genre stuff. I think that with practice and a bit of dedication I can do better than some of the stuff that I have read. That’s the last thing on the list: I want to write the kind of fiction I can enjoy. I’m critical of my work and I know I’m coming to this game late compared to some people, but I think that I can write intelligent, challenging and captivating genre fiction one day. I don’t have any pretenses to being literary about it, or trying to break new ground or push the frontiers of genre, but I think that, with practice and time, I could produce work that is human, inspiring and satisfying.
Well, it’s not really modest or anything, but it’s what I feel. So at least it’s honest.
September 19, 2012 — 2:36 PM