Writing with a purpose: Self fulfillment for the greater good
‘Why do you like to write?’ A simple question that you sometimes hear at book events with authors, it can be challenging to offer a good answer. Many things motivate people to attempt writing fiction.
At a very basic level, everyone needs creative outlets. Creating gives meaning to life. Daily life is full of creation, from the mundane to the magnificent. From brushing your teeth in the morning (creating clean teeth), to baking cookies, to daubing paint to wet plaster on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Somewhere in that range you will find literary fiction. As C.S. Lewis wrote is his book Letters to an American Lady, “you can make anything by writing.”
If trying to write fiction is ‘something you’ve always wanted to do’, it deserves a deeper look. My earliest inclinations lurked just beneath my youthful consciousness in high school. I had thought about working on the high school newspaper. Lacking confidence and intimidated by the English teacher adviser, the effort remained dormant until I joined a college newspaper. That led to journalism school and newspaper jobs. Gaining writing skills from that, in my mid-50s I finally started work on my first novel.
For shy introverts, writing can be a suitable creative outlet. That, coupled with a noble wish to ‘make the world a better place’ by providing people with useful and interesting information about the ‘human condition’, provides some explanation about my involvement.
Or, writing with a purpose. Two purposes, actually: Self-fulfillment for the greater good. Psychologists say that writing is excellent therapy. Writing random and sometimes troublesome thoughts puts them into perspective and provides catharsis. It is very beneficial for mental health. Everyone experiences personal trials and troubles. For writers, as Philip Roth reportedly said, “Nothing bad happens to writers; everything is material.”
With a story’s theme underlying, I still begin each writing session wondering what will happen in the story today. About books, I like this quote attributed to Plato: “Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”
I have expressed my purpose by saying that my goals for writing fiction are to: Entertain, inform, and (possibly) inspire. This could be influenced by a career in journalism and public information. Truth, facts, reality, and accuracy matter.
The great paradox of literary fiction is that it uses made-up stuff to tell the truth. Yet, for me facts still are important. I have sometimes described my books as ‘faction’. I do (minimal) research to inform readers about settings, actions, and attributes of characters. I also seek to have positive themes and ‘socially-redeeming’ value in my books. I have even described them as long parables. This places my work in the ‘metamodern’ paradigm (more on that in another column; look it up).
I intended the purpose or underlying theme of my first novel to portray compassion for people who are suffering. In this story, a bunch of junior high (middle school) kids befriend and help an old homeless man, a veteran suffering from PTSD and alcohol abuse. He ends up at the state hospital, and the kids help him escape.
Research combined with your own experience (write what you know) provides a balanced approach for the greater good. Readers are drawn to the personal experience and perspective of the author, and benefit from interesting and useful information. The author benefits from having a creative outlet in the process of communication, reaching out, and self-fulfillment. Everybody wins! (That is, if you don’t take commercial success into account. For me, that remains a distant hope!)
God created the universe, and the process of creation continues through his creation, us, and all other organisms in the universe (see Alfred North Whitehead’s process theology; reference in column number two, Literature expresses and influences society). Whether God creates directly is beyond our understanding. I believe that God does continue to take an active role.
To conclude with a quote: “One of our principal sources of understanding what it means to be human is given us through the great literature of the world….” the essence of literature is to portray human beings in the human condition – writing with a purpose – Quantum Leap-How John Polkinghorne found God in science and religion.
