Why We Write

The short answer to this question is, “Because we must.”

But that glib answer can’t be the whole story. Glib answers rarely are. Good stories leave the reader hanging, wanting to know what comes next, so this answer isn’t a bad start. It asks another question: why is it that we must write?

We certainly do not write for the money. There are at least 50,000 people in the US who list “writer” as their occupation, but that includes everyone from J.K. Rowling to the person who writes want-ads for the free tabloid at the local convenience store. Best estimates are that there are only 1,000 or so fiction authors whose primary income comes from writing. Sure, authors like Rowling or James Patterson have gotten wealthy from their writing. For the vast majority of us, though, money isn’t the motivator.

We also don’t write for fun. Getting those words on the page–or the computer screen–can be heart-wrenching and painful. It feels good to have written, sure. But the process? That can be excruciating. The discomfort from a story story that won’t come out can feel like constipation. When you finally push the crap out, it feels better, but I don’t think anyone would describe it as fun.

Like most authors, we get an ego boost when someone reads what we’ve written. To be sure, that high can turn into a bottemless pit when the reader tells us what they think about what we’ve written, but that doesn’t make the compulsion to write go away. Some authors–even ones who eventually became famous, like Emily Dickenson–keep their writing hidden and and never share it with anyone. Certainly, there’s a rush when someone reads and likes what we’ve written. But, as with most authors, we’ve written lots of stuff that just sits in hidden folders on our computer, not shared with anyone.

Still, almost everything people do has a social aspect. Writing is no different. But many–perhaps most–authors are only able to reach a small circle of readers. That group might be just a few family and friends. The act of writing is famously a solitary process. The social aspects can be part of the result of writing, but, like riches, are not why we write.

Writing is creative. The urge to create is an itch that has to be scratched. It gives birth to many endeavors, from cooking to calligraphy, drama to drawing, writing to woodworking. The perfect golf game or forward pass in football is an act of creation. Whatever else describes humans, creativity is surely on the list.

Athletes describe being in the zone, the sense of being one with the sport, whether it’s synchronizing with teammates in basketball or the ecstasy–and agony–long distance runners feel. Muscians and dramatists experience the same feeling, both in ensembles and solo performances. Scientists and mathematicians experience something similar in the endeavor to understand reality. Writers, too, experience this. The fictional worlds and characters we create become, in our heads, as real as the world in which we live and breathe–so real, that we have to get them out, onto the page. When we start a story, we have to see how it ends.

John Updyke has, perhaps, said it best: “Writing … is an addiction, an illusory release, a presumptuous taming of reality, a way of expressing lightly the unbearable. ” It’s addictive, yes. But it’s also a way of taming reality. It satisifies the human need to create. It’s a fundamental way of being human. So, yes, one reason we write is because it’s human nature to create, to want to be in the zone.

In the musical Singin’ in the Rain, there’s a number where Gene Kelly sings, “Gotta Dance.” I used to say that writing computer programs was like that for me, except I “gotta code.” Well, writing fiction is like that, too. Writing is an urge that we can’t resist. We’re like Kelly, except we gotta write.

Sometimes the glib answer turns out to be the best answer after all.