Several recent posts and comments here on Writer Unboxed have referenced my workshop “Unboxed Writing” at this year’s Un-Conference in Salem, including this post by Julia Munroe Martin. On Monday, Jael McHenry also sparked a lively discussion about politics and authors expressing themselves on social media versus through their fiction.
For those who were not able to attend my workshop, a key point was determining the change you want your fiction to provoke. Lisa Cron’s opening workshop asked the question, “What is the point of your novel?” My closing workshop question was, “What is the purpose of your writing?” I asked, “How do you want your novel to change the world?”
Fiction changes the world. It has before. It will again. Do not doubt it. There are too many examples that have worked in too many ways for this point to be in dispute. Even pulp novels have caused us to define our times in fresh terms. From outrage to compassion to surrender to war, novels have moved us, incited us, and transformed us.
Our experience of immigrants, refugees and other cultures has opened our eyes in The Jungle, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Kite Runner. We see race in America differently thanks to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Invisible Man, To Kill a Mockingbird, Beloved, The Help. War became less glorious because of The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Catch 22. We see those who are ailing and dying as newly alive though Flowers for Algernon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Fault in Our Stars. Oppression, submission and the tyranny of utopia are brought home to us in Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games. Modern alienation and power of connection come through strongly in The Catcher in the Rye, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Road, A Man Called Ove. Heroism was redefined in Tarzan of the Apes, Riders of the Purple Sage, The Maltese Falcon. We have been uplifted and inspired to live better, more loving and spiritual lives through The Little Prince, Steppenwolf, The Alchemist, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
That’s just for starters. How do you want your novel to change the world? If you do not believe your fiction has that power, think again. However, I’m not here today to convince you that your novel will change the world. I already know that it can. I’m here to suggest how to put your purpose to work on the page. Let’s look at the actual methods of making the world better.
Identifying Your Purpose
The first step involves thinking and searching your own heart. Ask yourself: What is wrong with our world? What injustice do we need to see? What trend should cause us alarm? What aspect of our human condition do we timidly suffer or ignore? Who looks different to us who is really the same? To what irony should we pay attention? What do we need to remember? Where may we find inspiration when we’re not looking? What is good about us when everything around us makes us feel bad? If we get nothing else right, or are able only to do one thing noble in our lives, what would that be? What makes it okay for us to die and leave this Earth?
And this: If after experiencing your novel, your readers will be inspired to do one thing differently, what will that one thing be?
Enacting Your Purpose Through Story
Here are four ways that your purpose can go to work on the page.
The first is by making your story world a microcosm. Take the point or purpose you have identified and turn it into two opposing positions. Who, or what groups, in your novel represent each idea, force or way of being? Build two or more sides. Create justifications for each, imperatives to compel each to take action, and for each a necessity to win.
Now, how can you trap your hero or heroine in the middle?
A second way is to create the “Atticus Moment”. That is to say, an exhortation and ringing call. Think of Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech in Henry V. (“But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.”) Or, Samwise’s speech at the end of The Two Towers. (“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered.”) Or, Atticus’s closing argument to a racist jury in the trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. (“To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This case is as simple as black and white.”)
Notice something about such ringing calls, though. They are not preachy, which is to say judgmental. They are to a specific purpose. To stir to battle. To inspire the final push. To lift feeble men to live up to their highest ideals. Effective exhortations come at critical moments. They seek to accomplish something specific and urgent. They are delivered in terms plain or poetic, but either way they are clear and strong.
Moreover, the ringing call is directed at someone who needs to hear it. It elevates a dire moment. It does more than hope to make the immediate situation better; it intends to bring about a result that will be remembered for all time.
Who in your novel can deliver such a ringing call? To whom? At what dire moment? In what strong terms? To serve what principle? To hold true to what timeless virtue? To bring about what action? To envision what beautiful, impossible result? To declare your purpose how?
A third way to put your purpose to work is one we can sum up in the phrase, “Do the right thing!” This is the moment when your hero or heroine changes for the better, and shows it in some way practical, or symbolic or both. It is the turn toward virtue, the abnegation of bad habit or cowardice, the rise above one’s fallible self, the act of self-sacrifice.
Ask, what is the most honorable, admirable, upstanding or principled thing that your protagonist could possibly do? Ask, what is the biggest way in which your protagonist could demonstrate humility, courage, compassion or forgiveness? What is most needed in the world of your story? What single, visible action represents that? In your story, what would be the greatest show of love, the equivalent of saying farewell with grace, of summoning inner fortitude, or of washing Jesus’s feet?
Having found that action, determine to include it and then work backwards in your manuscript to make that action sorely needed, impossible to do and (until now) unknown in this world. Make it something difficult, even impossible, for your protagonist personally to do. In other words, magnify its impact and through that demonstrate your purpose.
A fourth way to make your purpose alive on the page is to build up in your story opposition to that in which you believe. When the world is working powerfully against what is good, we hope and cheer all the harder. When things look the bleakest, we scream don’t give up! When defeat comes, as it does in all good stories, our hearts break. So, in your novel how can your antagonists achieve rising success, while your hero or heroine stumbles and falls, and the day is lost? What would make it feel impossible that right should prevail? Go with that. We’ll feel your purpose all the more.
100 Novels That Will Change the World
In the ballroom of the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem at the end of my workshop, I looked around the room and said, “There are one hundred fiction writers in this room, more or less. What if each one of you have a point to your novel and a purpose in writing it? If so, one hundred transformative novels will be published in the years between 2018 and 2020, and if they are how can the world possibly stay the same? It cannot.”
If your intention in writing is to “illuminate” or “explore”, or simply to entertain, why are you aiming so low? Make a statement. Declare yourself. Teach us what we don’t know. Show us how to accomplish that which we are afraid to do. Don’t just challenge our thinking, change it. Don’t just create conflict, shine a light on injustice, stir our timid hearts, make us want to leap up and act, show us the better world in which we could live. Don’t just warn us, inspire us to change.
The novels that will change the remainder of the 21st Century have yet to be written. You have a keyboard. You have the craft. You have the eyes, mind and heart of a great storyteller. What are you waiting for? As I commented the other day, we are all writers. The worst thing we could do, especially now, is to keep quiet.
Write your novel for a purpose. Change the world. You can and you will.
About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Thanks, Don. This post is as inspiring as your final exhortation to us in Salem. I feel I have the bones of the type of novel you describe in my work in progress. But you have excited me to work harder, dig deeper, write exuberantly. And I’m on it.
Can’t wait to get your new book.
I can’t wait to see it myself! Glad to hear you’re “on it”. Go.
A high call indeed, Don. And just as there are different modes of persuasion, so there are different approaches to fiction that effects change. Ayn Rand used a huge mallet; Harper Lee a fine scalpel; Jack Kerouac a bongo drum.
Don, how would you characterize this change-the-world calling in the great genre writers of the past, e.g., Hammett, Chandler, John D. MacDonald, Richard Stark?
Thank you, my dear friend.
Hammett and Chandler lived in a world of corruption and pitted against that lone detectives living by their own code. Their protagonists were flawed but showed us how to keep going in a world without justice.
John D. MacDonald wrote in the time of the Cold War. The son of an arms industry executive and himself an ordinance officer in WWII as well as a Harvard MBA later on, he set his knight-errant Travis McGee to right wrongs in a world of business scams. His was a more patriotic America but one as much in need of justice.
Richard Stark (a penname of Donald Westlake) wrote of an art thief named Parker, an anti-hero akin to Highsmith’s Ripley. In an existential age, even criminals and the morally compromised can show us a way to act with honor.
A world of corruption, business scams and hopelessness. A call to flawed humans to keep going, to define their own code and live up to higher ideals.
No wonder that stuff is timeless.
What a superb answer, Don! You should teach this stuff. :-)
I had jotted this for myself: they all appealed to a sense of justice (even Stark, where Parker’s code is honorable among thieves). That pursuing justice is always going to cost you something. That it’s messy (“You’re taking the fall,” Spade says to Brigid, even though he loves her) — but we have no choice but to pursue it if we want to be able to live with ourselves.
Indeed, that resonates today…and I guess that’s why I read them, and write what I do.
“That pursuing justice is always going to cost you something.”
Bloodline on Netflix is a chilling example.
I needed to read this today. My immigrant parents, especially my mother, taught me to be fearful and stay quiet. She even told me this last week. Thank you for reminding me why I should do exactly the opposite.
I get your mother’s caution but this is America and you are a writer. Speak out.
Thank You for another great post Don.
When preparing to write the novel The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck wrote: “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects].” He famously said, “I’ve done my damndest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags.” This work won a large following among the working class due to Steinbeck’s sympathy for the migrants and workers’ movement, and his accessible prose style.
-From Wikipedia
Thank goodness there are no longer any “greedy bastards” who run banks like casinos, see public resources as theirs to pillage, and who could care less about the environmental consequences for us all…oh…wait…
Thanks for a great post Don. When I started writing, I wanted to change the world. But there was that whole craft thing. For ex, I didn’t even know how to write proper dialogue. So bit by bit I learned the craft and I don’t think I’ll ever stop but now my goals are more modest: to make a difference, to give voice to the voiceless, and yes I still think of changing the world for the better, but now I know I must begin first with myself; the effects ripple.
Giving voice to the voiceless? Great goal. How about a megaphone?
Thank you! Yet another awesome post to print out and scribble notes on.
Now to make those changes!
Bravo, Don! This is a rallying cry that makes my heart sing! Thanks for your devotion to these ideas and your passion in exhorting writers to reach higher.
And of course, it doesn’t have to be “high literature” for a book to change things. A story circulating on social media this morning tells the story of a young woman who felt suicidal finding solace and recognition of herself–and thus hope–in the Supergirl graphic novels depicting a lesbian relationship. That’s power, too.
Now to the keyboard I go, to think higher, more passionately myself…
Wonderful to hear from an author and teacher who has inspired *me*. Thanks, Barbara.
Ever since that last day at the Un-Con, your final words have been echoing though my brain. This post comes at a perfect time as I begin a new novel. The questions and ideas you pose will be posted beside my computer as I work out my story.
Thanks for going deeper to help me flesh out how to translate your inspirational ideas onto the page.
Recently I heard Lawrence Hill (author of The Book of Negroes) talk about fiction that changes the world. He suggested looking at the Harry Potter series as a metaphor for the Holocaust, proof that novels can be read on many levels. Books that entertain can also enlighten and uplift.
Harry Potter can also be read as a Biblical allegory. So, yeah, I agree with Lawrence Hill. Resonant fiction can be read on many levels.
I’d recommend The Deathly Hallows Lectures on both of those fronts.
Wonderful timing, Don. This is the perfect booster shot for those of us who witnessed the power of that moment in Salem, of looking around at 100 of our fellows, hearing your exhortation, and knowing the truth of your claim that we can change the world. I believe! And you’ve offered us some great weapons to take to battle with us, as well.
It’s funny, but I started writing in the aftermath of the twin tragedies of 9/11 and the untimely death of a loved one. In hindsight I can see the internal battling of my psyche in those three manuscripts. My protagonist was infused from boyhood with a belief that disengagement from the corrupting influence of society was the solution to his and his people’s woes. He was basically an isolationist through the first two and a half books. He’s only forced to accept his role as an agent of change through his love of another more proactive character. I can better see now why that wasn’t working. It’s too long for readers to wait for that sort of change to occur.
I can also see my own evolution in having landed on my most recent work – the story of the isolationist’s father. This protagonist is imbued from boyhood with the belief that he must, and will, be the agent of change. His empathy for his people exists before he’s even come to know them. His calling is not a question of whether or not to engage, but rather one of to what extent he must be willing to go to enact change.
I can see that I needed these dozen years of writing to get to this point. Not just to learn the craft of constructing a novel, but to unsort myself. When I first started, I never could’ve envisioned myself, or my work, as an agent of change. I was the isolationist that the son portrays. I see that I needed this past decade of my life to come to an understanding and acceptance of my role as a storyteller, and to a place where I can embrace the calling you rightfully exhort us to. Thanks, Don, for being such a powerful agent of change in my writing journey.
Your front burner novel has much to say about leadership in a world of fragile alliances. For one thing.
Yes, you are a storyteller. An epic one, writing epics. Your dozen years were not wasted, not by a long shot.
Thank you, Don. You provide clear, practical steps to achieve depth of meaning. I’m taking notes from this post.
Don, when you said this in Salem, you described what I consider my mission as a writer. Each time I recall your words, I’m moved and inspired all over again, so it helps to have them here in writing where I can return to them as needed.
Now, like ice cream on the pie, I find your comment that describes the heart of my WIP: “A call to flawed humans to keep going, to define their own code and live up to higher ideals.”
Thank you for this ringing call.
Ice cream on pie? More a reward than a mission, to me, but hey. Let’s go for both.
Among my favorite posts. Stokes the fire in my belly.
Coffee in the belly is good too. Changing the world is a long process. We need to stay alert.
I know now that there are many reason you titled your work, The Fire In Fiction. Thank you.
The hours, the sacrifices, the tumultuous soul searching we go through to cull our stories are not self-absorbed actions. They are our reason for our journey here.
Blessed be your journey, Don.
Thanks, Bernadette, and you are right about the title of The Fire in Fiction.
What a timely and insightful article! Thank you!
As a lawyer/social activist environmental and indigenous rights advocate for several decades, I have used the bully pulpits of TV, print and social media, speeches, one published book, etc. to share my passion for social justice and positive change. Several years ago I realized the power of fiction for change, and have embarked on a writing career that is just coming to its first fruiting.
Your words are affirming and inspiring. I look forward to the next conference.
The next Un-Conference can’t come soon enough, I agree.
Wonderful guidance, Don. I have been moved by so many novels that gave me much more than a good story. I try to do that as well in my writing. As I embark on my fourth novel, I’ll keep your inspiring words on my mind.
As a teen I read The Grapes of Wrath. Voluntarily. My nerd-ness was well underway. That novel changed everything I thought I knew about that era and the way I saw America. I didn’t dislike my country for it, but I realized for the first time in my life that every nation and every man has deep-seeded faults. Without them, we could not grow, as a nation or as men.
I’ve often wondered what a white middle-class guy could say to the world. I’ve never truly suffered. Never been the victim of bigotry. I must admit I’ve had it easy. Even married way over my head and she still hasn’t caught on after 26 years.
But that average-ness is the point of view I’ve been given. And to see the entire picture, we need all points of view. Every day I want to scream at a news article that paints me with a broad stroke. Somehow, my political and religious views alone define every aspect of my character. Really? Isn’t that the kind of narrow-minded judgement that has mired most of humanity in a never-ending battle to determine who is at fault for our current mess?
I’ve learned over my 50 years (December 30th…don’t spend too much) that the world is never constant. Power shifts. Opinions change. The rulers become the ruled. As a writer, all I can do is show you this snapshot of now, from where I stand, much like John Steinbeck did. If 100 writers wrote 100 brilliant world-changing novels over the next 20 years, it would still be merely a glimpse of what the truth is. But that’s our job. To show those who follow us that nothing is simple, things are rarely black and white, and that being a little screwed up is the natural state of things.
Thanks for the post, Don. Always a treat.
“I’ve often wondered what a white middle-class guy could say to the world.”
The most “average” of authors have written some of the most transformative works in our literature. The power of stories comes not from who the authors are but from the stories themselves.
Don’t discount the Average White Guy. This world and our responsibility for it belongs to all of us.
Thanks Don. What I love about your teaching is that you provide the challenge/inspiration, then show us how to do it! Your teaching is a real gift.
Your examples reminded me of another – Spencer Tracy’s final monologue in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Every time I watch that I marvel at the words and the actor and how they come together to make magic. Which also reminds me how important it is to have characters with the gravitas or the chops to pull off the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Not any old character can do that.
Not any old character can do that? Any old character can because every danged author has got greatness inside, and can give that to his or her characters, any one of them.
Believe it.
Thanks for this, Don. I immediately thought of several things and since there’s no throughline below, I’ll just try to bullet point my thoughts:
• Your remark about penny dreadfuls reminds me of the idea of cliché. Since I dealt with this in Cliché Vindicated, I won’t rehash it all, but suffice to say I’m reminded once more of the article A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls in which the author argued that Penny Dreadfuls affirm basic clichés in our world such as “murder is wrong” or “one should not cheat.” To come across a world in which murder was praised more than motherhood would be an awful thing to behold. Only a satirist or a writer of dystopia would write such a thing and only as a form of contrast, certainly not as a manifesto for how to live one’s life. Even that phrase betrays what I mean: an affirmation of death is the exact opposite of living one’s life. That was the main point of horcruxes, I think.
• …which, in a way, reminds me too of the article The Fantastic Imagination. MacDonald says, essentially, that one may break the rules of physics and natural law to create a fantasy but one cannot call an unjust man just, a liar truthful, or a murderer a life preserver unless one hopes to lose the trust of one’s audience. To break moral law is different because you become a liar. And the whole point of fiction is to tell the truth through concrete metaphor.
Even for those who advocate progress merely for the sake of progress — or conservation merely for the sake of conservation (for those on the other side of the aisle) — we must ask the question: progressing towards what? or conserving what precisely? Certainly I hope we would want not want to progress towards exploitation or conserve racism. Or destroy humanity en route to saving it, as it were. Defining our teleological cause — our end goal as humans — helps us better hone our means for making our message.
The end virtues, even when they appear as clichés in penny dreadfuls or moral law in fantasies, move us towards a better vision for the future of our very tattered and torn world. And novels help us manifest those forms.
As Lisa Cron told me at conference, “Incarnate everything. Everything must be concrete.” Grateful for your similar, and rousing, call to action. And as an activist, I happily heed the call.
For me, right now, that means starting with a carpenter in Southern Illinois who hopes to turn his cul de sac into something like a commune, even as an oil baron buys up all the land…
Now to write the damn thing.
Great thoughts. Enact them in your story. “Write the damn thing.”
Yep.
“What do we need to remember?” This, among your list of questions, jumped out at me when I read it. I want my readers to remember who they really are. Not sleepwalkers but powerful brilliant creatures who have in themselves the power to change the world. And as to what they would do differently after reading my book(s)? They would use those Gifts to speak up and speak out and be brilliant and make the world shine.
“The Fire in Fiction” was the first of your books that I read because the title spoke right to my heart. You’ve been inspiring me ever since. Today is no exception!! Thank you, Don.
“I want my readers to remember who they really are.”
And who are we? If your story makes me answer that question for myself, then that’s a change. One reader. One change. They add up.
You are an extraordinary teacher and writer, Don. One set of your poignant questions deepens my story exponentially. Every. Single. Time. I am eagerly awaiting your new book. Thank you for inspiring greatness.
While you wait, I’m tweeting tidbits from The Emotional Craft of Fiction every day until release on December 30. Follow @DonMaass
Following closely…
I’ve always known what my novel is about, but I had no idea how it might change anything, much less the world. I’m answering each question you’ve posed in this post, and I already know that, when I’m done, I’ll know exactly how this novel is going to change me, and therefore, the world. Thanks so much for this post, Don!
Can’t wait to see you at the next BONI in Hood River, improved manuscript in hand!
Oh, cool, see you in Hood River!
Thanks Don for this mind blower. You have reignited the writer in me with this post. At last I know where my new book is going.
Robert! Glad to help. Are you around the week before Christmas? If so, shoot me or Lisa an e-mail…
Jeez Don, here I was going to do a sequel to “Pat the Bunny” and now you put this burden on me.
Really though, a stirring “Once more unto the breach, my friends” post, both timeless and topical. I’ve got a protagonist in my newest book who’d rather peer deeper into his brandy glass than look closely at the world, but his higher calling finally whops him with a moral blackjack, and he rises, if bumblingly, to the occasion. I hope he meets the taxing measure of the convictions you spell out here.
Pat the Bunny II could change the world of rabbits, you never know. Or the world of children?
Great, great post. I’m rewriting the first draft of my novel, and looking at the manuscript with these questions in mind helps to clarify the process for me. What is the most honorable thing my protagonist can do? It’s there, but it’s lukewarm. I need to turn up the heat. Then work backwards, as you suggest. Oh, joy! The curtains part.
First drafts can be lukewarm, true enough. Never too late to turn up the heat, but earlier in the process is better.
This post is just what I needed today. I’m revising a novel that deals with the marginalization and invisibility of undocumented farm workers. Your post made me realize I need to elevate the antagonists’ voices more in order to make my protagonist’s actions matter. Your sessions at UnCon gave me some fantastic ideas to work with. It was such a pleasure to meet you.
Likewise!
Thanks, Don, for the reminder of the importance of the work. And the practical advice. As always, your love and respect for writers shines through.
Good to see you here, Terri. Hope all’s well.
Can I say how grateful I am that so many writers have been blogging about the purpose of their craft lately? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot myself (and as early as this summer), and seeing posts on the topic here as well as at DIY MFA, Writers In The Storm, and other sites makes me feel a little less alone in my introspection. (And I know other writers feel that way now, too.) So thank you for writing this, Don.
I didn’t really know my WIP’s purpose when I started drafting it. It’s taken me 2+ years of revisions and editing for me to see its heart and thematic layers. And now I know it’s about a young girl who’s angry and prejudiced when the story begins, then sheds both flaws by learning the power of compassion and forgiveness. It seemed compelling enough – and then this summer and fall happened. Now when I look at my WIP, I’ve had two thoughts: that I’m thankful to be working on this story and can see how much it might be needed now in the world; and that I’ll do my best to ensure my future stories each have their own sense of purpose.
Especially now, most definitely.
Hey, Don:
Oh thank God you wrote this. Blame the bad connection, but all this time I thought you were saying, “Write with a porpoise.”
You have any idea how expensive the upkeep on one of those suckers is?
Ahem.
Most of my stories revolve around the premise “Be careful what you wish for,” aka “Unexamined desire leads to disaster.” Most of my plots are usually a form of Prisoner’s Dilemma, where one character has no clue what the other(s) is/are thinking or doing, and thus always acts on the basis of “imperfect information.”
Hilarity (or misery) ensues.
What slapped me upside the head about your post was the advice: “Don’t just warn us, inspire us to change.”
I have to admit, I rankled at that. Then promptly realized I rankled precisely because I knew you were right, and hadn’t risen often enough to the challenge.
My stories are often cautionary tales, where the “boon” (a word that makes me cringe) is a new self-awareness.
Now, I think if we were all more self-aware, we could indeed change the world for the better.
But that extra step, of giving the character not just new awareness but determination to act accordingly, to not just become newly aware of the pervasiveness of hatred or injustice but to fight back, is something I have too often (but to my credit, not always) neglected.
Thanks for the kick in the pants.
Now–any idea what to do with a “previously owned” porpoise?
A previously owned porpoise? Sounds fishy. I would’t by one, only new. Thanks for chiming and swimming deeper.
This is a great call to action. Thank you Don! I struggle with trying to take my fiction from just illuminating to world-changing. I feel I have something to say that can change the world, but how to bring that out in my fiction? I’m going to be spending all of 2017 revising a novel I spent 2013-2014 writing, having come back with fresh perspective, and it’s very much to dig into the *why* of it that I’m investing this time on making it more than just a story that holds together and amazes. It has to do something that will change readers, maybe change the world, and if it doesn’t, that simply means I’m not done. Your post really has given me a different perspective on what it means to explore that *why* behind why I wrote this book — and I’ll be making use of some of your suggested techniques.
Hey John, thanks for that. I owe you an e-mail!
I read this without seeing who the author was. Upon completion I thought, this sounds like Donald Maass. Thanks for your wonderful insights– as usual. Much appreciated.
Hmm, perhaps I have a style? (Sorry, I mean “voice”. ) Thanks!
Thanks, Don. Lots of fire in this to stoke my writing and my hopes of reaching readers. In these post-election days, I find my work has taken on a new importance and it also helps me get back on track instead of sinking into sorrow. Read on, write on. Believe in the power of words and ideas. Everyone on this site comes to this work for a reason. Shakespeare, Dickens, Lee, Luther King–inspiration that can block out the dispiriting voices. So I can only say, GOT IT!
If you don’t like how we are, call it out and set it right in a story. I’m not for morality tales but I am for stories so powerful they change our thinking.
Thank you, Don. I rarely wade into the commentary pool. Each presenter at UnCon, I believe, opened their workshops with a statement from the heart. I think we all needed truth and connection. By Friday, when many began to flag, you fired us up again by asking these deeper questions – the same ones you mention above, in your essay. Your sensitivity and grace, when all of us, I believe, were feeling somewhat fragile, gave voice to why we do what we do. You affirmed we matter. Our writing matters. That when we search for our deeper truths, we often find them lurking within our manuscripts already. Thank you for reminding me, that “the worst thing we could do, especially now, is to keep quiet.”
“Our writing matters.”
Not only does it matter, the very fact of writing matters.
A nicely written post, but I must confess, I took some exception to the following sentence:
“If your intention in writing is to “illuminate” or “explore”, or simply to entertain, why are you aiming so low? ”
To me, none of those three goals is “low.”
None of those goals is bad. What I aim for is fiction that not only shows us the world in new ways, but that stirs us so powerfully that we think and act in new ways too.
Every time I work on my book, I pull out the card with my answer to your question and keep it near. I feel less as if I’m taking time from doing laundry and more that the work itself matters. Cathy Yardley told me during our one-on-one session that she felt writing this book would change me and the next day you told me and so many others it could change the world. Thank you. I am passionate about using my work to provide connection in a world in which we are all becoming more isolated and fearful. The more I write, the more I see how this same passion plays out in my life- i.e. I helped begin and run a community library in my village. That same drive to connect people who are beset with poverty, alcoholism, unemployment is what drives this book. To provide a way for others to feel less alone and exempt from leading the lives they deserve. You not only lit anew my fire, but helped me find the true North in my writing and life. I’m writing down the practical tips you’ve provided so I can better stay the course.
Thank you for this post. My novel does have a purpose, it deals with gender equality which, while better, is STILL not where it should be. It started out that way, but as a new writer I floundered. You have inspired me to make it bigger, broader, more meaningful.
I can’t tell you how exciting it is to read this post. As a decade-long dystopian writer, I’ve been met with a lot of criticism: “Books are for entertainment, not to make socioeconomic or political points; people read books to escape, not to be made to think.” I’ve fought against this mindset for so long, but it’s been an exhausting fight. I write because I have something to say, something I think is important to the times. I import theme, symbolism, allusion, foreshadowing, and all the other goodies we learned about in English class, specifically to leave puzzle pieces that come together to *say something.* To me, the message is as important as the story it underlies. Thank you for making me feel a little less alone in that.