My Inspirations

Good writers: reading a good book (or watching a good film/TV series, or playing a good game) is always inspiring. I started wanting to write when I was tiny – I read Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch when I was in first school and dressed up as Mildred Hubble for World Book Day and wanted to wear my witch hat and write stories about witches. From there I went to Goosebumps and through various Urban Fantasy and Horror and the works of Stephen King and James Herbert and Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman…

Although I’m pretty sure that if I were in fact a witch, I would be trying to turn that into a career and also destroying excessively loud music systems in shops rather than writing. Sorry.

Bad writers: a lot of bad writing has a lot of potential. It’s kind of tragic that it’s not teased out. On the other hand, thank you, bad writers, you’ve given me something to play with. (Twilight, for example, is a well of 'good ideas done horribly' that never, ever runs dry.)

Nerdy research: It’s useful to have random facts in your head if you need inspiration. Sometimes it’s for stories. Sometimes it’s a reason why you’re juggling cheese or staring at cats.

My life: my life story is long, weird, and depressing as hell. On the other hand, I do have a wide range of emotional inspiration when writing. On the third hand, I’m not going to use it as direct inspiration. It has the potential to get too disturbing due to my personal feelings about these experiences.

As for what else? I don’t know. Being an introverted child with few friends and no siblings probably overcharged my imagination. That’s probably why I write; otherwise my brain would just overflow.

That and the fact that I was never accepted into Miss Cackle’s Academy.

I’m kidding.

Is your writing your ‘letter to the world?’ Why? How?

God, I hope not all my writing. Otherwise, the stuff I wrote when I was in first school would be considered my ‘letter to the world’ and that stuff was terrible. Also prime ‘creep out the psychologist’ material for I was a strange and morbid child with dreams of being a wizard and RULING THE WORLD FROM MY NEO-GOTHIC TOWER OF DESPAIR MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

*cough*

Yes, I did know what ‘neo-gothic’ referred to whilst in first school.

Anyway, I agree that some of a person’s writing is their letter to the world, especially if they put it up for publishing. If the writer does not publish or intend to publish, then it cannot be counted as a ‘letter to the world’. This would include many of the works of Emily Dickinson and Franz Kafka. (Logically, this would make their friends who published these works once Kafka and Dickinson were dead, and therefore unable to object, somewhat bad friends.)

However, I do not think that writing is necessarily a direct letter to the world. For example, most* people do not think that Jonathan Swift was actually advocating the eating of babies whilst writing A Modest Proposal – instead he was satirizing the responses of the British Government to the Irish Famine. Given the sheer volume of debate over many literary works, I would say that most writing comes under this category. And of course, what one intends to write in one’s letter to the world may not be what the recipients read into it. Stephenie Meyer probably thinks she wrote a delightful sparkly vampire romance, and yet I have seen people read the following into it: that she is unhappy with her life choices, that she has a disturbing obsession with twu wuv that overrules reasonable limits and free will, that she has a variety of interesting fetishes, and that she is living proof that it is possible to get an English Literature degree without doing any more than skim-reading a few classics.

In conclusion, I would say that work that is published with your consent is your letter to the world. Work published without your consent is more akin to someone finding your personal journal and sticking it up all over town. 

This also means that Tara Gilesbie’s masterpiece My Immortal is her letter to the world, whether it is a satire of terrible Harry Potter fanfiction that questions narrative conventions of plot, consistent characterisation or the rules of spelling and grammar, or merely hilariously terrible Harry Potter fanfiction. 

Happy nightmares, former bad fanfiction writers everyone.

* I say most. There’s always one.

Is it necessary for a writer to write about the social or political events of his/her time?

The first film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1956, at the height of McCarthyist paranoia about Communism. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was written in the early 19^th Century, during the period of mass scientific, philosophical and political development known as the Enlightenment, and most obviously after the work of Luigi Galvani in the 1790s. What people want to write and consume as media often reflects in some way the social and political events of the time. 

Of course, it is not necessary to produce work based on these events, even in allegorical form. There are many writers who write personal things, whether they be emotional exorcisms or stories based on the principle “I like unicorns, I like glitter, I like mage wars, lets write something about that” or anything in between. There are writers who write really weird, experimental stuff which features puns in multiple languages and is probably best appreciated with some heavy-duty OTC painkillers in case of headaches.

Of course, it is impossible to not have any influences of the events of one’s time. Even if you were to spend most of the day in one’s room and write, much like Emily Dickinson, you will have some outside influences from communications to the view outside your window. It’s up to the writer as an individual whether they confront these influences directly in their work or not. 

(You probably will though. You, and by extension your writing, are shaped by the social and political events of your time. It’s just not necessary to put it in there deliberately – and in the case of some writers, they probably shouldn’t.)

A protagonist that embodies the flaws and weaknesses of the writer distracts the reader from the narrative itself. Agree/ disagree?

There are many advantages to writing a protagonist with similar flaws and weaknesses to the writer. Most obviously, in the case of relatively uncommon problems and obstacles, such as illness, mental conditions, or being on the receiving end of societal prejudices, writing as someone who has experienced these things can bring depth to the writing that may not be present in someone who has researched these things but has not experienced them first-hand. (Of course, it’s better to do actual research than read one newspaper article and start hammering away…)

Beyond that, if an author wishes to insert themselves or an aspect of themselves into the story as a protagonist, I suppose it’s more up to the skill of the writer as to whether that is distracting or not. If the flaws are used as a way of self-punching, then it’s going to need some serious editing  (who wants to read a story that is peppered with “I’m lazy, I’m selfish, I can’t play the violin or the piano or the ocarina or any musical instrument, I can’t do algebra, I hate myself, I forget things, I’m unassertive, I whinge too much…”?) but if used well it can be an interesting character and exploration of the author. 

If it's used too much it will probably be distracting, just because it's become recognisable. Even the most loyal fans are going to make jokes about how the writer has turned up in yet another of his books. (Seriously, I love Stephen King, but when he himself turned up in The Dark Tower my response was mostly "well, at least this time he's not using a proxy.")

Is there any place for truth in writing?

Truth, to a certain extent, is a subjective matter. For example, there are two people walking down the street. Person A says “You’re not that good at making steak croquettes.” Person B punches person A in the mouth. When talking to the police, person A said the attack came out of nowhere, and person B says the attack was a response to a grave insult. Society then says that person B takes steak croquettes way too seriously. Truths – especially social truths and the individual’s perception of reality – are not always objectively true.

Many people do attempt to analyse an author through their writing – obviously not those who subscribe to ‘Death of the Author’.  This is more likely to happen if the author clearly self-identifies with their character. The reader attempts to discover truth about the author’s life, or their attitudes and held ‘truths’, via reading the book. There are people who dedicate their lives searching for evidence of homosexuality or neuroatypicality in their favourite authors (for some reason, these seem to be very popular).

As a consequence, a writer must be very careful not to put down certain truths in writing. These vary from author to author and between times and cultures. I’m pretty sure everyone has something they do not wish to share. Having academics a few centuries down the line figure it out probably isn’t a worry, but having contemporary readers doing so would be. On the other hand, these mental truths will seep into ones writing unconsciously. You can’t help it; if you tried to write complete lies you wouldn’t write anything. Plenty of authors have written their fantasies into books, intentionally or no. However, people will read anything into anything. They might peg you as a robot fetishist when you were actually interested in the ethical implications of a programmable lover, for example. There’s a place for your truths in your writing. You just have to be careful which ones you put down.

(Haha, I’ve probably made everyone paranoid now.)

(EDIT: Alternately I could have just played too much Persona 2: Innocent Sin - there's a bit where the character's dark sides come into reality as separate entities. See what I mean about stuff in your brain seeping unconsciously into your writing?)

Is the writer, as an artist, special?

One could say that in terms of art, the written word, and in particular the written narrative, are fairly unique. They can be fairly explicit with their message (although many written works contain many alternate interpretations). Unlike a painting, photograph or sculpture, a written work can contain many events. Writing is also extremely accessible; once a person is a proficient reader and has some knowledge of the world, they can enjoy and contemplate the written word. Analysis of paintings or music, for example, is somewhat trickier. The art of writing is also more accessible; most people are now taught how to write, and it doesn’t require expensive materials.

There is also the fact that many societies are built around stories – myths, histories, fairy tales et cetera. Those who record these have a significant role in the preservation of a culture. This even counts for original creations of the author – they reflect the attitudes of the time in some way, and may also contribute to societal change. Non-fiction writers also have a similar cultural duty. Whilst other art forms share this role somewhat, writing (and its predecessor, the oral tradition) is one of the simplest ways of preserving, adapting, and changing culture. Margaret Atwood wrote in Negotiating with the Dead (2003):

Everyone can dig a hole in a cemetery, but not everyone is a grave-digger. The latter takes a good deal more stamina and persistence. It is also, because of the nature of the activity, a deeply symbolic role.

She compares this to being a writer - as the grave-digger carries the mourners’ beliefs and worries about death and what may come after, the writer carries their society’s defining narratives and ideologies.

This is what makes the position of writer 'special'.