Writers Are The Worst Of Cowards.
We hide in plain sight, behind the slimmest of letters.
I am going to kick this off with #notallwriters, so you understand it’s not about you if you don’t fit the description.
A lot of writers fit the description of cowardice. Cowardice so jarring it turns you yellow like cigarette smoke on wallpaper.
“Writers are nothing like that!” You may have the innate desire to bash your sticky fingers all over the keys like Elton John’s shitposter doppelganger, but I ask you to refrain.
Please hold your I’m-so-very-mean and how-dare-you’s for later.
Writers find new words, ways, and letter pictures to explain the feelings they feel. We write because we love language. We write because we want to communicate.
We write to live in another’s skin, to breathe the air they do, fall in love, and experience life in a different world. Writers are readers. Writers are problem solvers. Writers are dreamers.
But more than anything, writers are, as I’ve often seen and experienced in myself, lonely. Can’t you feel it too?
Writers often feel like they have a lack of voice, despite having a mastery over language.
I’m not talking about people who write self-help tips that are a rehashing of a rehashing of a rehashing of a copy of a copy of a copy. Or clickbait articles that never get to the damned point — I don’t consider them writers. I consider them content marketers that employ writing.
I’m talking about writers who pour their very soul into their characters, who construct elaborate sandboxes for them to play in, and devote almost every waking moment to the fruition of their cognition.
How nuts does that sound? Humans hunched over tables with paper, typewriters, computer screens, iPads — whatever — constructing a world that has never been seen before. Or fleshing out a world we know, with details we don’t. That’s the type of writer I’m talking about.
And where does the cowardice come from, you may ask? Cowardice comes from not being in the here and now. It comes from covering ourselves with words as our masks. A lot of writers are introverts, I’d say most of them. And there’s a reason for the introversion. Writers hide in plain sight to speak the truth, dressed up in battle armour and historical fiction.
While we, as writers, watch the world go by, we take in the smell of it all. The taste of it. We reach out our fingers and feel the soft slipping shells of rice grains tickle over our skin. We hear the rush of the rice filter back into the bag and imagine what it must taste like, even now, raw. We feel the powdery residue and wipe our hand on our pants.
We, as writers, imagine the meal we might have, of all the tiny parcels and particles we just felt. And then we imagine how a fake person in a fake life might have that same meal. We’ve removed ourselves.
You may think I’ve just contradicted myself. How can ‘avoiding the here and now’ line up with ‘feels everything and records it to use later’? I’ll tell you:
We rarely self-insert. As writers, we are taught not to. The terms are called “mary sue” and “gary stu”, both male and female versions of the same idea. Perfect, overpowered creations that are flawless and unkillable, and yet, the girl or boy are aptly avoided.
So, if you remove the desire to inflate your own ego, and start creating your story with characters that are nothing like you, where did you go? As a writer, are you the overlord, the overseer, and all the little fictitious lives you just spun up at your whim? Yes, they are. But you are at the whim of the story.
Do you think George R. R. Martin has a problem killing off his creations? Absolutely not. So, where is he, in all the stories of dragons, queens, witches, and White Walkers? Who is his proxy? Does he have one, as a writer, or has he quite simply faded into the backdrop of his stories — his stories which have become his life?
How does it sound when you put it all together?
Writers create stories we’ve experienced parts of in feeling, smell, sight, and observation. Writers observe the world and create fictional characters, then begin to write out those stories, not their own. Then writers, if they’re good at it, simply vanish in between the folds of the pages. The writer ceases to be, so that you may experience his or her story about the stories of others. But the writer is gone, when done well enough.
Wouldn’t you call that cowardly? To step back from the wonder of life and make a fake life? Devote your life, and your time, and your blood, sweat, and tears, to this fake story about other peoples’ fake lives?
Or is it something amazing?
Is writing the act of peeling back one’s imagination, heart, and soul, to share with others? Is it the definite act of bravery to lay yourself bare like that, even if you hide behind letters? Is it the most poignant, pressing, provocative undressing of your deepest self, to show the world horrors and beauties you’ve thought up?
I’m not sure. It’s neither. It’s both. Maybe!
But as I sit here, and write this, I think about why I write my stories.
I know I self-insert every struggle I’ve ever had, every feeling of hopelessness. Every character death is killing a part of myself, every criticism of contemporary culture that I throw in is my own. Every discussion of religion, it’s my point of view. Even the counter-points are things I’ve thought up and can agree with in their standings. So, am I really gone?
Did I fade away, or did I expose myself? Am I a writer like George R. R. Martin insofar as I’ve vanished into my pages? Or am I a hack? Are you a hack?
Are you like me?
As a writer, I use my stories to battle through the seasons of my life, in hope that someone will indeed, pull back the curtain and read between the lines.
I desperately, desperately want someone to understand me. As an extroverted creative, the people around me fail in that far too often. As a writer, I fail to ever make it easy for them.
I write to communicate how I feel about love. I write to exorcise demons.
I wonder what you write for, friend. Is it out of cowardice, or is it out of bravery? Do you write to change the world, or do you write to show your own version of it? Do you write to play with language, or do you write to create intricate logical systems? Do you write for pleasure, or for pain? Or do you write for both?
Leave a reply in the comments below. I will read every one of them, because you, as a writer, took the time to respond. Every letter matters, even if we may have to destroy the letters later, kill a character, or start our novels over again.
I’ll read between your lines, if you’ll read between mine.
