Dec
15
2009
I’m Curious
Author: Sara MuellerSomeone asked me recently what I thought it was that made me a writer. The quick and obvious answer is that a writer is someone who writes. I’m a writer because I write. Yep. Heard it a hundred and forty seven thousand times. What is it that makes me into a me who writes?
Hunh.
I considered this question in great depth for about a second and a half and up blinked the word ‘curiosity’. It isn’t the only thing that makes me a writer, but it’s certainly a solid cornerstone. I’m curious about people. My husband is endlessly amused and wry because I talk to people that I don’t know.
I converse with the lady at the meat counter (her dog has squeaky toy issues).
I chat with the dry cleaner (the roofer recommendation? Awesome.).
I listen to nervous people on airplanes (one lovely young lady was studying casino management).
So why does that make me a writer instead of nosy as all get out? Okay, so I am ALSO nosy as all get out. I’m curious about people, about things, about history, about virtually everything. Well, maybe not Nascar, but possibly I just don’t know enough about what makes that interesting to people.
I’m curious about people, about what makes them do what they do, how they think what they think. I wonder what would make them change. What would they do if some situation radically changed the world in which they live and how would they respond? How do people respond to challenges in their lives? What kinds of responses make someone, maybe even a very broken person, into a hero?
Do you write? Why? I’m curious.
Tags: writing
December 15th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
But that doesn’t answer the question of why you write! You talk about why you gather information, why you like to hypothesize and speculate, but writing is one step beyond that. It is a communication, is spreading information out beyond yourself, taking those speculations about people, defining an answer, and putting it out for others to see.
Why do you write?
December 16th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Car crashes. I think that’s Nascar. Or that the target demographic stereotypically has one car that runs mostly okay and two up on blocks, so a car going a bazillion miles an hour is as epic to them as a show or concert is to me.
Ahem.
I write because I’m trying to map human interaction. People think I’m kidding when I say I don’t understand it; I’m not. I don’t know how that happened; I have my own quasi-spiritual beliefs about why I suck at it — but I have to admit that my brother isn’t so hot at it either, and my half-sister has her questionable moments.
So, how does a boy react when the girl is an enigma that he thinks he has figured out, how does a girl react when her boyfriend is insultingly apathetic toward monogamy, how does a gentleman react when his lady friend throws herself into his lap and tips them onto the floor…
Some things are more far-fetched than others, sure, maybe I actually have a plot or theme I’m trying for. But there’s a lot of interaction in the stories I tell. I don’t write a lot about how the thunder rolled in the mountains and the beautiful painting crashed off the wall with no-one to hear it fall. Not my gig, I understand how thunder and gravity work. I’m not sitting at my keyboard going “okay… so… if the wall shakes… and the cord comes off the nail… I’ve always seen posters fall, but they kindof stick to the wall with static as they go and this wouldn’t have that… It’d probably crash straight down?” (which is pretty even to what I’m doing with interaction bits that I don’t think I know how to do.)
(I was a sociology and a journalism major, too, which means I pretty much majored in trying to figure this out.)
December 16th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Same as Sara, Cantras… that’s not answering the question of ‘why do you write’. That’s why you think, why you speculate about human interactions, it may be why you come up with ‘what if scenarios. But writing is to make a decision about those scenarios, define how they resolve, and then express your definition to your audience. You are not only wondering how does the gentleman react, you are _deciding_,… he will act in this way, these events will follow, and this is how he is going to behave afterwards. Your writing serves to communicate your decision about the scenario, to an audience. Why do you want to make that communication? Why do you write?
(PS I’m curious too, I’m not a writer, so I am also curious as to why do people write.)
December 16th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Let me see if I can be a bit clearer about it. Some people express what they are exploring with music, or with paint or stone or wood. My medium happens to be written words. They are, however, no matter how much I adore them, polish them, and learn to use them, nothing without curiosity. I end up with a person in a situation in my head, and I want to find out how they deal with it. Words are the medium of expression.
Sometimes I talk things out with someone as I’m working on a story, but in the end it’s by writing it out that I find my way through a character’s story. No amount of talking it out will change that when I write I find the character as a construct of thought that’s separate from how I myself might think of a situation… and I’m curious to know exactly how that particular being will travel their road.
It’s certainly possible to be a curious person and not to write. It’s possible to be curious and to not express it in any way at all. Curiosity isn’t the ONLY thing that makes me a writer, as I said at the start, but it’s one of the things that contributes a fair share toward that outcome. I’m not sure it would be possible to be a writer – or at least a fiction writer – if one were not curious.
December 17th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I write because I have stories to tell, I want to find a career that I find satisfying, and it’s gratifying to have people enjoy what I wrote.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:00 am
To add one more thing to this, cuz I’ve been mulling it over, I think being a writer is more than being curious about people or the world, it is answering your own curiousity. It is making decisions about them, and then expressing that decision.
To quote Steve Barnes: “…a story is in essence an argumentation. You are saying “human beings are thus” and “the world is such”. And then playing this all out in the form of dramatic action. … From that perspective, every character, every action in your piece must either support or attack your basic premise, your basic beliefs.”