Why Write a Book?

Why Write a Book?

That’s a question that I’ve asked myself many times in the last few years. The answer to that question has several parts. The first is that I have a story to tell and the easiest way to tell it is to put it down in a book. Oh I know you’re saying why not just make a ballad about it and sing it on street corners. Well it’s hard to get people to stand around long enough to hear the entire story.  And if they only hear a part of it what will they think.  I mean what would you think if you only heard about Scrooge’s first ghost trip into the past? Not all that satisfying, and he would remain a mean, stingy old man for all times. Tough luck Tiny Tim.

What if you only heard the part about the Greeks getting into a huge wooden horse? Would you think it was going to be a surprise party, and they couldn’t afford a pinata? Where did they get the wood for the horse and who just happens to be able to construct a horse large enough to hold a number of men in the first place. What about those Trojans? I mean, who after a ten year long siege thinks that the enemy is just going to leave and give you a giant wooden horse for your efforts?

OK so ballads are out of the question. Why not just write a very short story that people could read in just a moment, say 140 characters. It could go something like this “It was the best of times it was the worst of times. The French aristocracy was really mean to the peasants. A woman does a little knitting and someone loses their head.” Brief enough but not really very satisfying.

So that brings us back to the idea of a book. Why tell the story in the first place you ask? I think that for some of us the story roams around in our heads and refuses to go away until we write it down. Suppose we just wrote it down and then put it in a desk drawer. If you’ve ever done that you know that the characters will haunt your dreams and that drawer will shout at you every time you pass it by.  That either makes you psychotic or driven.  I prefer to believe that I’m driven to write and pass along what I’ve written.

There are no great truths in my stories.  Perhaps an occasional moral but nothing to drive the reader to reform their lives, unless they want to. I write for the fun of it and I hope that you the reader will find fun in reading.  I suspect that may the basis of why a large number of writers write.