I have often remarked to people who ask me why I write that, "I have to so I know how the story ends." It's true...sometimes I know how a book will end, but mostly I let the story lead me where it will. If I have a preconceived notion of how it will finish, I find I box myself in and limit my imagination. In the writing world this is known as pantsing, or writing without a planned outline (known, ironically, as planning).
Along with the need to get a story into the open comes the more self-serving piece of the proverbial pie: the gratification I receive when someone tells me how much they enjoyed one of my stories. To say that this isn't important to a writer is a downright lie...a fabrication...an unholy untruth told by those who want to appear humble, but aren't. There is a personal satisfaction I get when someone identifies with a character or laughs in the right spot in the story. Perhaps they got mad at me for killing off a certain character they liked. Hey, that means they identified with that "person" too, and as such, I have done my job as a writer.
I must also tell you that writing can sometimes be a chore. Readers understand the conundrum...there are those slower portions of the story that one must wade through in order to get to the good stuff. The author must build the plot and show the reader what led to a certain scene, or lay the groundwork for something much more grand later in the tale. This can be as difficult for a writer as it is the reader. We want to get to the good stuff too, but we have this world we've envisioned and want to explain in subtle ways devoid of too much detail. God forbid with tell, rather than show! A literary tragedy is what that mire becomes!
It is my job, or my joy to map out a story such that the reader forgets he/she is reading; they should simply be gazing into the twisted mind of a person aching to describe something and convey a message without intruding on their real, personal world. Stephen King describes this as a pure form of magic--the ability of one person to transmit an idea to another and both have the same basic idea of the story being told. Perhaps he is right!
I write because it is in me to do so; not because I am the most prolific writer in the world--heck, I consider myself mediocre at best. The Craft is my therapy, my beach, my liquor, my vice. I feel as though it is my form of expression that I can share with anyone willing to ingest my thoughts and words.
So thank you for indulging me. You have no idea how much pleasure it brings me to see someone reading something I have written and they laugh or gasp in all the right places. That, my friend, is the ultimate high.
Peace,
~h
