Why I Write

I’ve always enjoyed writing. In high school writing papers was a breeze for me. My favorite papers to write were history papers, I loved all the researching involved. Finding out what happened during a specific time or during a certain battle and then re-telling the story in my own words was something I considered both simple and fun.

I didn’t become super interested in creative writing until about the time I started college. I went to college to pursue a degree in audio and video production and found that writing scripts for fictional films to be particularly engaging for me. A professor told me that if I liked writing scripts that I should look into taking some creative writing classes, I took his advice and minored in creative writing.

While I liked making short films, they were a lot of work, a lot of coordinating other people which is not my strong suit. Writing was something I could do alone and gradually my interest from writing scripts transferred into an interest in writing short stories and that is where I’m at today. I fully intend to write a novel someday, just not yet.

As for the actual “why” I write, that’s multi-faceted. I often find myself writing to speculate, I’ll remember a circumstance I was in and write a story based on what could have happened in that situation. I also write to reflect. I’ll write a pretty verbatim account of something that happened to me and why it was great or terrible but in a narrative form, I try to get down to a philosophical or psychological realization or complication of whatever happened.

Another reason I write is to embody a character. This tactic is a what I imagine acting to be like since I am pretending to be someone, taking on a role and switching my thinking from what I would do to what they would do. This type of writing is very fun for me as it allows me to explore my curiosity about people. If I want to know more about what it’s like to be a doctor, a lawyer or a detective, all I have to do is engross myself in that lifestyle through intense research and then write a story where the main character is my version of that doctor, lawyer or detective. When I’m finished with the story it’s out of my system and I can become curious about another profession or person. I love learning and writing where I embody a character who is different from me is an excuse to learn.

I write because it’s always been natural for me and because I want to reflect and speculate on my own life from a distance, and conversely, because I want to learn what it’s like to be a different person and face different problems. Lastly, I will say that I write to tell a good story, which sounds vague and cliché but I strive to write stories that make you think. I don’t want to just tell you what happened, I want you to think about it three days later.