Do Writers Become Characters? - Op-Ed Piece
Writers are master creators in that they can take nothing on a piece of paper and then form life from it.
The words make something there that was otherwise not there before.
It’s like magic only with typing and spacebars.
Instead of waving around a wand, writers use pens.
We don’t cast spells; we spell-check.
We don’t boil bones; we boil coffee.
No person becomes a hero on a quest.
No land becomes a fantasy land filled with trolls and ogres.
No story becomes a tale as old as time.
Perhaps this unique feature is why some writers are drawn to the profession.
There is a unique opportunity when you are the one who writes the script.
When you can put words in a character’s mouth, and that character cannot object or disagree.
If you do that with people you know, then you’d surely get in trouble.
Writers know a thing or two about creating stuff.
Perhaps that is why God is so good with words, why the Bible is chock-full of quotes and lines that we say over and over again.
God creates. Writers create. It is only natural that God is a writer.
He went from quite literally making our world to making our world in a literary sense too.
Also, on a side note, can we all take a second to acknowledge how nonchalant The Bible is when God creates the world?
It was good.
It was good?
It was good?
No, that youtube video I watched with those guys playing Call of Duty Zombies was good.
My last meal at Friday’s was good.
The Lithium cover by Post Malone was good.
Those are good.
The creation of the freaking world has to get better than only “It was good.”
But I digress…
There is a problem with the dedication of writers.
And no, I am not talking about the lack of coffee in the pot. (but seriously, can someone refill that from time to time?)
The reader, the bloodline to a writer’s success and the one who decides whether a writer eats or starves, can’t read every word.
Or every book they write.
Or every blog post.
Sorry to all the writers out there that want that to be the case.
It’s not.
Writers lie to themselves and act like the readers will see them for all they are.
All those funny lines that will make no sense to future generations since the reference will become outdated.
All those plotlines that weave in and out like an intricate design on a sweater.
All those dramatic verses that practically produce tears from the pages.
Forgot all about that cause quite the opposite will happen.
The writer will be reduced to a character.
The answer to a Jeopardy question. (Who is William Shakespeare?)
A fun fact that you read on your phone. (Stephen King’s It was originally rejected by publishers because they didn’t want a book of that size on the shelves.)
A brief paragraph on a website. (No, I’m not writing a paragraph here.)
All those words and worlds, and that is what a writer is left with.
He wrote the book about the young lovers.
She wrote the book about the boy wizard.
He wrote Sherlock Holmes.
We make them less so that we can better understand them.
Then our larger culture takes it out of control.
Take a famous writer that you know, and you’ll realize that people think that the writer spent their entire lives on that one work.
Shakespeare didn’t go around talking like that.
Poe didn’t try to ever kill someone.
Gaiman is no longer thinking about sandmen.
But we as an audience don’t seem to actually care about the writer as a person, but as a character too.
So whenever we talk of Shakespeare, he is talking funny.
We give Poe a Raven each time he appears in pop culture.
We have Gaiman talk to a sandman each scene he is brought up.
We treat them as fictional creations.
Not the hero in the story.
Not the villain in the story,
Not even the side character,
But definitely not real.
After years of creating characters, it is the writer who is transformed into a character, then none other by the fans themselves.
That is quite poetic if you ask me.
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About The Blogger
Greg Luti is an editor and blogger on pensandwords.com. He has never caught a ghost. He has never crossed the streams. He knows all the words to the Ghostbuster song. He likes Slimer. He thinks an underrated part of the film is the end where all the Ghostbusters have cream on themselves from the explosion, aside from Bill Murray. For some reason his lack of cream after destroying the ancient God makes sense to the blogger.
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