We can all think of books that changed the world.
Religious texts like the Bible and Koran. Novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jungle, 1984. Nonfiction books like Silent Spring, The Feminine Mystique, Dreams from My Father.
And how could any such list be complete without groundbreaking tomes like Bachelor host Chris Harrison’s novel The Perfect Letter, a sultry romance about an upstart New York book editor sent into a tailspin by her boss/boyfriend’s marriage proposal who is then scandalously tempted by her ex-boyfriend and ex-con Jake Rhodes at a Texas writer’s conference, and…
Ahem sorry. Where was I? Oh yes.
Books can cause masses of people to see the new world in a new way. They can persuade people of the validity of new viewpoints. They can catapult people into action.
But there’s another subtle but collectively more powerful way that writing changes the world:
Writing changes the world by changing writers.
Here’s what I mean.
How writing changes the writer
As an editor, I have worked with victims of sexual assault and child abuse, with war veterans, with people struggling with divorces and family abandonment.
Something incredible happens as these writers channel their feelings into their writing. They are able to transubstantiate some of that pain into an essay or book they feel good about.
That’s not to say that anyone’s problems go away because they write or that writing is a substitute for therapy (only therapy is therapy) or that writing is some kind of cure-all. Writing can also advance some of the worst ills.
But when writers take pain and try to turn it into something meaningful, think about how miraculous that is. They’re taking some of the darkest things humans can experience and transforming them into objects they can feel proud of.
Even if your pain or reflections are more everyday than the trauma of an assault victim or veteran, writing can still help you process your feelings, your problems, and tease out those diffuse feelings you have about the world.
Writing is one of the most incredible tools we have for taking darkness and creating light.
It’s one of the reasons I love editing books so much, especially now that I’m free as a freelance editor to take on projects regardless of their mainstream commercial viability. If I can help authors improve their work and feel that much better about what they’ve produced, it’s a truly meaningful experience for both of us.
The readers who benefit
Collectively, writers all over the world are dissipating their darkness through writing. They’re turning hardships into learning, pain into positivity, and inviting other people to see what they’ve felt and view the world through their eyes.
And they just might be helping others too.
J.K. Rowling recently tweeted about how the Harry Potter books helped her as much as a reader who tweeted her thanks:
Dragging myself through another bout of severe #depression and re-reading the #HarryPotter series to strengthen my Patronus. A million thanks to @jk_rowling for the magical escape that’s always there when it’s needed ❤
— Sally Burns (@joosylemon) March 19, 2018
Those stories saved their author, too. Nothing makes me happier than to think that they went out into the world to do the same for other people. Keep that Patronus powerful ✨ https://t.co/d9ByD4WtCo
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 19, 2018
If other people who end up reading the books are changed too, all the better.
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and consultations! And if you like this post, check out my guide to writing a novel.
Art: The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer
This post rings true for me.
Like most people, I’ve experienced both the light and dark of life. Possibly what makes the dark seem so…meaningless is exactly that–we have not learned to contextualize it in a way that gives meaning to it, that shines some light on it.
The line that struck me was, “Writing is one of the most incredible tools we have for taking darkness and creating light.”
No matter what it is that we’ve gone through, chances are that someone, at some time somewhere, has gone through a similar experience. By writing wisely about our dark experiences, we can put that energy to paper.
Then, when we edit, we can take an objective view of what we wrote, and we can ponder how we can best impart wisdom onto the reader (well…provided we even have any wisdom to begin with…let’s not think too highly of ourselves).
Anyway, we can basically say, “Hey, I went through this. This is what I did, and learned.”
Shawne Coyne talks about how stories can be prescriptive, cautionary, or both. Our stories can be that way.
UPDATE: Sorry, I misspelled Shawn’s name.
I so agree that good writing changes both writer and reader. Even when an “expert” writes a book about their subject of expertise, in good writing they will go beyond what they already know and discover something new about their subject, themselves and/or the world!
Thanks for this, Nathan. In fact, writing has long been recognized as therapeutic and there are formal versions of that idea, including journaling.
Many of J. K. Rowling’s creations resonate with me, particularly the Dementors, who steal good memories, and are therefore great personifications of depression.
I think it’s safe to say that all of us who create have pieces of our lives hidden somewhere inside the pages we write. Sometimes I don’t recognize what I have done until the project is complete. The best part of all is the release I feel once those bad thoughts and memories enter the page.
As always, excellent stuff. Thanks!!!
Thank you, Nathan. This is so true. The power of the pen is mightier than the sword – as the saying goes. Words can change a mind and an attitude and a life, and can bring both truth and knowledge – and both have power. The sword changes nothing where it really counts and only perpetuates misery and ignorance.
That’s really useful article, thank you!
My first published novel was a hi-lo YA verse novel about a 16 year old girl watching her parents’ relationship fall apart. The first draft was very semi-autobiographical. I got a lot of pain out on the page that I didn’t realize I was still feeling. Then my editor gave me some feedback, which made me realize things about myself that I never noticed. A few drafts later, the story was much less autobiographical (I had to add a lot of tension in ways that it wasn’t there irl), and I had discovered things and started to heal wounds I hadn’t realized I had. While the story itself in the final draft is nothing like the story of my life at 16, the emotions are where it continues being semi-autobiographical.
I also realized that my previous fiction writing attempts hadn’t turned out well because I wasn’t being emotionally honest with myself.