Benefits for the Creative Writer

Benefits of Creative Writing-For the Writer

Very few people do anything without first understanding a clear benefit to them. So, why write? Initially, you may say, ‘to get rich and famous’. A little bit of research, though, will tell you statistically the chances of this happening aren’t great, at all. So, once again, the question: why write?

“The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself.” ~Alfred Kazin

Many have said they don’t know what they know until they write about it. That’s because writing itself is an exploration process. Every good writer will tell you, one of the most important aspects of any writing adventure is the research that goes into it. Research lends credibility to both fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction is obvious, you can’t write about a subject, much less teach others about it, if you don’t understand it completely. Think about a paper you might have done for school, one you were really excited about writing. You learned everything you could before you even opened the Word document, right? Why? I mean, besides the fact that you needed a minimum number of sources? You studied first because you knew without a doubt understanding the subject matter would make your work stronger.

Fiction, on the other hand, is something else entirely. In my own life, I’ve done countless hours of research for any fiction that I’ve written. For example, when I wrote an unpublished book about a young family raising a small child, I had to find out how babies behaved at different stages of development. In my most recent work, Expectations, I spent hours looking up everything from Irish names to specific geography in New York City. When a writer doesn’t get all their facts straight for the story they’re writing, it can instantly pull the reader out. For example, if in a book, if an Irish character has a last name of Smith that needs to be explained. Or if the book discusses a certain law and its consequence if broken, the author better get that consequence right because a police officer, or a criminal, might be reading.  Once again, to get it right, the author has to teach himself.

A writer writes to understand himself, no question there. People looking to improve their lives often take up journaling. In journaling, people explore the very depths of their hearts and often reveal to themselves things they didn’t know, or weren’t willing to face. Journaling is so private, it enables complete honesty.  It’s often used in conjunction with talk therapy to assist people in working through their problems.

In a more commercial sense, topics and characters authors chose to write about are very telling. In both fiction and non-fiction writers pursue their passion, otherwise how could they spend months and years of their lives writing their books? They couldn’t. Fiction writers work through their characters to understand these passions and themselves. They find interests they didn’t know they had, or qualities they wish they did.

For anyone to devote so much time, energy, and passion to their writing they must have a passion for something. Something has to be worth exploring, be it their hearts, self, human rights, or a burning story. Something that only writing can satisfy.