why do writers write?

    Why do writers write indeed? Suffice to say the question is a complex one as it touches on matters psychological, philosophical, ethical and teleological, with no clear-cut answers. It’s like asking what motivates football players to submit themselves to such, literally mind-numbing, violence (no comparisons to writers intended), or why do stand-up comics want to do their schtick (here perhaps the analogy is more to the point). In any case  as the question applies to writing greater minds than mine have weighed in on the subject, and there seems to be no consensus. But as for me it’s a constantly fascinating topic that won’t go away, and I thought it worth a look, though truth be told I have little new or original to add.

    Thus to invoke the analysis of one of my favorite thinkers, which we might dub The Orwell Thesis. Aside: was it Hemingway who famously said that anyone who writes for a reason other than money is a fool? [1] As for Orwell’s take on the matter, there’s much to admire and little I can take issue with. Like Orwell I would argue that the motives are more complex and subtle than the purely financial, though this is a consideration. Orwell’s comments below apply equally to those who love – or hate – to write, but in either case feel compelled to do so. And while I find much of Orwell’s digression on writing a bit too, well, digressive, his basic points are well-taken and never go out of style. I offer a condensed version of his thesis below.

     “Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
   (i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity … gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
   (ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story … The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons.   
  (iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
   (iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

“ … Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.”

    I just love all those one’s. So British. And while the passage is a little overwrought, to my way of thinking it’s still very much on the money. Orwell says it all so well it’s hard to find anything of value to add. The urge, compulsion some would insist, to write, say, a mystery novel is a mystery. [2] It’s not necessarily borne out of pleasure or financial motives. The inspiration, or malady, strikes some of us, present writer included, in varying degrees over time. I confess after penning several books, reviews and more blog posts than I care to remember, the motivation of my compulsion to write eludes me. Not for fun, certainly. Some have opined that what all writers must have in common is a tendency to the masochistic, especially considering the vagaries of the audience and critical response.
     Film director Billy Wilder quipped that directing a movie is a lot more fun than writing the script, that writing is hard labor, going so far as to famously have inscribed on his tombstone ‘I’m a writer but nobody’s perfect.’ As for me the drive to writing goes way back, at least to high school years, when I enjoyed the essay parts of my English classes. I wasn’t very good but took to the assignments like catnip, and was always flattered when the instructor chose one of my pieces to read in class. It culminated in my being co-editor of my high school yearbook, and as the saying goes, the rest is history. Getting back to Orwell, I especially like and identify with this passage: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist or understand.” [3] As Orwell might say, hear, hear.

    [1] Further research suggests the quote, or something like it, was actually said by Dr. Johnson, though no doubt others have expressed the same, or similar, sentiment.  
    [2] Especially so given the subsequent critical reception if one has the courage to go public with a literary creation. Perhaps the comparison isn’t totally felicitous but I recall a quote about war attributed to Queen Elizabeth I, which might well apply to creating a book: “I do not like war. It is costly and the outcome uncertain”
    [3] To be sure, there are dissenting voices to the writing-is-a-horrible-torture point of view. See here, para. 3, for one example.