Blog 24

Adrian Rego

Writer's Motivation to Write

Most people, if not everyone, has heard of at least one story that involved dragons and magic at some point in their life. Readers of fantasy enjoy the stories that are given to them and force them to delve into the worlds created by their favorite authors, but if not for the royalties, why do writers write fantasy? Most people would probably believe that writers write only for the money behind publishing, but writing overall has come to help people in many other situations that aren’t entirely connected to a financial premise. So what’s the purpose behind the written copies of a single story that fill shelves upon shelves at stores, homes, and libraries? Writer’s usually use writing as a tool of expression and a means of escaping formal writing. Fantasy gives writers a hand in self-expression by allowing them to express their thoughts and ideals indirectly with looser rules on writing structure. I've been given the idea of Dungeons and Dragons role playing as a center in fantasy writing, but that's not always the case since. It could be a factor to base off of, but it's the author's imagination that weighs heavily on fantasy writing since they are the one creating the rules of this fictitious land.

My curiosity peaked and I asked a friend of mine, also a fantasy writer, what her reasons were for writing and what she was able to do with the writing that she has done, despite the lack of published works. She explained that her motivation to write came from not only solving her own problems, but escaping them and even reality itself as well as formal writing. Her focus on fantasy played more on her role play on forums rather than her own personal writing, but the links were still made with her role play and escaping from reality. Though her escape reigned true unconsciously, her main focus was on self-expression. In “Studies in Writing: Writing and Motivation”, the idea of self-expression being used as a key factor for writer's motivation appears several times from chapter thirteen onward, which I wholeheartedly agree with and am not surprised about. Which leads me to believe that writer's are motivated to write due to the availability of self-expression and escape from formal writing and reality in the case of fantasy writers.

Literature Review

In “Studies in Writing: Writing and Motivation” Chapter 14 Section 4, Oldfather and Shanahan surveyed students from fifth and sixth grades in a suburban Southern California classroom. The research was based on the examination of students and their purpose for their engagement to their in class writing assignments. “Report cards were in narrative form. Students wrote dialogue journals back and forth with Sally responding to what they were reading. They wrote poems. They wrote short stories and some even got involved with writing “chapter books,” often in science fiction or fantasy genres.” (Oldfather and Shanahan 264) The students chose their topic and writing genre for their assignments, which already allowed room for self-expression at the start. “Data analysis indicated, in fact, that students within this classroom culture found that the most compelling aspects of their school experience were in relation to various forms of self-expression.” (Oldfather and Shanahan 264) It turned out that the main means of self-expression that the students used happened to be writing. Because of the students choices of genre, narrative, fantasy, science fiction, and so on, I've come to believe that the use for writing isn't just for self-expression but their escape from reality. Their are no direct references in the chapter itself, but I've come to believe it just because the use of fantasy and science fiction genres were even listed, since genre and that escape from reality play a part in the idea of self-expression. Not only that, but because the students get to write about something they enjoy and write in the way they're comfortable with increased their love for writing. The motivation to write then came from their love for writing as a whole and their ability to continue expressing themselves and their ideas.

Still on the same page, Oldfather speaks of epistemological empowerment, which she defines as “a sense of intellectual agency and ability to know that emerges from a strong sense of the integrity of one’s process of constructing meaning” (Oldfather and Shanahan 264). Through the writing done in class, the students were able to understand and make sense of things on their own accord. Paul, twelve year old student, was contemplating the concepts of knowledge and learning. He then explains his philosophy that “The only thing you can own is thoughts, just thoughts …. The way you say things. I think that’s the only thing you can really own, and that’s how you see the world. How you say the world is” (Oldfather and Shanahan 264). Now it seems that I'm going off topic, but this still ties into self-expression in the way that Paul was able to not only question learning and knowledge, but to understand and create his own meaning for the concepts all done through and because of his writing.

Now I hadn't thought of the idea of writing helping in developing this skill or thought process, but it makes sense. Instead of looking for outside sources, the student thought of a single concept or group of concepts and gave them meaning based off of his own knowledge and developed critical thinking skills. To my understanding, teachers try to teach their students critical thinking skills which doesn't always work the way they intend it; however, in this one classroom, the students were able to develop their own critical thinking skills with some help with communication between classmates and their teacher. From my understanding, giving students full power over their writing gives them the chance to express their full selves which then allow them to think over, understand, and give meaning to what's on their minds.

Methods

In order to get an outside understanding of why writers continue to write, I interviewed a fellow writer on why she wrote in general. Three main concepts that she went over were self-expression and the escape from both reality and formal/academia writing. She explains that most of her writing comes from her role plays on forums. All of the role plays are fictional, which all then divide into realistic fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, and so on. In the interview, I represented myself as Z and her as W. In just the first few questions, W had explained that the main importance to her writing was self-expression.

Excerpt 1:

Z: When did you start, like, tapping into fantasy?

W: Mmm..Fantasy was most likely in public grade Eight/Nine 'cause that's when I started role playing a lot more.

Z: Makes sense. Makes sense. I started role play a lot more in high school, 'cause that's when I found out about it. Um... What got you into writing? What made you want to write in general?

W: Because I was actually able to express myself when it comes to certain things like... 'cause my writing was actually quite good, 'cause I actually took a writing course in sch- high school. And in school right now.

Considering self-expression came into the picture so early in the interview, I'm to believe that it's the most important aspect of her writing. W actually shows her confidence in her writing after she mentions the ability to express herself. I'm to believe she's confident, not only because of her classes, but because she writes with many other people over forums that give her feedback on her writing as well. Despite her love for writing, she explains that one writing turn off is academia and formal writing. W explains that formal writing was “filled with stupid jargon” (Excerpt 2). In order to avoid the silence W brought when touching on academia, Z switches the topic to tap into W's motivation for writing. Ironically enough, even in the interview, there was a sense of escape from formal writing just by the refusal to speak about it. From this time forward, anything writing was understood as creative writing, fantasy writing, and role play. W then explains briefly on how writing allowed her to escape conflicts in life. This ties into the self-expression and even the escape from reality depending on what she writes about. If she's writing on the subject, then she'd be able to express her thoughts on the situation and even try to learn from it. On the other hand, writing off topic would give her that opportunity to avoid her conflicts. True, it's not always good to avoid one's problems, but it's never a fine idea to linger on something that troubles you to the point where you may crack from stress.

Excerpt 2

Z: That's pretty cool. It makes sense. I feel the same way about um.. academic writing and all that kind of -

W: Academia!

Z: Academia, Yea. Because it's-

W: Filled with Stupid Jargon.

Z: -laughs- Welcome to Jargon, Welcome to Academia, but um... Yea, I don't like academia and I doubt you would too if you've tapped into the fantasy genre, and it's all about creative writing.

W: Mhmm

Z: Um... Can you tell me any example of what you've written, like... like why you enjoyed it so much... Maybe?

W: -snickers- Uh... Because I can actually escape out of what I can like- like I can escape out of what's happening in my life. Like, if something's bad I can start writing or I can think, but that's when I got obsessive with role play posts, 'cause I'd be walking around and my mind would be running role play posts of what I should write and what I shouldn't write and, like, multiple scenarios and what the person would reply to and stuff like that.