Why We Write

A naïve and perhaps mischievous take on the query “why we write” is to claim that what we write already asserts why we write. On this view “It was lunchtime and I had a sandwich at Joe’s” directs you ostensively to information about my afternoon meal.

“Do I need to spell it out?” goes the expression, as if it were that letters are the atoms of sense and they tally to what is obvious. This bricklayer’s approach to the question expresses the intuition that words convey thoughts and thoughts convey the way things are. And yet, while we may write to hop and jump from thoughts to words to facts, it is the hopping and the jumping, the strolling and the stopping, that carry us along.

Like Sheherazade I may wish to tell you something that isn’t the case to deceive you, perhaps to entertain you. I might aim to deceive myself, or to state the obvious to make a point. I may want you to stop being so sad. I might want to make you angry. “Thanks for understanding! I needed to get that off my chest.”

As Empson had it, good writing expresses ambiguity, now honing it to a sharp point and later expanding it to a blur, and then back again for more. What is this dance and why might we want to step to it? Our panel will discuss what motivates writers, what animates writing, and what sculpts the texts that bring us so much pleasure.