Are writers tempting fate?

What is writing any way? And, are we tempting fate?

Readers read what we write because, face it, everyday life is boring. No matter whether you are at the helm of a Fortune 500 company, do data entry, perform brain surgery, or work in the home, our jobs and lives tend to be monotonous, routine, and boring. So, somewhere along the line, society invented reading for pleasure.

Consequently, our taste in reading developed and consumers wanted characters and plots that shocked them. Readers like being swept away to exotic countries (real or not), down into the pits of hell, or into the arms of a handsome car thief. BUT, readers merely watch or accompany characters as they run down the side of a mountain at breakneck speed or throw to the wind every one of their personal effects. In other words, readers reside at a comfortable distance from what happens in the book, their heart may start to race, or tears to form, but they can still feel the pillow they are sitting on.

On the contrary, when writers put words on paper they ARE their characters, even more so for those of us who write in first person. Most authors would agree that, to write well, we actually become our character as we conjure. When a man grabs the character’s ankle, we feel his hand pulling us; when the character tumbles down a rocky embankment, we feel the pebbles and thorns pierce our skin; when the character falls in love, we swoon; when the character is caressed, we respond, then cry when the character is rejected. At this point, there is no separation between character and writer: We have become the character.

But, as writers, do we run the danger of entering one of our fictitious worlds never to return? Is there a separation between the world we live in and the one we’ve created? As everyone knows who has ever written a scene, every quality that shows up in the character is also a part of the writer. No matter how evil, how stupid, or how arrogant that character is, you couldn’t effectively portray those qualities if those same qualities, latent or not, didn’t exist in your own psyche!

By writing about these inclinations, that is, liberating them, are we tempting fate? Are we letting those latent thoughts escape, not only to appear on paper, but also to take up residency in our very minds? Can those character’s desires take root and then develop into a neurosis or even a psychosis? Remember, way back in Psych 101 we learned that our minds keep Freud’s Id and Thanatos buried, not so much for our own good, but for the good of society. And here we are, letting them out on a delicate leash hoping they won’t escape. Could an author actually develop a mental illness this way? Meaning that an unlucky writer trying to pen a blockbuster novel could let dormant behavior loose which could later refuse to recede into oblivion? So, could reptilian tendencies overtake our psyches?

Go ahead and write, but remember, you could be tempting fate.