Writing to entertain

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOVEMBER QUESTION: Albert Camus once said, “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” Flannery O’Connor said, “I write to discover what I know.” Authors across time and distance have had many reasons to write. Why do you write what you write?

MY ANSWER: Obviously, I’m not as profound as either of the writers quoted in the question. I write speculative fiction, usually light-hearted, sometimes infused with dry humor. Ask my readers from the WEP community, and they might tell you more about my stories and my characters. Some of them laugh at my stories, which makes me happy.

As to why I write this type of fiction: because that’s what I want to read, and this kind of stories are hard to find in speculative fiction. Lots of speculative fiction writers these days write dark, psychological tales of wars and conflict, of fighting and struggling and hopelessness. They write about deeply flawed heroes and lightless corners of the human psyche. I don’t like such stories. I don’t read them and I don’t write them. Instead, I read simply to entertain myself, and I write for the same purpose: to entertain myself and my readers. I want my readers to smile and relax and forget their troubles for as long as it takes them to read my stories.