Is Molly Ringwald Right? Is Writing Like Acting?

Molly Ringwald of The Breakfast Club fame is publishing fiction now and in today's New York Times she claims that writing and acting share some important similarities. Actors, she says, often compose elaborate back stories for their characters, and that's in effect writing fiction. Not only that, when we read we're acting out the author's words.



I've only acted in college, but I've been a regular theater goer for as long as I've been a published author, and I think her comparisons don't hold u...