An actor may mean light, but a writer means much more.
And to become a writer, it's something you either have from birth or you cultivate. Besides, the "gurus" of creative writing have made a great contribution lately.
So let's take a look at what it means to be a writer, and if you really "have it." These are some of the key characteristics and gifts of a writer who feels that writing is not just a choice, but a purpose in life:
- He is a photographer and painter of life.: Like a photographer or painter, the writer will see in an image, an event, a moment or a person, details that in the ordinary world would go unnoticed. A small object, a shadow, a lighting, a grimace – everything small is part of a larger picture. As he looks at the forest, no particularity escapes him in each individual tree, foliage or peculiarity in the trunk, in its lighting and shadows, in its sounds and aromas.
- He is also a musician.: Literature has a lot in common with music. It has horizontal and vertical development, which means plot and rhythm. It has form, harmony, but also controlled dissonances in just the right amount to not put the reader to sleep, but also not stress them out to the point where they won't want to read further.
- He is a good "banker": The writer knows how to borrow from life. He doesn't just record his personal experiences or events, but collects all those details that will help him build a narrative at some point. He collects them in a bank, which can be from his mind, if he has a good memory, or a notebook, or even a cassette recorder. He is a good listener to others and has a great deal of empathy.
- He knows how to "scan" people.: Every grimace, every twitch of the face or body, every movement of a person is a source of spontaneous inspiration for a writer who may at some point bestow them on one of his heroes. He records the feelings and thoughts that may be hidden behind all of this, but not only that. By writing, he also tries to guess those feelings or reactions that they may provoke in the other, in this particular case, the reader.
- He is a master of imagination.: By common admission, a rendition of a good novel on a screen has never touched the beauty, completeness, or quality of a book. And this is because, while the viewer is a passive recipient of images and descriptions, the reader, on the other hand, is called upon to activate his own imagination. Thus, a good writer will never give you the exact image, but will play with words for you to create it. While in the film you see something “big” in proportion to what is around it, in the written word the synonyms for “big” can be huge, enormous, bulky, vast, wide, etc. and you can define the size in your mind.
- He is a space-time traveler.: The writer does not need a time machine to travel, nor any other means of transportation. His pen is enough to change time and setting from one moment to the next, to go as far back as the day of Genesis, to go as far forward as a future that no one yet knows. And all of this, from one moment to the next, effortlessly and simply.
- He is a good psychologist.: Alas, if a writer, where he wants to make people laugh, makes them cry. Instead of hope, he causes despair and so on. So he must know well what feelings his phrases, descriptions, dialogues – each of his words – can evoke. At the same time, he must have the ability to distance himself from his text, as if it were not his own, and to control it by reading it like a stranger, stepping into the shoes of his future reader.
- He is careful with messages and conclusions.: Lies are bad, even a simple story or fairy tale has a message to convey, and infinite ways to tell it, or a truth. A writer must be careful with all this, so that it is understandable, but not in such a way that it belittles his reader, makes him feel either stupid, or incapable of thinking or feeling for himself.
- It is a small God.: If the actor means light, then the writer means God. He gives birth to heroes and determines their fates. He can make them happy, ruined, rich or poor, full of love or hate, make them die, marry or divorce them, transport them wherever he wants, demolish castles, dreams and entire countries, hide the sun and hope, or distribute everything generously. The pen, or today his keyboard, is his power. He watches, writes and writes down characters and situations, holding in his hands the fate of all of them, mercilessly, without their own free will. The only difference with the true God is that in the end he himself will be judged, he will not judge. How much did he touch the reader? How much did he make him want to read further? Upon reaching the end, did the reader say, “OMG, that was a good book, too bad it ended!” or did they throw it away, feeling like they had wasted their time and money?
Do you have it?
photo Pexels, https://pixabay.com
