Literature is a creative doorway

Literature is a creative doorway that opens people to a plethora of opportunities for self-exploration and creation. Creativity and passion are two crucial keys to that doorway. Some may argue that readers should read information deemed valuable to them. However, passionate writers create an audience of passionate readers. A writer’s knowledgeable experience is the guiding hand in ensuring that a piece of literature is credible, relatable, entertaining, and accurate. Therefore, the main purpose of writing in modern-day society should be based on the influence and benefits that writing can have for its writer.

Source D illustrates a vivid example of why and how passion for writers creates literary masterpieces. Titled “What inspired Amy Tan to go from a technical communications writer to writing novels,” this article by Laura Townsend takes the reader on a journey of literary exploration through the scope of Amy Tan’s career. Tan’s successful yet uninteresting job in technical communications pushed her to pursue writing of her passions and interests. Her novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” is formed from her own life experiences and family ties with her mother as a Chinese American. Many accredited Tan’s novel as “honest, vulnerable, and universal.” Tan’s personal experience and passion for expressing herself allowed her to connect with readers on a deeper level. Ultimately, this was the key to her success in this popular book. Without the touch of empathy and understanding Tan earned from her firsthand experience, her book would not have been authentic and rather would have been a fake concoction of information, impassioned and inaccurate, targeted towards appealing to an audience that might not even enjoy it. Instead, her passion for writing and goal of reconnecting with her mother made a memorable impact on readers all across the globe, even ones who had separate cultural and ethnic identities laughed along, connected, and experienced the life of a Chinese American through its pages. A writer’s inner fire, enthusiasm, love, and affection for their novel are the driving force of success for writing, which is passed onto the reader when they read it. Thus, it is exponentially important that writers are allowed the creative freedom to flourish and succeed in their literary journeys. A political cartoon named “Peanuts” by Charles Schulz, further emphasizes the need for liberty in writing. Schulz appropriately writes, “If we try to write what we think you want us to write, doesn’t that get us into this whole mind reading thing, and open a can of worms?” Writers are not mind readers. Writing for the sole purpose of achieving audience approval creates a narrow scope through which the author is forced to squeeze their ideas, information, and argument. This not only forces the writer to try and become something they’re not but fails to reach the audience. If an author is uninterested, his work becomes a reflection of that. It serves the reader no benefit to consume pieces of literature half-heartedly pursued in the name of a reader’s perceived informational value. John Steinbeck’s essay, “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk,” conveys an excellent understanding of war through a soldier’s perspective. His vivid imagery and descriptions of what it’s like on the battlefield, “The eardrums are tortured by blast and the eyes ache from the constant hammering,” are fair and accurate depictions of actual battle only because of his experience as a soldier fighting in the war. Steinbeck’s work is thus reinforced due to his familiarity with the battlefield. His passion for exploring this allows him to create a deeper understanding of what it’s like serving as a soldier, and his valid take on a soldier’s mentality immerses the reader in the full experience of what it is truly like fighting in a war. This serves as an excellent example of the need for a writer’s ambition in their work. Some may argue that without the consumption from those reading, authors have no market and therefore no incentive to write. However, this simply is not true. Authors create their own market and demographic by demonstrating their work through driven discussion, narratives, stories, and biographies telling their life stories and encounters. Moreover, what readers truly want may be completely different than what publishers believe they want. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling is a widely acclaimed book series loved by many, yet it was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. This thus goes to show that writers are capable of creating successful writing from topics that interest them, and should not be limited only to subjects the audience is thought to like.

Passionate writers create passionate readers. Authors creating work that benefits them not only allows them to have a better understanding of the topic but also creates more well-informed readers who can obtain knowledge from the author. It’s imperative to have literature be focused more on the benefits and influence that writing can have for its writer than the value of information for readers.