Why We Write

Authors are often advised not to read reviews of their own books. While I’m aware of this, I still like to keep a finger on the pulse of my readership, and reviews and reader comments are really the only way I have to do that. (Except for those of you who have taken up the invitation in my books to come and join the discussion.)

This morning I was checking the ratings on some of my books, and happened to notice a review on A Line In The Stars that complained about the fact that the Stardock Trilogy contains commentary embedded in its story that has bearing upon current events and sociocultural issues.

Well, yes. Of course it does. You don’t actually understand WHY we write, do you?

Look, any fool can write trite, vapid fluff entertainment that you can read or watch with your higher critical faculties switched off and not miss anything. Just a glance at probably about half the total volume of TV and movies ever generated by Hollywood should show you that. But that’s not what drives a lot of us. We don’t want to generate more empty fluff. The world has more than enough of that. Present-day mass entertainment, on the whole, is bread and circuses writ large.

The late Iain M. Banks, for whom I hold an incredible degree of respect, once said that science fiction is the only genre of fiction that actually matters, because it is the only genre of fiction that tries to predict and anticipate the potential problems in our future and devise solutions for them, or approaches to solving them, before we actually encounter them. Elizabeth Bear, another writer for whom I have immense respect, has sociocultural issues deeply embedded throughout her magnificent White Space trilogy, centered in large part upon what separates civilization from the howling barbarians outside. Because these issues need to be talked about. They need to be understood.

This is why we write. Not just to entertain you, our readers — but to make you think, or at least to give you things to think about. That is the true purpose of literature. To make you think.

If we do not make you think, or at the very least give you important things to think about, we have failed in our responsibilities.

If we put those important issues in front of you and you refuse to think about them, you have failed in yours.