What exactly is a writer’s job? A writer is defined by dictonary.com as a person who commits their thoughts or ideas to writing. In my opinion it’s much more than that. A writer creates a story from thin air. We develop whole new worlds and create the people and things that occupy that space.
I’ve heard a few people say that a writer is nothing more than a starting point for an actor; words simply written on a page. Well, no offense to any actors, but they only act out and bring to life what the author has already created. Without the writer there would be no movies or plays, or books. We are the reason that the stories have been brought to the silver screen.
What if there were no writers? What happens to the entertainment world then? Every author - the field doesn’t matter - creates a story that eventually gets told. Even the ones that no one understands. The writer has a certain type of persona that they invoke in a character. They envision the character, and the writer and said character become a team. When a screenplay is turned over to an actor, the only job for the actor is to ‘act out’ what is written. If the character that they are playing is angry, then the actor is angry. There is no separation between the two.
While a writer is in the process of developing a character, the character may develop ideas on its own that the author didn’t see to begin with. And I know what you’re thinking… no, writers do not have multiple personality disorder.
We open ourselves to the thoughts and ideas of the character. It’s like each one we create visits us while writing and helps give pointers for which way they would like their character arc to go. We might start writing one plot for a character and it can completely change over the course of the story. It happens to all of us. I guess that you could say that all writers are a little crazy. We must be to come up with all these remarkable stories.
Being a writer is a gift and can also be viewed as a curse. Most writers are portrayed as being alcoholics and the only way to get ideas is to drink. That’s not true. Being a writer is a struggle; it’s an everyday adventure into the love/hate relationship that an author shares with their story. We are creators and need to be recognized as such. In my opinion, we don’t get enough credit. Writing at times can drive us crazy, but we do it because we have that desire and drive to create. We need to create and will be happy doing nothing else.
Writing is a serious job. It makes film and actors useful. Without us, the movie industry would be at a loss. No writers equals no screenplay! Instead of telling a writer that they are nothing more than a starting place for an actor, how about commending them on the wonderful job they did in creating the story and the characters within that story.
