The Magic of the Pen

One of my favorite shows on television right now is Reign. If you are not familiar with it, it is about Mary Queen of Scots, the royals of England, France and Portugal. It gives insight into how and why marriages between the royals of different countries took place.

Another favorite show is Elementary, which is all about Sherlock Holmes solving crimes.

So, what do these shows have in common? They both are extremely well written, with plots and subplots weaving throughout the story. The mind is a very complicated thing with an insatiable desire to be entertained. The more twists and turns a story takes, and the more subplots involved, the more the story draws us in.

While the casting crew chooses actors and actresses to bring the characters to life and cause us to love or hate them, the director and the rest of the crew do their magic. They have all kinds of tricks to make a scene beautiful, scary, sad or infuriating. We are constantly manipulated into whatever emotion they want.

No matter how good the acting, how beautiful or authentic the scenery, or how wonderful the camera work, if the script isn’t interesting enough the show will fall flat. We all have seen movies that have some of the best actors around, and yet we are bored to death because the writing is so poorly done.

As writers we are the foundation for so much in the world. Okay, I know, you think that your writing will never make it to the silver screen, or become a series on television. You are probably right. However, how many people are going to read your book? Each one of those reader’s mind is capable of taking them places that no movie or TV show ever could. You paint a picture with your words and the readers take it from there. Each person who reads your story pictures a slightly different countryside, house, man, woman, cat or dog, etc.

What this means is that even though you wrote one story and published it, it became a slightly different story for each person who read it. Therefore, the one story you wrote transformed into thousands of stories, each one similar, but not quite the same.

That is the unique thing about writing. Rather than dictating to the viewer’s mind, as with a movie, you are leading the reader’s mind. Your readers have the fun of becoming part of the story.

Did you ever think about how much power you have as a writer?

So, pick up those pens and start weaving your own magic. You will enrich a lot of minds. What are you waiting for?