Why do people write?

I saw the 'What do people write?' thread, and this is very interesting. It does not answer one question that I have on my mind, however, which concerns the 'why'.

I assume that most people on this site write because they love it, but also because they would like the thrill of being a published author, if they have not gained this status already (PA scam victims aside)

I suspect that I am in a minority, in that something happened to me which I felt a need to write about, because I did not feel it had been adequately covered anywhere else. Sure, I would love to be a published writer, and I have often thought that it would be cool to write a book. But my main motivation is having been witness to, in my eyes, a monstrous injustice (of which I was not a victim), and wishing to communicate this injustice to the outside world. I strive to get published in order to achieve this.

While I am vain, and honest, enough to recognize that I would LOVE the kudos that go with the status 'published author', it is not my main objective. I would never wish to give up my day job, because I love my day job!

I would very much like to know what motivates other people to write.

Lots of interesting replies. A burning desire to write seems to underpin most people's reasons...

Why not "tell" your story to someone else, and have them write it?

Click to expand...

Yes, it may come to that. But first, I will have a go myself.

I set myself a schedule about one year ago. First, just sit down and write the book. This was hard! I never realized what an effort it was to commit 140,000 words to print, even if turns out that the quality is lamentable. It really was an almighty effort for me, and makes me think that even the PA-no hopers have at least some qualities, namely determination and doggedness. Next, I received standard feedback from family, friends and acquaintances, and received the usual encouragements from people that may, of course, want to spare my feelings.

One thing which makes me feel confident, is that I have received good quality feedback as to whether the underlying message of the book makes sense. The book is genuinely unusual in that it exploits, as source material, the leaked 400,000 page case file of Europe's largest ever criminal investigation into a serial killer. This does not necessarily make the book a great read, however.

One major roadblock that I have met is that there are no parallels that I can draw upon, unless someone here can point one out to me. In most cases, declaring that a book is unique is simply not true. But it looks as though my situation *is* unique, because it is extremely rare that an entire case file falls into the hands of journalists or anyone else. The best someone can normally hope for is a few documents, plus statements by sources that may or may not wish to remain anonymous. But an entire case file offers unique possibilities because it allows the writer to PROVE that certain leads were not followed up. If independent witnesses A, B and C accuse X of something, nothing less than the entire case file will do when it comes to proving that X was left alone. If, say, X was not arrested, this does not prove by itself that the police did nothing. They may, after all, have checked A, B, C and X out thoroughly, and honestly decided that there was little chance of getting anywhere (the alleged crimes happened too long ago, for example).

Even finding a book that parallels mine, in the sense that publication in the U.S. was sought because of easily foreseen problems with U.K. libel laws, is not easy. The closest parallel I have found, so far, is 'The Committee', a book about alleged collusion between the Northern Ireland Security Services and Loyalist Terrorists, published by Sean McPhilemy in 1998. Like myself, he set out to name names, and was forced to go the U.S. route because publication was impossible in the U.K.

Needless to say, this did not affect its status (in fact, I am sure it enhanced it) as the U.K.'s No 1 best seller, for a time, on Amazon's site, even though it was only available on www.amazon.com and not www.amazon.co.uk, and was unavailable for sale in any of the U.K.'s bricks and mortar bookshops. U.K. libel laws, incidentally, make the bookseller, as well as the author, liable from the moment the libel has been pointed out to them.

But even this 'closest parallel' is unsatisfactory from my point of view. The subject matter is completely different, and the source material was different (almost entirely based on the testimony of one source, rather than an entire criminal case file). But the desire to name names (rightly or wrongly), and to go the U.S. route if that is what it takes, is shared by McPhilemy and myself.

Anyway, I am now at the point of submitting my first query letters to agencies and/or publishers, and this forum (plus, Writer's Market 2005 and Guide to Lierary Agents 2005) is proving to be a mine of information.

I am hoping that my query letter will at intrigue one or more agents/publishers sufficiently to read the manuscript, simply because they are curious about the subject matter. If the general view is that the subject matter is gripping, but the writing is not up to scratch, then that will be very useful information for me. If, on the other hand, the subject matter is not of sufficient interest, then this is also invaluable feedback, even though it would be a huge disappointment.

Based on this feedback, I will then decide what to do next.