This guest post is written by Kellen Gorbett. Kellen is a journalist and world traveller. He writes at kellengorbett.com. Check it out.It's said that when Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the White House to meet President Lincoln, he looked at her and said, “So, you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War.”
All writers want their work to have influence. I wanted my writing to move people, evoke emotions in them, and, most of all, call them to action, but I didn’t believe it was possible. Before I could believe, I needed to find the answers to a couple questions.
Stowe’s writing can start a war to end slavery, but what can my writing start? How do I write to start a change?
Statistics Don't Change the World
I had first considered the weight of influence from great writers, while reading A Long Way Gone, the novel of a 12-year-old’s devastating journey as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. As I read, I thought of all the statistics I had seen on child soldiers, I stopped reading and set down the book. No matter how large the statistics grew, I would do little to help. It was just a number.
The commercials were there, too, and I played them in my head, the soft song, the flies and mud and dirty water, the white man begging me to help. It didn’t matter how cute they made those little African babies, or how many flies and dirt you put around their malnourished bodies, their method of persuasion wouldn't affect me.
But A Long Way Gone showed me good writers can influence change more than statistics or even heartbreaking images.
Why We Write
I continued to ponder the potential impact of good writing, and I thought about why we write – the purpose of story. There had to be a simple answer to a fairly common question. The definition asserted that a story is designed to interest, amuse or instruct.
This answer was correct, and it was adequate, but I knew there was a greater answer here. A great answer, one that would reveal why writers give their lives to writing, searching, developing, re-writing and discovering, all for the art of story.
I picked up my book and kept reading. I read of villages burned, children forced to murder their parents, and the young boy, the one I had come to know in the first few chapters, I read of his capture by rebels, and I finally knew the answer to story’s true purpose. It was easy, the same answer as life’s true purpose.
Amusing, instructing and keeping interest is important in writing and important in life, but the most significant and influential act we do in life is create and build relationships. It changes the world. As writers, we create relationships for our readers with each character we write and each new story we tell. It’s the best part of writing.
Numbers and Stories
Here are a few tragic facts and numbers about child soldiers.
- 250,000 children are thought to be involved in armed conflict.
- The youngest child soldiers are about 7 years old.
- Over 50 countries currently recruit children under age 18 into their armed forces.
- In the 1990s, it is estimated that 2 million children were killed, and 10 million psychologically traumatized.
Here is an excerpt from Ishmael Beah, the 12-year-old boy with his friends, in A Long Way Gone.
We walked with him, his feet dragging on the ground. His arms were cold. His body was still sweating and he continued bleeding. We didn’t say a word to each other. We all knew what had happened. When we finally got to the wahlee, Gasemu’s eyes were still open. Alhaji closed them. I sat by him. His blood was on my palm and my wrist. I regretted hitting him with the pestle. The dry blood was still in his nose. I began to cry softly. I couldn’t cry as much as I wanted to.
A good friend and writer told me this week, “Statistics and widespread reports of injustice are necessary to get a big picture scope of what’s going on in the world, but they paralyze even the most well-intentioned people into inaction.”
Relationships appeal to the heart. Personal stories from a character the reader has invested in calls to action. Harriet Beecher Stowe made slavery intimate. Once readers were involved in the lives of Uncle Tom, Eliza, Eva and the other characters, slavery was no longer a distant statistic. There was a call to action, and then, the world changed.
Do you believe your writing has the power to change something? Are you writing to make that change?
PRACTICE
Use a need in the world that you’re passionate about meeting, and then use intimate characters to draw the reader into desiring to meet that need, too. Whether a real character or imagined, take the reader to where they are, what they’re feeling and thinking.
Write for fifteen minutes and post your practice in the comments. Don’t forget to check out the work of your fellow writers.
Also, check out this video where Ishmael Bey talks about his writing process.
A brief comment. The leader of a former writer’s group once said: “After I write anything I ask myself: am I a better person for having written this? And will the reader be a better person for having read it?” A very lofty goal but I never forget it.
Reading this was an epiphany for me, thank you. My tag line on my blog is “Stories that make people think differently about life” because it is what many of my readers and those I talk to in real life say back to me. I never thought of myself as the main character of what I write, oddly, until I read this.
Kellen: Thank you for this post. This is one of the main reasons I write now. I’m an immigrant advocate and writing helps me channel the stories I’ve heard and the oppression people face into something substantial.
***
The *tabaco* gave Tonio nightmares. Jose Mario said that came from the plants’ nicotine, which seeped into the body during the sweltering day and followed you home into the long hours of the night. The tobacco leaves they cut each day poisoned them, teaming up with a cloud of pesticides and the Carolina summer sun.
Tonio refused to fall asleep again. He sat up in his cot, looking around at the fifteen other men who shared the large warehouse-turned-labor-camp. He could hear the low hum and buzz of insects in the fields. He tried to make it drown out the shouts of the *patrón* that stayed with him in his dreams. “Faster!” and “I can ship up a wetback any damn day to replace y’all!” Tonio had not understood the words at first, but the foreman, Guero, quickly translated with just as much venom in his voice.
He could not sleep because the tabaco would find him.
His dreams used to be of golden wheat fields and Maribel, with her quiet smile and thick waves of black hair, waiting for him. They used to be of his mother and sisters, teasing him or coaxing him into attending mass with them.
The nicotine and patrón put that to an end. Nine months away from Durango had taken its toll. He was tougher, sure, but his back ached and burned from bending over the tobacco stalks; his hands were raw and red from some chemical; he felt alone and trapped in this camp, with no way to leave unless the patrón took them; and even his dreams were haunted. The tobacco invaded every crevice.
Tonio heard a faint scratching against the wood floor. A small squeak and rustling and a shadow racing into a corner. He almost laughed. Rats. The only thing they had been missing.
Thanks for sharing that viewpoint, one we rarely consider. Great details!
Yes, absolutely I believe that the best stories have the power to change something. But not necessarily “out there” in the world, but more importantly and more realistically “in here”. We vicariously experience protagonists transcending their small selves and embracing others within a broader worldview. This occurs in almost all good fiction. The effect (arguably–hey, this is just a theory) is to help the reader and especially the writer to open to their higher nature. I doubt that writers need to consciously write with this aim in mind. I’m sure Casablanca, for instance, was written purely for entertainment. But it has been inspiring audiences for almost 70 years. When I see Bogey sacrificing his true love for a higher cause, something deep inside me is nourhished, and I go out into the world a better person. And, incidentally, a person more likely to take action in the world. What say ye?
I love writing things that might change the world. Often that’s exactly the goal I have in mind when I begin writing a longer piece of work. However, I almost always find that the bit of writing that I truly enjoy is seeing my characters go through these things that might change the world and coming out all the better — occasionally all the worse — for it.
Anyway, I apologise for any offence that could (but I hope won’t) be caused by this. It’s something I’ve never tackled before, and I didn’t know where it was going until right until the end:
It was never thought of… the way it was, if you know what I
mean. I’d hear people argue on the television, say that enforcing equality was
the opposite of equality. I think they were as confused as I was.
Anyway, I’d sit there on the couch and think, they don’t get it.
The fact is, there’s nothing that bad about all these ‘shocking statistics’ of
the amount of men to women in a job. I don’t think so, anyway. It’s going to
take time – maybe we’ll have to wait until all those ‘traditional’ types retire
for women to have a proper place in big businesses and engineering, and for men
to be welcome in posh patisseries and florists and as secretaries, but it will
happen at some point. That’s what I think.
But that’s not my main point of contention.
“Hey, sweetheart,” the man smiles lecherously. I know, it’s ridiculous to expect anything different in a bar, so I just roll my eyes, take a deep breath and make sure it doesn’t look like I’m crying inside, you know?
“Come on, love,” he continues. I can see what he’s thinking: she’s
a girl, in a bar, in frankly the most invisible, sexy get-up I’ve ever seen,
and she won’t even flirt? Isn’t that what she’s here for?
Maybe he was right. I watch a lot of those lawyer shows (I don’t have much better to do in daylight hours, when the bar’s closed and sleep feels like an indulgence). One of them I once watched, the lawyer said that, sometimes, people are picked for a job, not because they’re any good at it – heaven forbid – but because they fit the image. He said there was nothing wrong with that, but then he was the
corporate, big-wig lawyer who only got into the courts when he muscled his way
in.
Was I going somewhere with that? I probably was.
So the guy’s leaning over me now as I clean up the tables. He’s gotten out of his own chair for this. He’s left his drink there, too.
“Come on love,” he says again, and this time I feel his hot breath on my neck.
I ignore him.
And then he makes an extremely rude suggestion. I won’t mucky your eyes with it.
For one, mischievous little second, I’m tempted to, maybe, just maybe, do something similar to what he
wanted. It’d certainly scare the heck out of him.
But then I think about what he’d say, what he’d call me. A pervert, a weirdo, a tranny, gross, an
abomination. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again.
I’m happy in my skin, my clothes, my make-up, my carefully styled hair, but nobody else would be.
Like I said, chauvinism isn’t my main point of contention.
Grrr makes me so mad reading this! I love how your character considered doing what the guy had suggested, and then realised that it would garner more abuse from the guy. So true. Looking good does not give others clearance to be rude or an invitation for something else.
Here is part of a story in 2nd person from earlier this week I did not post. I think it reflects thinking and “needs” of many today.*****
You show up for life even when you’d rather not with a gimp in your step and smoke-fogged eyes. You follow the leather coats and laughter to a cozy cafe, where aromas of garlic and cheese smooth the frown from your brow. A deep sigh escapes your lips while you scan the posted lunch menu and mentally choose tomato bisque and smoked turkey on ciabatta bread.
The green knit hat is itchy on your head but it hides the hair which hasn’t been trimmed in weeks. You couldn’t even wash it this morning when the stupid hot water heater gave out. Chewed finger nails tucked into fists are stuffed in the pockets of your old work jacket. The one with the white paint splash on the front from the last handyman job you finished without knowing how much you’d get paid. Gray sweat pants don’t look right for this cafe, but they were the best you could find.
You glance around, hoping no one recognizes you. It’s not a day for a chat or answering questions. It’s a tired, don’t bother me, I’m sick of my life day.
There she is. Mom’s waiting for you at the corner table, flipping through messages on her Smart phone. (I need to smile like everything is fine.)
“Hey, what’s up?” you say and slide into the empty seat.
“Hey yourself son!” She’s looking at you head to toe with one raised eyebrow, but she always smiles. “You look good!” (Wow, only a mom would say that.)
“Let’s order lunch; then we can catch up,” she says handing you twenty dollars.
“You know what I like. Will you order?”
The stiff leg almost gives way when you stand up. You’ve slipped off a ladder before and it never hurt this long. (Oh, well, I guess I’m middle-aged and hate even thinkin’ about that.)
You return with the tray and set lunch on the table.
“Hi, I’m Andrew. I’ll be your waiter today!” You say it with a laugh, while your insides cringe thinking how many years you spent at that job. But you’re the joker to the world, always the joker.
“So tell me how things are working out?” she asks.
“It’s good, you say, “I’ve got some jobs lined up with a buddy of mind. This time of year things really break loose.” You can’t stop your knees from jiggling under the table and your hands are shaking. (What makes them do that?)…………….
Eeek. Want to give this guy a hug. It is a shame that we find it so difficult to admit and talk about our financial difficulties in our societies, I think it would take a lot of the stress off many people if we could.
Here is what I came up with in fifteen:
I like it in my home. It is my world, my mother and father and grandmother walk with their heads held tall. We all do. We laugh and speak loud and recklessly. We speak in our language and my grandmother sings old songs that I would not otherwise hear. She tells me stories of our family and ancestors, stories that go far back. I sit enraptured to the tales of rambunctious young men and noble young women fighting wars over the land, young lovers from rival tribes sneaking away at night together. The monsters of the land were terrifying, huge birds with wingspan the size of our house that would swoop down and pick up a man for dinner faster than he would realise. Terrible tangiwha who made any lake or river safe for fishing and swimming, but once angered the offence could never be placated.
But when I leave my house it is different. My parents keep their heads down, I have learnt to too. I do not think that I knew about colour when I was little. One of my earliest memories is in my pram at the mall. My mother had parked me near another pram with a young white girl in it. I remember realising we were different colours and she seemed fascinating to me. We stared at each other wide-eyed for what seems like a whole day in my memory before finally holding up our arms alongside each other and comparing with interest. I don’t know when I became conscious of it, but I feel it all the time now. A brown face in a sea of white. I feel like I’m polluting my classroom or I’m dirtying the snow in class photos. I try and keep quiet and not draw attention to myself because the stares I get already are uncomfortable.
We do not speak in our language outside home. It seems to anger people. When I said kia ora to a bus driver, all of the passengers looked at me stunned. I decided not to speak again.
In school, I struggle. We learn in social studies about the histories of the world. We learn Ancient Egypt, American Black civil rights and the Russian revolution. I sit in my seat and squirm. Why don’t we learn the battles that my grandmother tells me about! Why all this work on faraway lands when people do not even know the wars that happened on this very ground!
My favourite television show is Fresh Prince of Bel Air, it plays after school and if I hurry I can catch it. I think I look like Will Smith, my grandmother nodded very solemnly when I asked her if she thought so too. I try and walk like him, rocking my body from side to side as I step. Will Smith and his family are black, which is different to mine, we are brown. But I think I like him because he looks closer to me than the other people on TV. I flick through the New Zealand channels and can’t find anybody that looks like me except when there is rugby on.
And I hate rugby. We have to play it at school sometimes. Somebody passed me the ball and it seemed every boy in the class had an open invitation to assault me. I understand the rules well enough now to know to NEVER catch the ball. In fact, best be on the safe side and avoid touching it at all. My PE teacher shouted at me in frustration when all I did the other day was run up and down the field away from the ball and the action. I however was quite proud of myself. I walked off the pitch unbruised and with dignity intact, having finally got the hang of the game.
Thanks for your view on color, though it’s very sad to feel you are polluting with color. Most people I know don’t see color at all. They just see heart and spirit, ideas, and love.
“A Long Way Gone” is an incredible book. It amazes how he keeps telling about one really bad thing and then another. And then towards the end, different people intervene and his life becomes something different. His description of what happens is powerful.
Yes, I agree that well written, heart tugging prose will often motivate people to action.
But, being both an Animal/Earth activist and Pro-Peace Proponent, I can say that there is nothing like a gripping photograph( or expose’ video) of the horror of some God Awful reality happening on earth, to either motivate you to action or sicken and anger you enough to burst that bubble of ignorance you have been sitting in, all to long.
If you have a heart and a conscience, and the genuine desire is there, you will find a way to do something about what you just viewed.
The immediacy of a point blank image, that says it all, is far more effective than handing out books on say, the senseless traditional Japanese slaughter of dolphins( happening right now by the way), or animal experimentation, the fur trade, senseless wars and starvation around the world and so on.
We may like to read- but PLEASE, don’t assume everyone is a reader.
That is why images- photos or video- offers the immediate impact and information,often in one dose, that is needed to alert people to issues at hand that demand action.
This is ideal for people who disdain books or who have limited time for reading material.
I would never put down writing or books, but face it, some people don’t enjoy reading and I know enough of those people. Shall we let them remain ignorant?
Not to mention a certain percentage of people with reading disabilities, who can’t glean knowledge from a book on a topic, but can certainly see a horrible glaring reality right before their eyes in a photograph or video documentary.
I am basically saying, each medium has a place and it depends on the person as to which medium is best.
If I wanted to learn more about a topic, and I like reading, I would then get a book on that topic for more edification.
But frankly, at this point in time, when it comes to so many hot button issues,all my information is coming in up to the minute news updates online, along with the heartrending photos.
Definitely a double whammy. 🙁
If someone could watch a video or commercial of starving children or even one about children being recruited into being warriors and not be affected by that- they’d have to have a heart of stone.
Really? Reading a fictional account of the same thing, would really make you feel more emotionally moved than seeing the truth in images?
That is something I really don’t get.
Sorry – we just disagree on that point.
I recall the issue of the DIAMOND CONFLICT in Africa.
I had heard about it due to my interest in various gems years back, but was unclear about what it involved and who exactly was involved.
In fact, I don’t recall seeing much in the newspapers about it.
Then I happened to see the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.
” Blood Diamond” I believe it may have been called.
Geeze, the truth hit the viewer hard in that movie. But that was the point.
If you had no clue what the DIAMOND CONFLICT was about- the movie gave it to you in one fell swoop.
I remember feeling totally shocked by what I was witnessing.
Even if that particular movie storyline was made up, it still revealed the horror of the Diamond Conflict.
This was the main point of the movie- to inform.
It may have been ‘just’ a movie- but it was a movie about the truth.
About a piece of human history that had happened, only recently.
I saw the movie twice, it was that good, despite the violent theme and very disturbing element of truth: human slavery & child warriors were truly a fact, and all for the purpose of mining diamonds for the very, very rich and even for regular people, like you and I.
Supposedly, now an agreement between countries has helped to quell the diamond conflict that was going on for many years, but in truth?
Seeing how it would be hard to ensure this is still not happening, my personal belief is: It is still happening, just more covertly. You cannot police this diamond situation 100 percent.
And my point?
My point is- now would be a good time to get a book about the Diamond Conflict issue.
One that is current, to see just how much has or has not changed in Africa and man’s bloody quest for diamonds. Or, even look for some recent articles online.
This is when a book about an *issue* and motivating change comes in handy.
Especially for a person who is a reader.
(If you are wondering how I changed after seeing the movie- vs reading a book: I became aware of the Kimberly Agreement and also stopped buying any gems from the Conflict area.)
There is a reason we have had photojournalists since the Civil War and that is because one picture really can be worth a thousand words.
People can read about a current war happening, but nothing drives the truth home harder than gritty photos.
Why do you think the US Govt made sure we saw very few war images over the last 10 + years?
Luis was tired of seeing his brothers and sisters suffer, on most days there was only enough food for one meal for them all. He had grown weary of watching his mom try to make something from not enough. She often sacrificed her food so her five children could have some. Luis was weary from seeing his father come in at dusk every day, exhausted from working all day to provide just a meager existence. Luis was tired of being weary, he knew he had to do something to help.
Luis was perpetually frightened by the offers to join the Barrio 18 gang. They could provide, they could help his family, they could protect…these were their promises. Luis was more influenced by the death and destruction they had wrought in their neighborhood.
Luis’ exhaustion forced him to action, he could no longer watch the family he loved suffer. His options were clear – join Barrio 18 or go to the north. He chose the north, el Estados Unidos, the land of milk and honey and hope.
Luis left in February to take advantage of the cool spring weather. His father gave him all he had for the journey, 100 Lempira. He walked across the mountains and through the jungles of Honduras, Guatemala, and southern Mexico to Arriaga. In Arriaga he jumps on La Bestia for the long trek north. He successfully navigates the climate, the Coyotes, and the Cartels to arrive at Reynosa, the gateway to hope.
Luis made it through Reynosa and across the river but not much farther. He was captured by La Migre. And since he was a minor, he was turned over to Catholic Charities, one of the organizations tasked with this problem. He shared an open gymnasium with hundreds of other boys just like himself.
Luis sat in a room with a volunteer from San Antonio. She made telephone contact with his parents in Tegucigalpa. She told them that Luis was in U.S. custody but she assured them that he was clothed, well-fed, and cared for. She then handed the phone to Luis…
“Hola, papá…lo siento, lo siento, lo siento.”
He could say no more, he was sorry that he failed.
I climb the laminate stairs in my sleep over and over. The stairs to the room of treasures. The stairs to where he is. Sometimes in the night I can feel my arms ache as they would if someone had snatched my own baby from them. But he isn’t my baby. He isn’t anyone’s baby, and that’s what hurts.
At the top of the stairs the old door slides open. A thin wisp of sound greets my ears; sounds that once were human, but now only resemble shadows of humanity. Not that the people of varying sizes aren’t human. It’s more that they’ve forgotten how to be, and so they cast shadows instead of create substance.
I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but I do. In my dreams I slip quietly to stand by the bed of the little woman with dark hair. Her brown eyes are pools of longing from untold hours of lying alone on the top floor of the mental institution. I reach my hand through the bars of her crib, her fingers rub my hand gently, her eyes never leaving my face.
I think about her, all of them, tucked away in the Balkans on the top floor. But it’s the golden haired boy that won’t shake loose from my heart. I’ve written about him before, so many times before. Yet with every telling, every pouring out of my heart through my pen, the longing grows instead of dissipates. I can feel his little hands and see the crinkle of his eyes lit up in a smile.
Why can’t I shake him from my dreams? I don’t know. I imagine it’s hard to forget when you’ve seen life buried deep in another heart and you know it’s waiting to come out. I’m counting down the days until I see him again. Until I hear the language of hope bubble up from his heart, free from the bonds of a language he’s unable to use. Six months can’t come soon enough.
thank you.