“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim, you don’t grab hold of the water because, if you do, you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax…and float.”—Alan Watts

OK, Mr. Watts probably didn’t write this advice for authors. But authors must have faith in their work, that what they’re saying is worthwhile saying. But that’s not enough. That faith builds with your motivation. I see “the water” of our writing lives as that vast ocean of good books and good authors where we’re expected to rise above the average sea level, although most of us want to become a tsunami. We can’t do any of that without motivation. And readers are interested in what motivates us to write a book!

One problem with novels for me is that their authors don’t often go into the motivation for writing the book. Bios only provide general information, and I suppose the more books authors have, the less important they consider the motivation for writing each one. Book reviews rarely talk about an author’s motivation. Interviews focus more on the author than the author’s books, and again there’s less tendency to talk about motivation for a specific book.

When I finish a good novel, I often ask myself, “What was the author’s motivation for writing this? How did s/he ever come up with that story idea?” (The latter question arises because I know that motivation often leads to a story idea in my own writing.) Maybe other readers feel the same way.

If an interviewer asks the interviewee about specific books, that might help readers answer those questions—if they see the interview, of course. An author can discuss motivation in a preface too. That has the advantage that it’s right there in the same book, but extra material before the prologue or Chapter One just gets in readers’ way. And probably won’t answer those questions until they finish the novel.

Because I feel the need to answer those questions in some way as a reader, I do something about it as an author. I generally add at the end of each novel a section titled “Notes, Disclaimers, and Acknowledgements.” The notes inform the reader about my motivations for writing the novel and sources I might have used, the disclaimers do just that (they might be apologies for screw-ups too), and the acknowledgements give the usual credit where credit is due (some authors put them at the beginning, but they belong at the end).

Curious readers like me are bound to read the first part; I might even read it before the novel, but I don’t want to be forced to do so. I write mine to cover both cases (although I write it after the novel is finished, because other motivations might have come along while I’m writing). I write this all down so I don’t forget later why I wrote the book. I ask myself, “Why did I write this?” You’d think I’d remember, but sometimes I need to refresh my memory—for a book event or interview, for example.

What do you think? Readers AND writers are invited to comment. Should authors make their motivation for writing a novel public knowledge? You already know my answer.

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Comments are welcome!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2018 at 3:30 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.