A "serious" Writer Makes a Difference

Every serious writer of any age—like every per-forming artist, athlete, doctor, or lawyer—ultimately learns more about performance from their effects because they are motivated to achieve an effect that matters.

By "serious" writer who "makes a difference," I don't mean humorless writing about weighty topics, by the way. A serious comedian struggles to craft the joke until it works; if people laugh, you have made a difference. A serious JWT copywriter hones the ridiculous ad with the talking frog or dancing raisin Breitling Bentley Replica Watches until it is fresh, fearless—and memorable. (Ask students to list the most memorable, fresh, and fearless ads, song lyrics, and lines from past student writings as a way to make these criteria more central.)

"Serious" means: I take purpose and audience seriously. "Serious" means committing yourself to never confusing effort with results; saying "But I worked so hard on this!" can never be the exclamation of a mature writer (even if we burn with frustration inside). It has to become more like what Winston Churchill reputedly said: Sometimes doing your best is not enough; sometimes you have to do what is necessary.

On the other hand, we must resist the temptation to be dismissive of ad copy, joke-telling, or letters to Mom as not serious enough. I am a graduate of St. John's (the Great Books college) and I am in fact making a liberal argument: excellent writing, regardless of genre, liberates the writer as well as the reader; we are freed from the prison of conventional or half-assed thinking when we write successfully. The best writing—regardless of content—is always "fresh and fearless." But such writing is only possible when we teach from the start that the Purpose is to touch real Audiences and create some alteration of the world—whether we are writing jokes or the great American novel. Otherwise, why write? It is far too difficult to reduce it to a mere chore.
All writing is deadening if, during the hard work, we know in the end it won't matter much. In this, Karl Marx was a wise English Breitling Replica teacher: the point is not to interpret the world but to change it in some way. Once you realize you can do so through words, then a novice will appreciate—maybe even like?—this noble struggle.

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