Before I leave this topic, I have one last thought regarding the energy we get from whatever we are reading or writing whether that is fiction or non-fiction. Our choices for what we read and write do become energy for our lives. We choose what we do partly due to that but maybe sometimes it's more subconscious and we are getting something we never intended from this reading or writing.
Through my months of working on my writing, I came to have more faith in my own stories, see the value of romances or action books or so many other types of fiction that have an emotional roller coaster ride at the center of their plot. It's similar to how once in awhile I want a Jurassic Park fix.
Romantic fiction, as an example of what I mean, is a kind of mythology. Reading it requires a bit of your own gatekeeper experience. You are ushered into a different world and follow vicariously a set of experiences as you leave your need to find logic in every situation behind, and you do it to get energy that you can use other places in your life. To me, as a writer, it's not necessary to make someone believe what happens did happen. That's for non-fiction. We also don't have to think we would want it to happen. It's not about reality.
Everything we read gives us something, and we should choose the kind of books for the things we want elsewhere in our lives. To read an adventure thriller does not mean the reader wants to have bad guys chasing them around town. It means there likely was going to be a take-charge moment, a time of using skills, a time to get strong, and it might apply to anything in that person's life but not likely what the protagonist in the story got.
I believe romantic fiction can be empowering but not in that you go out the door trying to find that beautiful woman or handsome man. It's that you feel more internal juice, more ability to do the things you must for your own life. I believe choosing the right kind of books to read, which will be different at different times in our lives, can provide that vibrant energy along with an awwww moment or oh no or a lot of other emotions. It feeds emotions in a way that is uplifting where so many other places we're bombarded by emotions that are anything but uplifting.
As an example of this reading for energy, think about one of the most popular fiction types right now in teen and pretty popular in adult fiction-- vampires. If you look at the book table at Costco, you can't miss these books. If you go through the teen books to find something for a teen, you can't get past not only them but other adventure fantasy stories.
Vampire stories give the one who reads them something, and it's good to stop when looking at it or any type of literature to figure out what it is and whether it's what we wanted. Better to know than to be subconsciously bombarded by something that undermines what we are trying to do in our daily lives. In that, it is no different than any entertainment or media including music.
I will be writing more about what I think a romance yields for energy when I open up the Romance on the Edge blog.
4 comments:
Ah, Rain, you must be correct that people get something out of what they choose to read. I think it is darned difficult for (some of) us to understand why in the world other people choose to read what they choose to read. It is mind-boggling, to me!
Cop Car
Rain, these essays are very interesting, Have you thought about publishing them for inspiring writers?
Amen!!! As an inveterate reader as well as a writer, I know how books can shape a person.
This has been an excellent series. I congratulate and thank you!
I definitely have read different types of books at different points in time during my life -- much like my sometimes focus on other media forms. I've had a historical novel interest, select period pieces, biographies, non-fiction on a variety of topics, mystery, and more. What I love about bookstores is how books occasionally seem to "jump off the shelf" for me to read and I've not been disappointed. I never experience that with various tech sources though they have their value.
Post a Comment