The Participation that Writing Allows

 

The funny thing that the summaries on the back of some DVDs and VHSs have is how they always invite the viewers into partaking in the events of the movie: “Join Shrek as you help him retake his swamp” on the back of the oldest Shrek DVDs is funny given that the movie’s plot has already been set in stone, even before it got released.

            The assumptions that those summaries unconsciously make that the audience can change such events is funny. The plots of movies are always “set in stone” because it is basically the act of someone writing a history (fictional, nonetheless), which a history cannot be rewritten since we common folk lack the wherewithal to alter such events, but it is history in that it is something a person had written and is available for reading.

            Furthermore, this means that the kinds of stories that people can write based on existing works, like the countless iterations of fairy tales like Cinderella or the Three Little Pigs, are an added extension to very old history, which then becomes a twelve-layer cake with countless little treasured details that most people know nothing of. Even when there is a copyright protecting a work, the context of the work in the time it was written in provides a window for understanding that particular period. But in the case of stories, they were not meant for us to enjoy through tampering with the events and the characters who are forced to deal with them. They are the past, even if those characters and the worlds they inhabit have never existed beyond one’s imagination.

            The only kinds of entertainment that offer the spectator the chance to change the course of events are video games. Like books, there are stories to guide them (or at least a basic goal that the player needs to follow), except that they were meant for us to alter things within them. Fallout 4 and Skyrim come to mind. You can immerse yourself as the protagonist player character that can be customized to one’s preference, and build things, upgrade status points, and fight enemies to the heart’s content, but there is still a general storyline that one must follow. The main storyline can take wild twists based on a single decision you make, and the outcome can be for the better or for worse. Other games like Minecraft are not about the story, but what you do in an empty world that just has the bare minimum in resources needed. There is no story, except for the option of going to The End and slaying the Ender Dragon, and even that is not the highlight of the product. The freedom to build, explore, and trade is of utmost importance, and yet Minecraft, like Skyrim and Fallout 4, has the fact of being a work designed for the spectator’s participation in common.

            The act of player participation in a video game is much like how one can write a story: They pen the words that create their own worlds and breathe life into its resident characters, but anyone can freely create if they put their minds to it. Writing is not an esoteric craft. One can take what they like from the stories they consume and apply those ideas to their own work. And like a video game, when one writes a story, they are not mere spectators, but active participants in the events that will define the characters and their world. We all crave the need to try continuing the story of a character we pine for despite being out of our league for the most part, but the thoughts and imaginative guessing that comes from pondering our favorite stories would drive many of us to create our own. The people who make movies enjoy a lofty privilege few others have, but that should never dissuade one from writing his own story. When one puts down ideas and words that form new characters, we are basically doing the same thing as all the people who collaborate on a single film. It is a game because it requires the writer’s participation (if he has the motivation to do so) and requires the need to stay diligent until he finds success in achieving the goal he set for himself. And the goal itself often comes unconsciously, based on our responses to whatever we create.

            Writing is a two-player chess match played by only one person. You instinctually prefer playing as the good guy (or “the hero”, regardless of his moral place in the world), but your second hand moves the opponent’s pieces without realizing it. It is not that you are writing everything yourself, but that it reflects the opponent’s own gut feelings about whatever you do as the hero. And your own actions are based on feelings you have, and the courses of action you take in various situations that often provide little comfort for you.

            And in this game, one nurtures the characters through giving them things to do, jobs to work, and a world to live in. The world you create is not necessarily an escapist’s retreat, but rather a figment of one’s imagination that is given life. It does not exist in the real world, but it flourishes in our collective imagination. It is a game because one actively takes part in its shaping, and the inciting of the events that produce a finished story. And when the story is finished, another book closes for others to read. And unlike a game, this story will become history for the people of many tomorrows to come upon.

            That is the work of any writer.