One of the most common questions I’m asked at in-person book events is “Why did you want to be a writer?”

My pat answer is, “I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” but that’s not really the answer the questioner is looking for. So, here it is.

Human beings have always told stories. I’m sure as soon as language came about, people told stories about their surroundings.

Well, let’s back up a bit.

Cave paintings, petroglyphs, etc., have shown us people have told stories in many different ways since the first hominid. Pictures at first then words.

Most of my heritage is Irish, and the Irish have a cultural attraction to stories. We love them. From ancient times almost to present day, bards would roam the country singing stories of kings, of the Tua da Danaan, and the Fae. Words made those gods and goddesses and the wee folk real to people.

The bards didn’t do this for free, of course. Sometimes their payment was a meal or a place to sleep, sometimes money. On occasions, kings (and there were a lot of them all at once in Ireland) would hire a bard not only to tell stories but to create them, usually highlighting the king’s noble deeds.

Despite having had writing for a few thousand years, not many of these song-stories were written down but passed from bard to bard until someone thought, hey, wouldn’t it be better to write these than try to memorize them?

Bards often told their stories to music, usually played on a small, easily portable harp. Bards often went into battle, playing their harps and singing songs of bravery and how noble the king was and how bad the enemy was. Some things never change.

I’m not trying to say I’m a bard in the truest sense, but I do like to tell stories.

Indeed, even our most ancient ancestors used storytelling to establish culture, create social bonds among members of a tribe or clan, and to try to understand the world they lived in—the lights in the night sky, storms, rain, sunrise, sunset, and so on. Some of the best myths that have come down through time are about what causes eclipses.

In modern times, science has shown us the human brain retains information best from narrative. Reading or hearing a story activates multiple areas of the brain at once, which is why when we read, we feel ourselves inside the world of the story. If the author’s done a good job, the reader can see, feel, taste, smell, and hear that world. This not only entertains us, but educates and persuades us, as well. Just ask any propagandist.

I don’t know how many times in my youth I heard, “You have such an overactive imagination. You’re either going to be a writer or a lying politician.”

I chose the former. I knew too many of the latter.

Imagination and world-building are a writer’s playground. On occasion it’s a chicken/egg thing: Do you build a world first then populate it with characters? Or do you develop the characters and design a world for them?

In truth, it’s more of a mash-up of that. I don’t personally write fantasy, but lots of my writer friends do. Some of them envision a world first and then create characters; some define characters and then create their world; some create a world and its characters simultaneously.

This is why I think fantasy is one of the richest genres for storying telling. I write historical fiction. I can use my imagination, but I still have constrictions on time, place, and people—unless of course I’m writing speculative historical fiction. But that’s for another time.

The takeaway is that no matter what kind of writing you do, the possibilities are endless.

One tool a writer has in creating endless possibilities is their own unique life experiences. I’m not talking strictly memoir here. As a writer of fiction, I have drawn on personal experiences and family history, good and bad, to make a story real and relatable. When a reader sees something in a story similar to what happened to them, there’s an automatic connection to the author, which is what we long for.

When we incorporate our personal experiences into our fiction, we examine them from a different perspective and gain a better understanding of ourselves not only as writers but as people.

I’ve said it before, writing is often my therapy. However, fictionalizing personal experiences gives the writer distance from them. That’s both healing and catharsis. We need both at times.

Many writers create stories to veil social commentary. In stories, you have your own platform to address injustice and oppression. You can raise awareness of societal problems. Why do you think I’ve written so much about white supremacy and ethnic cleansing and terrorism’s causes?

Writing fiction is a form of activism, indeed. Now, not all writers chose that path, but writers who have done so are remembered for generations—like Charles Dickens, Harper Lee, Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck, and many more.

In fiction, you can present complicated issues in engaging ways, and sometimes the reader doesn’t realize you’re trying to raise their consciousness. Think of the societal issues and problems Gene Roddenberry addressed in Star Trek or Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone. Both of them had certain kinds of stories they wanted to tell and got controversial scripts past censors and production company suits by wearing the science fiction cloak. Though today, Star Trek, in particular is accused of being “woke,” it has always addressed those tough issues, and it’s obvious what side Roddenberry came down on.

If this is why you write, if your story can change the mind of one reader about a societal problem, that’s all the success you need.

Well, some writers need more than that, and that’s what drives them to write. I’m lucky that in retirement I can focus on writing and publishing without worrying about the mortgage or food on the table. I don’t have to depend on my royalties. If I did, I’d be living and writing out of a shopping cart on a street corner.

I write because I have stories to tell, because I’ve made up stories all my life. My recent stories have won awards and prizes, and that’s all the validation I need.

Don’t get me wrong. Getting paid for your writing, having your writing noticed and praised are big motivators to me to write more, but it’s not my primary motivation.

Some writers take on their craft as their primary vocation—that’s Stephen King’s perfect advice, i.e., treat your writing as a job. Those writers who do (and, frankly, I am one of them) tend to measure success by the number of books sold and therefore by the amount of royalties along with the subsequent fame that means.

Just remember, though, for every best-selling, high-royalties author out there, there were years that weren’t ideal, full of rejections, flat book sales, and no notice at all. A writer can turn that around with persistence, continually improving their craft, and adapting to readers’ changing tastes.

So, why did I become a writer?

All of the above.