I had a job interview a while ago for office assistant at a chiropractor’s office. I gushed during the interview about how much I enjoyed helping people, how my previous jobs had involved helping others and how my current job didn’t include that aspect and how much it meant to me to be part of that again. I thought the interview was going along well until one of the doctors said, “You seem very enthusiastic about helping others. What are your ultimate plans?”
Instant deflate.
“I want to be a novelist.”
Oh, how does that help anyone? What good is being a novelist to anyone? I have never felt so ashamed about my passion before, and I instantly felt that I had betrayed myself by feeling that way. I know I didn’t do well the rest of the interview — I felt myself shrink down into a ball of misery as I tried to articulate why writing fiction is helpful.
I didn’t get the job.
But I have thought long and hard about my passion for writing fiction and my passion for helping others and how those two things intersect. If anyone asked me today how I plan to help people, I could proudly answer that I intend to help by writing fiction.
When I was a kid, I was bullied, ignored, that most catastrophic of combinations, a smart girl, and both bookish and athletic. My mom raised us on county assistance, so we were poor, but we came from a middle-class background, which made us smarter and cleaner than the other kids I knew on assistance. (Sorry, truth; in my neighborhood anyway — the smart kids were all from middle-class families, the poor kids were dirty and stupid. Except for me and my sisters.) I was desperate for friends, but didn’t like just about any of the kids I went to school with, which made me needy and lonely and clingy but also sort of snobby. Not a good combination.
Books were my refuge. Books taught me that the world was bigger than my neighborhood, that there were bigger things out there, that I had a chance to find those things, that there were people out there like me, that there were places for me. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that helped me. I know now (having since grown up and met others like myself) that this isn’t uncommon among book-lovers.
Also, there is some pretty amazing research out there now that talks about two things:
One, how the invention of the novel created an ability in people to empathize with each other, to get inside someone else’s head and see how they view the world. There is a distinct correlation between the invention of the novel and the increase in literacy and the decrease in torture, murder, rape, criminalization of petty crimes and harsh penalties instituted by governments (like castration, mutilation, being burned alive, or hung, which was a long, slow death by asphixiation, not a quick drop-n-snap like it’s depicted in the movies. If a hanging victim died too quickly, the crowd of onlookers considered themselves cheated.).
Two, reading novels makes people more empathetic, increases their vocabulary and their ability to comprehend complex ideas, and increases overall cognition.
Reading non-fiction doesn’t do either of those things, either in present-day minds nor in historical minds. The invention of the printing press and the increase of literacy doesn’t cause a blip on the charts of violence in society. When fiction novels start being written is when we start to see a steep decrease in sanctioned cruelty.
I don’t think I have ever been more proud of my calling. Not only can a novelist increase a modern-day person’s well-being, historically, we have increased the well-being of everyone in society. If you go to jail, they won’t torture you for a confession to your crime, modern police brutality aside. And if they do, they’ll get in trouble. Thank a novelist. Look up Medieval torture devices — I dare you. You are not in danger of being subjected to one of those devices for the crimes of blasphemy, wearing the wrong sort of fabric on Sunday, saying unpleasant things about the king, or just being a war captive from the losing side of a battle. Thank a novelist. Read a good book lately? You are measurably smarter than you were before you read it. Thank a novelist.
My ultimate goal is to help people. I’m a novelist.
