EccentricGentleman
Scribe
My ambition is to be an author but part of me feels I am lacking in what it takes to be an author for the following reasons:
1. I don't understand Shakespeare.
All my life William Shakespeare has been portrayed to me as this iconic literary giant but frankly I don't know why. I've studied his plays for my GCSE's and I still have a hard time understanding them. Not just because I have to make a conscious effort to translate almost every sentence but because I simply don't understand why his stories are so monumental. And I fear that if I can't understand the meaning of his plays are my own and then maybe I'm just lowbrow. Someone once told me that the reason Shakespeare's plays are so revered is because they delve into human nature, which brings me to my next problem.
2. I don't know what human nature is.
No one ever sat me down and told me what human nature is, what is human nature and what isn't, it was never covered in any of my schools. Also I don't know why human nature (whatever it is) makes for good reading and I don't really want to write about that anyway because…
3. Literature often portrays humanity at its worst and I don't want to do that.
Not very long ago I was in the grips of a spiralling depression over man's inhumanity towards man. And part of this belief was because of fiction. When I was doing my GCSE's I was given a list of approved books to write an essay about, they were raw things like An Inspector Calls, Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies. There was not one single book that had a happy ending. Also there are countless stories in books, film and television showing humanity as corrupt, racist, biased, violent and incapable of an altruistic existence. My train of thought ran like this: The reason none of the GCSE approved books has a happy ending must be because such a book is not considered serious enough to write an essay about. And the reason people keep writing these dark books is because people keep wanting to read them which must mean that the darker aspects of man must be more believable than his lighter side. What I'm saying is that if I become an author of have to make it so my characters are bigots, have their own agendas or succumbed to some of the horrible fate. In a recent post I made on this website this fear seemed to be confirmed when someone complained that my character was too altruistic.
What do you think about this?
1. I don't understand Shakespeare.
All my life William Shakespeare has been portrayed to me as this iconic literary giant but frankly I don't know why. I've studied his plays for my GCSE's and I still have a hard time understanding them. Not just because I have to make a conscious effort to translate almost every sentence but because I simply don't understand why his stories are so monumental. And I fear that if I can't understand the meaning of his plays are my own and then maybe I'm just lowbrow. Someone once told me that the reason Shakespeare's plays are so revered is because they delve into human nature, which brings me to my next problem.
2. I don't know what human nature is.
No one ever sat me down and told me what human nature is, what is human nature and what isn't, it was never covered in any of my schools. Also I don't know why human nature (whatever it is) makes for good reading and I don't really want to write about that anyway because…
3. Literature often portrays humanity at its worst and I don't want to do that.
Not very long ago I was in the grips of a spiralling depression over man's inhumanity towards man. And part of this belief was because of fiction. When I was doing my GCSE's I was given a list of approved books to write an essay about, they were raw things like An Inspector Calls, Of Mice and Men and Lord of the Flies. There was not one single book that had a happy ending. Also there are countless stories in books, film and television showing humanity as corrupt, racist, biased, violent and incapable of an altruistic existence. My train of thought ran like this: The reason none of the GCSE approved books has a happy ending must be because such a book is not considered serious enough to write an essay about. And the reason people keep writing these dark books is because people keep wanting to read them which must mean that the darker aspects of man must be more believable than his lighter side. What I'm saying is that if I become an author of have to make it so my characters are bigots, have their own agendas or succumbed to some of the horrible fate. In a recent post I made on this website this fear seemed to be confirmed when someone complained that my character was too altruistic.
What do you think about this?
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