The Greatest Writing Myth of All

I’m going to continue my topic/theme of myths for another article because this one has been a long time coming. But it’s recently resurfaced as a much-needed article because of the resurgence of book banning. Before we get into the meat of the article though, I want to tell you a little story. Some of you may have heard me tell it before, but if not, please enjoy this little vignette from my childhood.

I wasn’t born inside a library, but I should have been for as much time as I spent there in my youth. I was friends with the librarian in high school (kind of like Nora in The Midnight Library). But what comes to mind most vividly about libraries is the time I checked out A Time to Kill and Misery when I was in middle school. (There was no book banning in my schools, thankfully). The librarian called my mom and said, “Um, do you know that your daughter is checking out adult novels?” My mom’s response was something like, “Well, if she can read them and understand them, then I don’t care.” Reading was always supported in my household. One of my favorite stories to tell is about one of those books I checked out.

One weekend a month, my mom would drive my sister and I to a truck stop in Des Moines where my dad would meet us and we’d go with him for the weekend. On one such trip, I decided to read Misery in the car. I made it to the part where spoiler alert Annie hobbles Paul and I gasped aloud. My mom, having already read/watched Misery knew exactly what I was gasping about. She said, “You got to that part, didn’t you?” And I nodded. It was this beautiful unspoken moment between us. She knew I could understand what was happening. And I knew she knew I could handle it.

I tell you this story not because I love it (because I do) but because I feel extremely blessed and lucky to have had parents who encouraged my reading of books no matter what the content was. They understood that reading was how I made sense of the world and learned what the “real world” was about. I tell you this story because I constantly feel anxious about the censorship and banning of books that are on the rise in this country.

My assertion for this article (and why I titled it as such) is that words/books have immense power. The greatest writing myth of our current world is that they don’t.

And it’s so so false.

In fact, the banning and censorship of books prove my point that words have power. Why else would these people try to get rid of them? They, too, believe that words have power. The difference is — they don’t want that power to be put into the hands of their children. They’d much prefer to control the narrative and the stories that they are hearing. It’s a power play that makes me insanely furious.

But stories, whether written down or oral have always held power. You’ve probably heard me recite one of my favorite quotes that Danielle Dulsky says, “Stories are the original spells.” Origin stories, folklore, folktales, fairytales... they all held (and still do) power. That’s why you see the constant churning out of superhero origin stories, or prequels to movies because it’s powerful to know where one comes from and how one became who they are in the present. They’re powerful because we all identify with being the hero or the villain in our life stories.

I could give you stats on the book banning increase happening in the U.S. right now. I could give you the history of how book banning has always been a “problem” for humanity. I could also give you all the examples of books that have been the catalyst for widespread change in the world (Ahem, Uncle Tom’s Cabin). But I won’t because you can find that information anywhere. It’s such a common problem that there are literally hundreds of historical and modern essays, studies, and analysis pieces that have been written about it.

I led with the most obvious argument against the idea that words/books don’t have power, but I want to get more granular with you. I want to talk about how this myth plays out in our own tiny little worlds because it’s indicative of the larger misbelief.

Every once in a while, I’ll get a writer into one of my programs who fully believes that whatever they’re writing doesn’t have value or worth. They believe that if they are not writing a radically challenging book or dictating lyrical and beautiful prose, the story is of no substance. And don’t get me started on the lengths memoir writers will go through to avoid getting their books out in the world because “my life story doesn’t matter. What I have to say is not of value to the greater good.”

When I hear these things, my heart breaks. Not just for the writer, but for anyone else who may need to hear what that writer has to say. Because the power of words is not relegated to the books that talk about heavy topics or refute political and societal ideologies. The power of words can live in a single sentence or phrase that makes someone else feel something. How do I know this? Because I experience it myself, all the time, but I also hear it from readers of my work all the time. It’s one of my favorite parts of being a writer. It will never get old to hear someone say to me, “wow, what you said about sexual abuse really resonated with me. I hadn’t thought of my trauma in that way.” Or, “the way you wrote this character made me feel seen and heard like someone else knew how I was feeling.”

It’s my opinion that words and stories are simultaneously the greatest healers we have and the greatest weapons we can wield. And that’s why words/books are so feared. They have the capacity to change someone’s mind. To influence change. To upset the status quo. To bring light to the dark. To make seen the unseen. They have the power to heal our soul. To suture our wounds. To be the salve to our burns.

I’m not sure how else I can explain how powerful words are except to encourage you to notice it when you can. Be an observer of the ways in which stories make a difference in our lives — from the banal and mundane emails to the poetic to essays and fiction. The power is all around us, every day. You just have to stop and notice it.

And once you truly see it... that power... you can never unsee it. And that’s a privilege and piece of power no one can ever take away from you.