This bloggy-essay-article is a rallying call for you to share your writing with someone.
We have, over the last couple of months, explored the importance of the protagonist thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and the similar authorial journey.
We’re not quite finished though – there’s someone missing.
It’s not enough that your story has you and the protagonist. It also needs a third person in the mix: the reader.
This is the literary Holy Trinity. Author. Protagonist. Reader. One metaphysical being existing in three different but similar states all at once.
The literary quantum superpositioning.
The literary thruple.
Without all three, the story ecosystem collapses. (Mandatory AI dig: replace the author with a machine and the whole system glitches out).
But why, you might be asking, can’t we all stockpile our stories like terrified Gollums hoarding our precious rings?
It’s in the reading that the story becomes a living, breathing thing. Sure, we know our story inside and out, but it only becomes real in the imagination of others.
In the words of poetry icon Kae Tempest, “Words on the page are incomplete. For words to have meaning, they have to be read”.
Humans are fundamentally empathetic critters (if we can briefly ignore the staggering capacity for bombing the shit out of each other). We care about each other – not just ideologically but biologically. Case in point: we have brain cells that exist solely to allow us to experience what we see other people experiencing. Whether we like it or not, we are all connected. Break one point in the connection, the current stops, the lights go out, and we are left adrift.
Writing is fun. We love it. It’s necessary and joyful and infuriating and it’s just a thing we do. Add a reader to the mix and something magical happens. Even if it’s scary, even if it’s intimidating. We create an inimitable feedback loop that elevates us all, that fuels us, that creates real and deep meaning.
Go write (or read)
Sarah & Team WHQ