Photo by Kevin Maillefer.
In my previous post, I wrote about how creating the worlds, characters, and stories that resonate with you is the first step towards developing novels that feel believable to, and engaging for, your prospective readers. During this season of good cheer, I want to shift that focus to the importance of writing, full stop. After all, nearly every writer, whether aspiring or published, must grapple with the doubts that plague creatives: Why am I doing this? Does what I make matter? Does the world really need more novels (or art or music)? Should I have become a doctor like my parents wanted?
Photo by Kevin Goodrich.
Putting that last question aside, here are a few things to keep in mind when doubt (or existential dread) hits, especially during the long nights of winter.
Literary fiction improves emotional intelligence and may promote empathy
As reported in Scientific American, a 2013 study by social psychologist Emanuele Castano and then-PhD candidate David Kidd at New York’s New School found that subjects were more capable of interpreting and understanding other people’s emotions after reading excerpts of literary fiction than those participants who read genre fiction, non-fiction, or nothing.
According to the researchers, this is probably because literary fiction, which uses ambiguously written characters and focuses on the complexities of psychology and relationships, often forces readers “to fill in the gaps to understand [characters’] intentions and motivations.” In contrast, popular fiction is typically populated by clear, consistent characters that lead those stories through exciting journeys to predictable ends. As a result, genre fiction rarely forces the reader to work to understand characters’ minds and tends to confirm, rather than challenge, our assumptions about behavior.
Because the abilities to identify and understand emotions in others are key components of empathy, Castano and Kidd’s study may also be interpreted as showing how literary fiction does, in fact, promote empathy along with success in navigating complex social relationships.
Of course, these conclusions are a little hard on genre fiction, which contains a wider range of psychological subtlety than this study reflects. For writers, it might be more helpful to think of the results this way: forcing readers to think deeply and critically about complex characters’ motivations and states of mind fosters greater interpersonal understanding in the world at large. And our world could definitely use more empathy.
See the researchers’ in-depth article on the relationship between literary fiction and Theory of Mind, originally published in Science (October 2013), here.
We all need a little escape sometimes
Alright, so literary fiction improves the world by making its readers better people. Cool. But where does that leave popular fiction?
Well, first off, fiction of all kinds offers readers something everyone needs: an opportunity to de-stress. According to a 2009 study summarized in the Telegraph, reading is actually the best way to relax, even beating out walking and listening to music. And the result is physiological as well as psychological. Reading for as little as six minutes relieved tensions in the muscles and heart.
According to cognitive neuropsychologist Dr. David Lewis, "It really doesn't matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author's imagination.
"This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness."
At this point, we all know how seriously chronic stress can affect our health, leading to disease and even premature death. So consider this: your novel could help people cope with their stresses and thereby help extend their lives.
Empathy, the sequel (or, Genre fiction strikes back)
A 2014 study with elementary, high school, and college students reported in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology under the title, “The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice,” successfully demonstrated how reading Harry Potter “improves attitudes toward stigmatized groups,” specifically immigrants, homosexuals, and refugees. Essentially, by portraying otherwise marginalized peoples in sympathetic ways and making prejudice a major characteristic of the series’s villain, the books fostered empathy in their readers towards these marginalized groups. As such, Harry Potter not only illustrates a way in which genre stories can contribute to fostering more inclusive societies, but also exemplifies the importance of incorporating thoughtfully-written diversity—and the consequences of prejudice—in our books.
Fiction makes us smarter
It should be a no-brainer that reading improves vocabulary and our understanding of language. Like other forms of cognitive activity, it also improves memory, and helps to reduce memory loss and other forms of cognitive decline later in life.
But more impressive is the way reading fiction (again, even more than non-fiction) can improve other cognitive functions. According to the authors of a 2013 study from the University of Toronto entitled “Opening the Closed Mind: The Effect of Exposure to Literature on the Need for Closure,” the “need for cognitive closure has been found to be associated with a variety of suboptimal information processing strategies, leading to decreased creativity and rationality.” By assessing the participants’ need for cognitive closure after having them read either short stories or short non-fiction essays, the researchers found that those who read fiction “experienced a significant decrease in self-reported need for cognitive closure.” These results were most significant for those subjects who were already habitual readers. The researchers therefore concluded that reading fiction “could lead to better procedures of processing information generally, including those of creativity.”
Photo by Jakob Owens.
So, in summary, fiction—YOUR fiction—has the ability to make those who read it healthier, smarter, kinder, more rational, and more creative. In so doing, our books can help form a better, more inclusive and empathetic society. If those aren’t good enough reasons to keep writing, well, your standards might be too high.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, Christmas is almost upon us, and I have work to finish, gifts to wrap, and New Year’s resolutions to make.
Happy Holidays!