It's been sung that a picture paints a thousand words, yet several words can paint a million pictures when read by an inquisitive and imaginative mind. Writing is akin to painting or sculpting but the writers tool is the pen or keys as oppose to a brush or carving knife and his/her paint or clay is ideas. I will attempt to delve deeper into my assumption:
The writer moulds and shapes words into forms in order to draw the reader's ideas in a certain direction. Good writers may use metaphors to conjure up images in the mind that will allow the readers imagination to take them on a journey of discovery. The writer is the guide and yet the reader steers the ship, which is the thought processes, where they will.
An adept writer will make suggestions, give clues and hints to a broader scope of ideas in which, hopefully, the reader will continue to develop beyond the words on the page when they've finished reading.
The purpose of a good piece of writing is to cause someone to ask questions and search for answers, to engage in self-discovery and to inspire passion and motivation. I've read books, poems and articles that have been life changing because they've raised me up and transformed the way I perceive myself and my universe.
Words on a page are powerful and can cause many changes in the world when they skilfully carry the mind along certain paths. They may contain such perception and possibilities that the reader continues along a suggested route and allows the new information to alter the way they do things.
The writer can create characters that can be related to and unlike portraits or sculptures of people they move, talk, dance, suffer and even die. They can become friends or enemies, heroes or victims.
When we become deeply absorbed in reading it's as though the world around us vanishes and we live in the imagination of the author. It's almost as though we become the characters we're reading about. We adopt their hopes and dreams; we relish their triumphs and feel wounded at their suffering.
Through the pen the writer enters minds with his/her own in a manner that mere verbal communication or art can't do because the reader's guard is dropped when they're absorbed in reading.
Who hasn't read something that they'll always remember and that's influenced them to make positive choices and given them courage to face their challenges? I suggest that writers, song writing musicians and poets are truly the most powerful people on the planet!
