Everyone's a Writer Now -- Andrew Crofts

 

General levels of literacy have been with us in the West for a few centuries. But only the leisured classes, or those whose professions demanded it, spent much of their time writing and reading. For most working people, life was just too short and too busy to be whiling away the hours reading books, let alone writing them. 

Children left school early in order to go to work in the fields and factories, or as servants, or even down the mines and up chimneys. Literacy was not always encouraged by their masters and employers, who believed it would only put ideas into their heads, and lead to disruption - or possibly even lewd behaviour.

As recently as 1960, when Penguin was charged with publishing an obscene book after they brought out an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, the prosecuting counsel is on record as asking the jury, “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or servants to read?”

It was not that long ago that scribes were able to earn extra money during times of war, writing love letters between soldiers, who were away fighting, and their girlfriends back home, because many people lacked confidence in their own writing skills.

Through history, therefore, being a professional writer imbued an individual with status. It suggested that they must be people of education and intelligence, simply because they possessed this skill. With that status came the ability to earn a living by selling their skills. To a degree that status still clings to anyone who can make money from crafting words into stories, manipulating them to educate and entertain – but for how much longer?

Now everyone spends a large quantity of every day staring at their screens, reading, and writing. Twitter has taught millions of users how to be succinct; texts and emails have made communication through writing quicker and easier than the spoken word.

Most people would still find it hard to write a full-length novel that would attract readers, or a television script that will keep the viewers glued for eight or more hours, but the sheer quantity and quality of books and television series which are now on offer, not to mention the number of comedians who can attract crowds to huge venues with their original material, suggests that a far greater proportion of the population can now express themselves in writing to a level which would have taxed even the professionals fifty years ago. Compare one of Ian Fleming’s early Bond books with some of the thrillers of today, or Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap with any Netflix thriller, or the jokes of a radio comedian in the 1950s with the material of today’s stand-up stars, and it is not hard to see how far standards of literacy have travelled. 

So, how long can anyone continue to make a living from a skill that almost everyone now possesses? Writers are having to up their game like never before.