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.

Comments

Peter Leyland said…
Well here's a first Andrew. We both mention Lady Chatterly's Lover in our blogs this week. Great post and I still haven't seen The Mousetrap!
Griselda Heppel said…
Mentioning Lady Chatterley's Lover will clearly become de rigeur from now on. Must see how I can shoehorn it into my next post. Tricky as I have never read it (except for obviously Chapter 10, a rite of passage required of all new girls at one of the schools I went to... oh lawks I think schools might become my equivalent of King Charles's Head, not Lady Chatterley's Lover after all).

Interesting post. It never occurred to me that not only is a much larger section of the population writing than 50 years ago, but that the standard overall has risen immensely. Good news for entertainment - tough news, as you say, for those competing to entertain!
Interesting - I suppose it's a natural outcome of the improvements in the education of the masses, not just basic in literacy but the ability to form opinions about all kinds of things and the increase in travel as well. Having said that, though, one of my cousins showed me a piece of writing by one of our great-great-grandmothers, about her garden. She did live to quite a good age so I suppose she had more time than average to reflect and write.
(I haven't read Lady Chatterley's Lover and I don't think I can get it into my post though I have seen a tv adaptation of it starring, I think, Sean Bean.)
Umberto Tosi said…
Ain't it the truth! ... Now, when will this well-schooled, literary population stop behaving like idiots, particularly in empowering corrupt fools?
Ruth Leigh said…
Dear me, I shall have to get Lady C into at least one of my blogs. Yes, everyone's writing these days, but not all of them terribly well. There is still a space for us.

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