Up to Snuff #99: Writing as Development
By, Afua Serwah Osei-Bonsu
Writing can be perhaps best utilized as “development.” Writing can develop countries or cultures as in the cases of “Arabian Nights,” or “Wild Irish Rose,” that were used to develop the Arabs and Irish respectively. Writing can be used to develop cultural branding or build the imagination of their readers as with books such as Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” or Emily Bronte’s, “Wuthering Heights.” Books elicit ideas and personalities form around them.
When making a book list for a reader one notes that she may develop their knowledge, teach them lessons, develop their values, develop their conversation and develop their personality as if by prescription.
Needless to say, when seeking development in general, one may pursue a literary strategy, whether it is to develop a person or a country or a company or a field of knowledge or a campaign. Should one embark on the development of the arts or of writing itself or economic development for a people, a literary pursuit may be appropriate. Some of the best developed presidential campaigns began with books.
Things may write into existence. Another way of looking at development may be looking at the individual development of great fiction. When writing a great book of fiction one may research words, research language, research setting, document scenes from life experience for liveliness, research, research, research and on and on to write a perfected book by putting all in. The books result may be a development of the imagination for example and the books start may also be a kind of thorough development of research, ideas and descriptions.
Perhaps how well the book develops a person, place or thing correlates to its longevity or rate of success. How well was it developed and what did it develop? Perhaps the writer set out to teach you to be rich? Perhaps the writer is developing naturalists or passionate types or maturation.
A writer may set out to develop a political party, then develop the political party’s leaders, movements, speeches and campaigns. Power, in the end, is in development. One may view it as teachings or wise guide, or a kind of personal triumph that graduates an individual from perhaps complacent to passionate. One may cultivate beauty or work on big societal ideas and be consciously guided to make improvements.
Based on Harvard’s Press, many Harvard business students generate start-up capital with their initial enterprise as a literary pursuit. One woman wished to generate capital to end homelessness by documenting it in detail in a literary format to use proceeds to generate power to foster change to oppressive conditions in failed economies. Books, in the end, can develop both ideas and financing for ideas.
The first rung on a successful ladder may be a literary rung. One may utilize writing to look through a variety of lenses whether they are social, socio-economic, political, cultural, etc. By looking through many lenses one may view a variety of perspectives and come to develop historical writing or world view or generate accurate documentation around a world event. Writing may come to develop an idea about an event that inevitably replaces the event.
If one were to pursue a “power to the people!” strategy, perhaps development goals would serve. A writer may choose to develop her people’s personalities, their inspiration, knowledgebase, their maturity, their history, their love ability, their culinary. Literary development becomes a real and tangible “power to the people!”
Stay tuned for forthcoming book “Up to Snuff,” By Afua Serwah Osei-Bonsu due out in 2020.
