“A drop of ink may make a million think.” ~Lord Byron
I love this quote. I think I say that about most of the ones I talk about here. But, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother sharing them, right?
Since the earliest days, literature has had a tremendous impact on the society of the time. And, sometimes, for generations to come. We study books that are hundreds of years old in school. I remember trying to get through Beowulf in British Lit when I was in 12th grade. And that was written over 1000 years ago. Scholars continue to study the Bible which is even older, and that’s not even touching the texts that were written in the same time but didn’t make official Church Canon.
Books even in more recent history, fiction and non-fiction, have impacted lives of millions of people. The Diary of Anne Frank revealed what it was like for some who attempted to go into hiding during World War II to escape the Holocaust. “Night” by Eli Wiesel told of the horrors from inside a concentration camp. Even fiction books like “Harry Potter” has lessons of acceptance and battling bullying and racism just to name a few. One of the takeaways I had from a personal favorite, AC Gaughen’s Scarlet Trilogy, is that attempting to hide from your past will come back and bite you no matter how hard you try to get away. And it can affect those closest to you, sometimes tragically. (I can’t say more than that. Go read those books. They’re incredible.)
Whether you intend to provide a message when you begin to write, or whether it just unfolds that way, your words will have an impact on your readers. You could be writing about the cautions of getting involved in an abusive relationship- and not in a romanticized way, please. I beg you. We have enough of that trash out there as a particular trilogy comes to mind. You could be writing poetry that ends up helping someone dealing with loss or a mental illness.
What are some books that have touched you or made you think or had an impact on your life? I’d love to know.