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Opinion

Writing doesn't always reflect character 

Santiago Lopez
Opinion Columnist

As a writer, my compositions often reflect the mood I am in when I write. I have written while happy, during times of sadness, and yes, I have drafted works while angry. No matter what I was feeling when I wrote, I almost always felt better after the words were staring back at me on the page.

I have sometimes drafted violent images and used harsh language, but they are often received as satirical or whimsical when discussed in my writing workshops. Such takes on my work have always made me smile.

Using violent scenes in my work does not mean I hold any ill will toward those around me. Such depictions are used simply because I am influenced by a world that parades violence as entertainment on the evening news in order to draw viewers. But I do not blame the news for my desensitized view of violence, nor do I attribute it to the endless hours of harsh violence I have seen in movies.

I am influenced by violence to the extent that I choose to use it in my work in order to harp on a bigger theme in society -- violence is entertaining, or at least it can be. While my work may lack the social commentary of Charles Dickens', what I shoot for every time I sit down at my computer to write is something worthwhile. 

Though some of my writing professors and classmates may attest to my missing that mark sometimes, on the whole I want to capture a readers' attention so that they will continue reading, and perhaps instill a desire in them to want to read more of my work. 

Thanks to the Internet, we can read some of the work written by Seung-Hui Cho -- the perpetrator of the horrific violence on the Virginia Tech campus last week. Cho was studying creative writing, and his work either worried his instructors or scared off his classmates. From all the accounts given by Cho's professors and classmates, people felt terribly uneasy after spending five minutes with him.

After five minutes with me, most people are either laughing or on one end of a mostly scholarly discussion of some subject. People never walk away from me thinking I am bound to snap and wreak havoc on the world.

Yet that is exactly how most people felt about Cho. Every professor and student featured on news broadcasts is almost boastful in sharing an opinion of Cho and how they were sure he was the culprit when they heard the news of the atrocity.

Kudos to all of those people who instantly thought of this disturbed young man and were able to point to him as the perpetrator of such a horrific event. Now they must point that accusatory finger at themselves, for they are part of the huge breakdown in the system of humanity that allowed Cho to go as far as he did with his expressions of violence. 

Cho's writings were not done for entertainment. Anyone reading those plays should find them a desperate cry for help.

This does not mean young men in writing classes who write about violence should turn to describing sunrises and sunsets in their work in order to keep from being visited by a police detective or mental health professional. 

More than a student's writing is needed to hit the panic button; classroom behavior and interactions with others are also factors. While much was done to get Cho help, not enough was done on the part of those facilitating assistance to really put their arms around this troubled young man. 

I will leave such finger-pointing to the groups investigating this tragedy, but in the end, many will share the blame for Cho getting as far as he did. Certainly Cho himself is responsible for the lives lost and the victims scarred by both physical and psychological trauma. He did not have to pull the trigger. But many could have kept the guns out of his hands, and those people should think about what they will do should they come across such a person again. 

Though not all compositions are direct reflections of the writer, writing contains hints of the kinds of people we are in the language and descriptions we put down in black and white. 

As fiction writers, we take liberty with events and hope to lull readers into our created worlds. With poetry we use the words we know best to capture a scene or feeling. 

With plays we want to best depict meaningful dialogue and entertaining action. But we cannot hide who we are when we venture forth and move among people. 

Writing is often a solitary process, and we get lost in our own heads and the make-believe we are trying to create on the page. Most of us are able to separate the fantasy we write about with the reality of our daily lives. Cho was not able to do so. 

If writers are scrutinized more by their peers as a result of this tragedy, then so be it. I welcome the extra examination if it means people are able to get the help they might need but are unable to ask for themselves. 

Lopez, a creative writing senior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu