Oh, no, I’d have to disagree with you there, too. That’s not a fact of life. It really is not. Good writers do not have to be sad just to have substance and depth. Happy writers can write about certain subjects that sad writers couldn’t, and vice versa. Emotion gives writing its qualities, and happiness and sadness produce two vastly different styles of writing.
Perhaps the misconception that all good writers are sad comes from all the attention given to sad writers. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, etc. They were some of the most brilliant writers in history, and they just happened to be sad, suicidal, alcoholic, you name it. If so many writers are sad, it’s not because writing makes them sad-it’s because they turn to writing to let out their sadness. As a society, we like to focus on the enigmas, the tortured artists. We like to try to analyze the fucked-up people of our generation and the ones before us, and sometimes we analyze them too hard.
We read into things that simply are not there. In psychology, a well-known phenomenon is that correlation does not imply causation. Yes, there may be a correlation between writing and melancholy, but writing does not cause melancholy, and melancholy, in turn, does not cause writing.
You want to know why it appears, to you, that all good writers are sad? It’s because the media and culture pay the most attention to the sad ones. Sad people are fascinating, it’s true. They have hidden depths and secrets tucked between their bones. Society doesn’t want to hear about how a famous writer went out one evening and spent the night dancing on the beach with their lover, smiling the whole time and watching the sunset. Society wants to hear about the famous writer that drank him/herself into oblivion, the one that killed him/herself, the one that secretly harbored an intense self-hatred. Society thrives on that phenomenon.
So, in short, I completely disagree with your notion that all good writers are sad. But I disagree with complete respect and of course, you’re entitled to your opinion, and I appreciate you telling me your ideas. I like the discussion. Thank you, and have a wonderful day. x