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A creative writer must be capable of performing three tasks. He must be able to create “real” people with whom the reader can identify himself; to tell his story in so compelling a manner that the reader turns the pages with eager interest (instead of turning from the book with boredom); to imbue his characters with inner motivations corresponding to correct unconscious reasons.
The unconscious mechanisms which force the creative writer to perform his protean task were expounded at length in my book, THE WRITER AND PSYCHOANALYSIS . In the present short study, I shall concentrate on a specific type of writer who is neither truly creative nor a hack, but represents instead a specific type for which I suggest the name, “writers of half-talent.”
Writers in this sub-group can describe persons and situations vividly. Because the characters they depict are seemingly alive, they hold the reader's interest to some extent, but still something is missing. The missing link consists of frantic avoidance of the most decisive human motivation: unconscious psychic masochism. As a result, the writer piles up a plethora of “interesting” situations; he over-stresses sex; he substitutes external events for internal vicissitudes. In short, his characters are static instead of dynamic.
It is of course understood that the writer is not obliged to be fully conscious of his hero's correct unconscious motivations. The rationalizations supplied can be silly and unconvincing without affecting the validity of the character. But it is essential that somewhere—between the lines—the author's inner understanding of the character must be revealed.