The Authentic Writer – Authority and Control

When writing an article or exploring a complex theme, writers tend to dictate the way in which a reader is forced to think and feel about it. Words are deliberately chosen, metaphors extraneously sprinkled like icing sugar, and often with adjectives that go to overcomplicate the subject.

Ultimately, writers sit in an unlikely position in being able to enhance or diminish a topic. As such, can they really be authentic or merely adopt an authentic tone or “persona” while writing? As a difficult subject to write about, the act of exploring it in a literary way through a blog post or book is in itself a post-modern act of self-awareness. This is ultimately where the core of the issue lies.

As a writer, being “real” to readers is key to increasing engagement with their material. With this comes a level of self-awareness, even empathy, a need to keep one’s self in check and conscious acts to maintain the flow of a piece of writing. However, can the control a writer or editor holds over a text they’ve created really be authentic?

Authenticity and authority come from experience and self-assuredness when writing. A conscious stamp to say “Yes, I am a leading person in this field/topic/character”. However, in exerting control to manufacture a piece of writing, we morph it from its original thought and conception into a hybrid.

Can such writing be deemed authentic when self-control and austere controls are placed on them? In the right way, yes. If a writer maintains their original intention, simply chopping at the smaller twigs on the trunk of writing, it can add, even enhance the experience of a reader.

This long rambling tangent of ideas has a point. The writing above is done without control and with little authority. I don’t have much experience in Post-Modern writing theory and the idea of the “authentic” is a synthetic one. We each have our own identities, stories and ideas we wish to communicate, either through writing, acting, art, etc. An artist’s painting is always interpreted differently, dependent on the experiences and circumstances of the viewer. The same stories and writing can evoke different reactions in all of us. This brings me back to my first question, is authenticity real? Can it be, when what we deem authentic can be just as easily re-manufactured? When the same word means different things to different people? In short, yes, but only when we exert our own authority over a text or piece of art.