5 Ways Writers Are Like Aliens from Outer Space

Did you know that July 2^nd is World UFO Day?

World UFO Day is a day dedicated to UFOs (unidentified flying objects), and is usually celebrated with parties and sky-watching events.

I’ve never seen a UFO myself, but I like listening to the stories about military pilots and others who have. Sure, much of it may be speculation or wishful thinking, but you never know—it’s an awfully big universe out there.

Some people think aliens have already visited our planet and left some of their people behind. Though I think the chances of that are remote, when you examine the characteristics of most writers, you may start to scratch your chin.

Is it possible that writers could be aliens?

5 Ways Writers are Like Aliens

1. Writers like to examine human nature.

If you’ve listened to any of the “alien abduction” stories, you know that part of the UFO culture is the idea that aliens like to come to Earth and abduct humans to conduct experiments on them.

A scary thought, for sure, but it does illustrate that aliens (at least the aliens that take part in these incidences) are interested in figuring out how humans tick.

Writers do the same thing in their stories every day. Part of a writer’s job is to figure out how his or her characters think, feel, and act, while predicting how they might react to various situations. In the span of a novel, a writer may take apart the personality of multiple characters and run her own experiments on the page, scene after scene, just to see how all the characters will perform.

Indeed, writers create their own laboratories where they unleash all sorts of unpleasant (and sometimes, pleasant) conditions on their subjects, while they sit back and enjoy watching it all play out. Removed, safe, and secure in their positions as observers, they can put their characters through holy hell and then shut down the computer and go fix themselves a banana split.

Compared to that, alien abductions may seem benign.

2. Writers often have underdeveloped muscles.

Aliens don’t need robust physical bodies, the thinking goes, because they are so mentally advanced. Thus, the standard “gray” alien with the large head and skinny limbs. Who needs muscles when you can order your machines and robots to do everything for you?

Many writers are also suffering from lack of muscle mass, usually caused by too many hours spent at the computer and not enough in the gym. According to a 2015 study, it takes just two weeks of inactivity for those who are physically fit to lose a significant amount of muscle strength. Just two weeks!

Researchers found that in that short period of time, young people lost about 30 percent of their muscle strength, and older people lost about 25 percent. Plus total muscle mass naturally declines with age, too.

A writer’s modern-day habits often don’t include enough muscle-challenging activity, particularly resistance training, which is required to build muscle. Any writer not wanting to resemble an alien would be wise to work some strength training into his or her exercise routine!

3. Writers love traveling to other worlds.

If aliens are coming to Earth, most likely they’re traveling to other worlds, as well. In fact, in many sci-fi stories, aliens are portrayed as being voracious explorers, darting about from galaxy to galaxy in their high-powered spaceships.

Writers, fortunately, don’t need advanced technology to take their trips. They regularly visit not only other states and other countries, but other worlds, as well, even those that don’t exist, at least not on any map yet discovered by humans. Many do such an amazing job describing these worlds that it’s hard to imagine they didn’t visit them personally…or did they?

Meanwhile travel and creativity go together, according to scientists. Adam Galinsky, who has authored many studies on the connection, told The Atlantic, “Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility and depth and integrativeness of thought, the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms.”

4. Writers have “out of body” experiences.

All you have to do is watch a few sci-fi shows or read a few books to know that aliens can often take over human bodies. The alien, the story goes, deposits its consciousness into the human, taking over the physical body while the human mental self must take a back seat and watch. All sorts of havoc typically ensues.

Writers aren’t so different. Every day they inhabit the bodies of their characters, slipping inside their skin with no more effort than it takes to close their eyes. In fact, they have to do so if they’re to record what the character is feeling with any sort of accuracy.

During each writing session they must inhabit the bodies of one or more “other people,” often people that are very different from themselves, to experience the scene that unfolds around them.

“The best writers literally get under the skin of their characters,” says writing teacher Lee Kofman, “imbibing their wounds, the messiness of their daily confusions, associations and impulses, the rhythms of their external and internal language.”

5. Writers have telepathic powers.

Many aliens communicate telepathically. You have only to watch “Star Trek” to know that, right? The bigheaded beings simply look at each other, raise their eyebrows, and nod, and messages are sent and received.

Writers are known to communicate telepathically, too. Stephen King explained in his book, On Writing, that writing was, in three words, “Telepathy, of course.” He goes on to give an example by writing a description of a rabbit munching on a carrot in a cage with the number “eight” written on his back in blue ink.

After the description, he writes, “The most interesting thing here isn’t even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back….This is what we’re looking at, and we all see it. I didn’t tell you. You didn’t ask me….We’re having a meeting of the minds.”

Writers communicate through words, but there’s something else that happens between a writer and a reader that seems to go beyond those words. Somehow those simple black and white marks on the paper create images, emotions, and reactions in the reader, and these are the same images, emotions, and reactions that the writer experienced when writing the scene.

Writers are able to transfer their experiences to readers via the words they choose and how they arrange them, but how do they know to do it in just the right way to produce a particular reaction? In the hands of the masters like King, it may be a conscious process, but for many writers it may be simple telepathy—very alien, don’t you think?

Do you think writers are like aliens?

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Sources
Crane, B. (2015, March 31). For a More Creative Brain, Travel. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/for-a-more-creative-brain-travel/388135/

Dallas, M. E. (2015, July 9). Study: Muscle strength fades after just 2 weeks of inactivity. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/muscle-strength-fades-after-just-two-weeks-of-inactivity/

Kofman, L. (2015, July 16). Inhabiting Your Characters – Lee Kofman: Author. Retrieved from http://www.leekofman.com.au/the-writing-life/inhabiting-characters/