I was presented with this new word “Ghost-writer” when I wrote my friend’s essay in class. My teacher easily found out and called me a ghost writer, and just like everyone else I thought it had something to do with ghosts. But it turned out to a derivative of that thought. A ghost writer was someone who was paid in secret by an author to adapt to his style of writer and write for him. Hence, the book credits would go to the official author even though the background work for that book was actually a bunch of hired ghost writers. That was all that I knew when I passed out and walked forward on the path of life. Then the word presented itself again. This time it was from a serious extract.
Our research methodology assignment required us to do a dissertation for a span of three years. I obviously had to choose something that I wasn’t aware of and something that requires intense research. I announced my hypothesis and started sailing of on the vast sea of information available on our ever saving Google. What I found on that every same day started drowning my hopes. Well, I do under-estimate a lot of things, but this one came hard for a girl who loved her book-created world. From what I gathered, ghost writers are writers themselves and market their skill of writing to popular authors. The authors who don’t have the time or, sorry to say, the exact skill of writing, hire them. If an author passes away in the middle of publishing a series then the company hires a Ghost writer to complete the work. So in a way it’s portrayed as if a ghost as written the book. My problem wasn’t with that. It bothered me that the figures that stood out in the history of literature were like virtual idols that I worshiped.
I’ve noticed it in every phase of life, my peers and people I knew looked up to successful figures. We pointed at them and said ‘I want to be like them one day’ .They gave us hope to pursue our dreams and broaden our imagination. When I first read Star Wars, I patronized George Lucas and then R.L Stine overruled him with Goosebumps. And that time when someone gifted me a series of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, I was engrossed into in mind of Carolyn Keene. Little did I know that Carolyn Keene didn’t even exist and it was a pseudonym for the set of ghost writers? Star wars, Frankenstein, the more that I researched, the more let down I became. I realized that the real people that inspired me were P.B Shelly, H.P Lovecraft who just happened to be ghostwriting personified. There’s nothing wrong in the profession. It allows someone to have two separate lives, to take a chance at the biggest hits, to help authors to express the vague thoughts…but it crushes the idols in our young minds.
For a few days, my research was at stand still. I lost the interest to uncover lies behind my favorite books for I knew that I’d be disappointed. But I was losing time. So I picked up again. But with a different thought… appreciate the work of the author and never the author. For true authors never want anything more than their work appreciated and we readers also are admiring the true work of talent, no matter who wrote it. Kind of like of symbiotic relationship. Now I’ve accepted the truth; for whatever reasons they hire ghost writers and learned to draw hope from the power of words instead. I still debate that the whole concept is somehow twisted in my own ways but thank god for the instilled hopes that I can write! Whatever pops up here is what people have revealed already but there must be many books out there all under different names. Sigh, I’ve got two years more for the dissertation and I’ve promised myself not to get depressed when the name of books in my shelf pop up under the section of “Ghost written”!
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