Where Are Writers Hidden?

Where are writers hidden in their writings? To be precise.
When you read a write up by someone --a poem, a short story or a whole novel-- you subconsciously start finding how the writer is related to the story. You, without any extra thinking, try to find where the author is hidden, how much does the main character resembles them, how similar their friends are to those in the story, which decision they might be willing to take by the thought-process a character goes through, what they look for when they look at a person by reading how the protagonist describes others, how many times they've visited the place where they've set the story, how their perfect room looks by the description in the write-up, what scares the author whenever you encounter a described fear and so many countless ways.

You just can't stop finding the person who wrote the write-up.

Let me tell you, first of all, if a person writes about a violent incident, it's not necessary that they or someone close to them have gone through that horror. If it's a write-up about a romantic story, it's not some version of their unrequited love which they completed in the story you're reading. If it's about how a good girl falls for the bad guy, it can just be a mere imagination. If they're describing suicidal thoughts the way you think only an experienced person can know, you might be wrong about that. Maybe, they haven't had these thoughts but have studied them so well, yes? Possibility is a wide concept.

Let me give you a perspective.

There are canons, which are basically the source narrative, i.e., things which are stated in the original story.

There are fanons, which are the pieces of information fans make up to supplement their source narrative. And fanons are not confirmed by the author in the original piece.

Now, look at it this way:-

Suppose the writer's life is a canon. An original story. 

The writings you read from writers are actually fanons. Fanons of an unknown-to-you canon. Or to put it in other words; the writings writers put down for you to read are their made up stories, of which you don't know how much is the original and how much is imaginary.

Now, you might have seen fanons where the original characters are same but they're shipped with someone they didn't go with, in the canon. That means, you kept the person as it is but altered their personality due to which their love interest changed.

There are fanons where you change sexuality of the characters and ship best friends or enemies.

There are fanons where you go with the same story line as in the canon but choose a different path and make it a whole different story, called fan fictions too.

So there are ways, infinitely many, to change the original story to something as shocking as it's possible, by adding, removing, modifying characters; changing their personalities, the places they're in or maybe just all of them with even more twists.

Writers know how to blend canons and fanons so that they can express what they can't speak but also don't let you know the real subject. They might be expressing their worst fears and still make you laugh throughout the whole story. And, don't miss the fact that it isn't necessary that the canon is their own life only. We all are witnesses of lives of people around us and of lives behind the screen too.

Writers are putting every single part of their soul in the words which you appreciate them for and yet they remain hidden, sometimes intentionally and sometimes they're just too hard to find.

So, back to the question.

Where are writers hidden in their writings?

They're hidden in the choice of the names of their characters, the pictures you see in your head while reading, the feelings in those two lines at that page, the rhetorical question which you skimmed through and all those tiny things which you couldn't focus on because the story got all your attention.

Who knows whether the ice cream they mentioned is their favourite or their someone's favourite? Who knows if that song is the one they danced on with their lover or the one which was sung by their friend who died the next day? Who knows if the weather the main character is waiting in, is the one they themselves waited in or the one in which they made someone wait, intentionally? Who knows if the most sarcastic line on which you laughed so hard was the one they laughed on or the one which became the reason to end a great bond? Who knows the page filled with aching feelings is their confession for the person who drifted apart but would read their words or the feelings that a nightmare gave them? Who knows if the apology on which your heart sank in your chest is the one they themselves are waiting for, from that person or the one they wouldn't ever say for some xyz reason? Who knows if the way their character died is the one they witnessed someone dying or they themselves went through?

And, as you've been reading this so patiently and attentively, which I wholeheartedly thank you for; who knows if the whole thing which all of you just read had lines on which I thought of YOU?

I've been present in all of these words and yet you see just my name at the end.

~Miss V