This chapter asks the big question; namely why, from the evolutionary history of our species, should the behavior of creative writing have emerged. Asking this big question – the evolutionary why – has become a more popular preoccupation in psychology in the last 2 years or so, as evidenced by the development of the paradigm known as evolutionary psychology (Buss, 2005). However, many remain skeptical about using the evolutionary why question for the behaviors of modern humans, and this skepticism might seem particularly apt for the case of creative writing, since creative writing is obviously a cultural activity and, moreover, one that developed only very recently. The first section justifies taking an evolutionary perspective nonetheless and explains what that perspective entails. The second section considers the evolution of creative writing from the point of view of the reader: Why should people want to attend to imaginary narrative? The next section considers the complementary problem: Why should some people (but not others) want to devote their time and energies to the creation of such narratives? The final section offers some tentative conclusions.

EVOLUTION AND CULTURE

Though various proto-writing activities are found earlier, it is generally agreed that true writing began to develop in Sumeria and in Egypt from about the fourth millennium b.c.e. This development is not a genetic change. Rather, writing is a cultural innovation that gradually took foot in a few societies, but remained absent from the vast majority until very much more recently.