I just read, and really enjoyed, Elizabeth Strout's book My Name Is Lucy Barton. One particular line in it struck me - it was attributed to Lucy Barton's writing teacher, Sarah Payne, a writer herself, who had been asked onto a panel in the New York Public Library.

The librarian had asked her "What is your job as a writer of fiction?"

And she answered that "her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are and what we think and what we do".

I disagree.

A very wise woman once told me that my job as an aspiring writer of fiction was singular and that once I forgot it, I would fail as a writer.

My job as a writer is to entertain.

Writers are in the business of entertainment. The entertainment business. And reading that line from Elizabeth Strout's book, it reminded me of how easy it is for writers of fiction and plays to get side-tracked by some vainglorious need to do something more.

Writers, your job is not to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are or what we think or what we do.

Your job is to entertain your reader.

And once you forget that, forget writing.