Now I care. I'm proud of producing work that I want to show to the world. And boy is it exhausting. Not caring about my readers seems like an old fairy tale, a childhood myth like Santa Claus. That lovely childish certainty: The gifts will come! It'll be great! Without the adult reality: How am I going to pay for all this stuff?
The truth is that without readers, writing can be incredibly rewarding for all kinds of skill-building and therapeutic reasons. However, if your goal is an eventual audience, it's no good pretending that knowing what they want to read is as easy as knowing what you want to write. There are a lot of great books out there. There is also a lot of trash. Readers have learned to be discerning because they must. Otherwise we'd all still be slogging through that copy of that classic that we figured we should read some day. Or we wouldn't be reading at all because it would have become such a chore. Sometimes being able to give up and put down a book is the best freedom in the world.
This occurs to me because the novel I'm writing currently-- my NaNoWriMo novel-- is terrible. And when I decided to stop worrying about my audience (not mildly, the way we must stop worrying just to get the words out, but entirely, as in "This novel will never be read by anyone") it got even worse. Remembering my readers is a safety catch on the machine of Bad Writing. It stops me from giving up when a scene is tough, or taking the easy way out when more conflict is required. The audience makes me work, but it also makes me better. I know how to write for myself. I want to write for other people.
So I stop, remember, and get back to work.
Great point, Jen. One trick I use while revising: When I think it's "good enough," I consider if I would give it to my sister or other discerning reader friend. Then, suddenly, I panic: "What, give her this drivel? Expose myself as the fraud I surely am? Never!" It helps!
ReplyDeleteGood trick! It does help. :) I have a first reader who is wonderful for gently telling the truth about my writing, and when I don't even think I could show her something, I know it's awful.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the, "Expose myself as the fraud I surely am?" bit. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away!
Very interesting thoughts, Jen. (As usual!)
ReplyDeleteI TRY BRUTALLY HARD TO NOT CONSIDER THE READER AT ALL (so hard that apparently I had to yell about it) for two reasons: (1) doing so makes me freeze up and (2) on some level, I'm afraid that if I think of "who" I'm writing for I might then try to cater to these imagined readers.
On the other hand, I do strive to share my stories, so obviously I hope for readers and to some degree _have written_ for them.
Can I say that I write for myself (or really try to) and edit for my readers? Is that a cop out? :)
p.s. I had to laugh at the "Expose myself as the fraud I am" line too--does _every_ writer know so surely he/she is a big poser/fake? I thought it was just me . . .
Ev, I don't think it's a cop out. Writing for yourself, editing for readers, is probably the best way to go. And I struggled with the ideas in this post for a while because truthfully I know I do have to shut off remembrance of the outside world to get some stories into existence. But this month I found that when I rejected the outside world completely, it made it very difficult to judge if I was writing something worthwhile or just type-babbling to myself.
ReplyDeleteYou saw the wacky ending. My faith in my writing collapsed because I'd given up caring what happened to it. But these things are never 100% one way or the other. Look for next month's post: "Forgetting the reader." ;)
>>>But these things are never 100% one way or the other. Look for next month's post: "Forgetting the reader." ;)
ReplyDelete<<<<
LOL--isn't that the truth? It's funny how often just what I need to hear or tell myself writing-wise is completely the opposite of what I was using as my mantra a week earlier. My blog is rife with seeming contradictions!
>>>But this month I found that when I rejected the outside world completely, it made it very difficult to judge if I was writing something worthwhile or just type-babbling to myself.<<<
I know what you mean. And even though I just came out the "Forget the readers" side, I am endlessly frustrated by "writers" who want me to critique their work, but then tell me that they don't care what readers think--they only write for themself. The minute you ask even ONE person to read your work, you should've gone through the story multiple times, editing it for the reader.
Ummmm . . . you know all this. I just like having writerly conversations and haven't had any in awhile. Oh yeah, and I'm procrastinating! :)
As soon as we stop contradicting ourselves, won't we lose the lovely angst that lets us be artistes? ;)
ReplyDeleteI hear you about the critiques. There should be a mandatory cover letter that indicates if the author is just looking for a pat on the back and a cookie. No problem if they are (I have cookies to spare) but it's better to know ahead of time.