What Readers Want vs What Writers Must Do

You can see, right above the title of this post, what this blog is “about”. And, you can definitely help me decide the balance of those three broad topics by taking a brief survey…

Today, I’ll write about Readers (and their Relationship with Writers).

What do Readers want?

That’s a question writers are asked to consider when they attempt to build an audience, whether through social media or more traditional efforts.

In a previous post called, So, How Do Writers Find Readers?, I said this:

“Some of the wildest relationships in the world are between authors and readers.

“Lately, writers have had a new horde of ‘experts’ yelling at them about how to hook-up with readers.

“Personally, I don’t think any two books (except the pulps in various genres) have the same history of attracting readers.

“It seems that, just as Mary wants Jim but Jim needs a wake up call and Mary doesn’t want to seem forward and Jim…, well you get the idea; seems that authors need Relationship advice, not Marketing advice.

“Readers have relationships with authors, always have, and today’s publishing scene is begging authors to build relationships with their readers, like never before.”

Still, writers have needs that readers don’t, and vice versa.

To help readers understand the needs of a writer, I want to share a few quotes from an article on Curator by Rebecca D. Martin.

The article focuses on J. K. Rowling’s newest novel The Casual Vacancy and the whole issue of what the fans of Harry Potter Expected…

As always, I urge you to read the whole article but, early on, Rebecca Martin says:

“…many of her devoted readers wanted to know where the magic—overt or otherwise—had gone. The expectation was understandable. She had done Middle Grades fantasy so well before. Why wouldn’t she produce the same again?”

Then, she boldly states the main point:

“…we readers tend to think writers, in general, owe it to us. We may concede the right—nay, the duty (dangerous word)—of the creator to push herself, test new ground, blaze new artistic trails. But the reality is that, having done something well once, the writer must do the same again. We expect that he do it over and over and over.”

I suppose Rowling induced some of her fans’ criticism by writing so many Potter books, yet, as Martin says:

“Let’s…give Rowling a hearty congratulations, too, not only for her work at crafting another story, but also for pushing herself to branch out, with all the risks and imperfections involved in attempting something new.”

Martin also considers other authors’ readership challenges:

“Charles Dickens…wrote and wrote and wrote. He wrote what he knew would sell….But he also wrote about what interested him, including essays that weren’t all that well done or well received, because he cared to experiment with his craft. The reading public held expectations of him, and only sometimes did he answer those expectations with his ever-scribbling pen.”

“This nonconformity in writerly habit, whether it’s one exemplary novel in a lifetime or many books with varying reception, stymies us. Our criticism is implicit in the seeming oddity of Marilynne Robinson’s long pause between writing the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Housekeeping and the winning Gilead…”

“We are befuddled by why E.M. Forster ‘stopped writing fiction at the age of 45. He lived quietly for another 46 years and continued to write essays, short biographies and literary journalism—but no more novels’.”

Martin, herself a writer, gives a number of other examples, then asks the question:

“Experimenting with form and content, pushing ourselves outside the comfort of predictable perfection in order to create new and maybe—hopefully—better art: Is this not what we, as creative people, do?”

So…

As a reader…

Do you expect writers to do things they may not care to do?

Do you judge the newest book by what that author did before?

Are you willing to let the writer do what they feel they must do and judge each book (even in a series) as a unique creation?
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