Bits and Pieces:

I Write for Myself… Right?

It’s a statement overheard in variations around literary water coolers: “…writers should write primarily to please ourselves.” It may be a difficult challenge to uncover new ground, or a story that’s been straining to get out for some time, but we have to be our primary critic. Besides, our exertions and frustrations are usually completely hidden when the final draft is ready for consumption. Sometimes, I find myself in complete denial of what it actually took to get it there. Denial can be easier after all, than carrying around all the debris from a writing project. Still, there is a disconnect between the impetus to write and the product it morphs into, when the result of all that work is set before the public. Since so much of storytelling involves deep, largely unknown regions of ourselves, defining the why of it all it can be confusing. It changes.

Visit any online bookselling site that allows reader reviews, and you’ll find examples of how writers miss the mark with readers. Some thoughtful, some useless. I’ve read comments on my own books that made me wonder how I’d so thoroughly misfired. Now, working on my fifth novel while researching the next one, I’ve finally learned there will actually be enough time to do it over and do it right. It always begins with the story, but our tales can take us down all kinds of twisting paths in the dark. They’ll keep us awake at night, wondering what might happen. They’ll enter our conversations or keep us so distracted that conversation might well become impossible. Of course, it isn’t just being on the receiving end of a rush of narrative. No, it’s the way the idea of sharing the story outside our writing warren begins to whisper in our ears. Then, about the same time, our writer’s ego starts telling us of the joys of unbridled discovery lying just outside of our comfort zone. How much truth should we reveal? How raw is raw? Can I take the voice someplace I’ve never actually been before? Who do I listen to? (Fiendish laughter fills in…) We’ve all been there.

The promise of turning over fresh ground may keep writers producing, but I know that without the guiding influence of that other voice whispering, Is anyone going to want to read this drivel, I’d produce lots of useless plonck. Since there are only so many work hours in every day, being curtailed saves my sanity and drives down associated costs, like new keyboards, etc. In my own far-flung stories, there’s always a hard kernel of some kind of lesson… waiting. Sometimes, it’s so impatient that what pours from my fingertips ends up so sermon-like. Anyone reading it would drop off to sleep in seconds. Sensing this, I ask, how do I keep this lesson disguised? How do I make it a juicy morsel instead of a July pot roast?

There are different answers each time, but it’s writing for potential readers that keeps it in line, and hopefully, keeps it tasty. One of the first things I learned about writing for readers, is that I will never write anything that will connect and hold the attention of everyone who reads the book’s cover. Readers, like writers, are individual and idiosyncratic; but in our human experiences, we share common ground. It’s the pursuit of that common ground that makes compelling writing. Concepts not tempered with that pursuit might be brilliant, like a burst of fireworks in the night sky; but they only last a fraction of a second. It’s not just the “what if…” that starts my writing now, but also the “who is it for?” sitting on the other shoulder.

The balancing required can put you in some odd corners. I’ve certainly had chapters fly off my fingertips to later discover that only someone who enjoys mental gymnastics could get through the pages. Combining where I think the story should go, with what is the most reliably conceivable way for it to go, is a struggle. On one side, there is my own need to create something that can stand alone, glorious in its unique achievement (that might be overstating it just a bit…). On the other, there is also the need to create something that might seem similar enough to personal experience that a reader can recognize themselves in it.

The solutions lie for me, in two primary directions. Part is in the weaving of the threads that form the story itself and part lies in how the characters who populate the story, are drawn. Every fiction writer tries to make their characters memorable, but we can’t forget who’s supposed to remember them. If we simply throw up a cardboard cliché, readers may recognize the character or plot turn easily, but they may also find little personal connection. If we make our characters so convoluted and twisted that only we can ever truly know them, we fail on a different level. Characters, like readers, are people, too – or, if not “people” at least beings that operate in ways people can recognize. They must express feelings of some kind, mutually shared by people. They must experience life stages that we’ve all gone through. Fully defining each character in our stories means confronting lots and lots of decisions. Once we’ve made one, it can take a lot of pages for us to admit it was the wrong one. To add insult to injury, finding out usually has to come from someone else with a fresh viewpoint. The missteps in an early draft are necessary temporary ingredients to finding the flesh and blood later on. So, our skins grow thicker.

Turns out, the small “reader” sitting on our shoulders will have an opinion about every single paragraph we write, and while it is primarily our story, it’s also theirs. Finding the degrees by which a writer can adapt a tale to their readers’ needs and not totally lose the thread that captivated them in the first place, is what the process of honing your craft is all about. We may have a strong belief in our end product when we conceive a story, but when we actually begin the writing, we may discover that the pacing of that form, or the nature of those kinds of characters simply isn’t something we’re good at. So, we test other genre waters or we strike out blindly, again and again, trying different styles until we hit one that feels right for the tale being told.

It can certainly take time, and as far as I know, there is no single set of rules or structural guidelines that will slide every writer into their perfect berth. No up-to-date road maps, no local charts. We can only get there by traveling the roads we attempt, following our own particular journeys to their ends. Remembering the details of each trip. There’ll be lots of completed stories that will just attract cobwebs, lying in the bottoms of drawers or in a little-used archive partition; but eventually, after several rewrites and a bit of luck, we’ll learn to listen as much as we’ve learned to shout. We’ll find our readers… and they will find us.