Open Thread: Oracle Hotline
Anytime Ursula LeGuin writes something about writing, I pay attention. This is from A Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. :
Only the very riskiest kind of fiction is entirely inconsiderate of the reader/market, saying, as it were, I will be told, and somebody, somewhere, will read me! Probably 99 percent of such stories end up, in fact, unread. And probably 98 percent of them are unreadable. The other 1 or 2 percent come to be known as masterpieces, usually very slowly, after the brave author has long been silent.
Consciousness of audience is limiting, both positively and negatively. Consciousness of audience offers choices, many of which have ethical implications--puritanism or porn? shock the readers or reassure them? do something I haven't tried or do my last book over?--and so on.
The limitations imposed by aiming at a specific readership may lead to very high art; all craft is a matter of rules and limitations, after all. But if consciousness of audience as market is the primary factor controlling your writing, you are a hack. There are arty hacks and artless hacks. Personally I prefer the latter. (232)
I'm rather taken with the idea that, like writing a sonnet instead of free verse, thinking about your audience can impose fruitful limitations on your work, and make clear what your choices are in appealing to the wider audience or to a more specific subset.
So how's everyone's week? I snatched a whole hour to write last night and am thus feeling happy! (But not ready for class in an hour...*scurries*)
Only the very riskiest kind of fiction is entirely inconsiderate of the reader/market, saying, as it were, I will be told, and somebody, somewhere, will read me! Probably 99 percent of such stories end up, in fact, unread. And probably 98 percent of them are unreadable. The other 1 or 2 percent come to be known as masterpieces, usually very slowly, after the brave author has long been silent.
Consciousness of audience is limiting, both positively and negatively. Consciousness of audience offers choices, many of which have ethical implications--puritanism or porn? shock the readers or reassure them? do something I haven't tried or do my last book over?--and so on.
The limitations imposed by aiming at a specific readership may lead to very high art; all craft is a matter of rules and limitations, after all. But if consciousness of audience as market is the primary factor controlling your writing, you are a hack. There are arty hacks and artless hacks. Personally I prefer the latter. (232)
I'm rather taken with the idea that, like writing a sonnet instead of free verse, thinking about your audience can impose fruitful limitations on your work, and make clear what your choices are in appealing to the wider audience or to a more specific subset.
So how's everyone's week? I snatched a whole hour to write last night and am thus feeling happy! (But not ready for class in an hour...*scurries*)